The basic form of my question is: What sort of love does Nussbaum refer to in her text?
Nussbaum does make some effort to distinguish between types of love before going on the use the term in her thesis. She states that she will be focusing on 'erotic/romantic love'. Unfortunately I can't say that I found this especially helpful. The term 'erotic' has definitively sexual connotations; 'romantic' less so. While some people define romance as being inarguably sexual in nature, others set it apart from this, either as a particularly strong sort of platonic attachment, or as the platonic elements in a sexual relationship. The fact that, by some people's definitions, romance can exist without any sort of sexual connotations is evidenced by the fact that asexuals exist and that many of them define their relationships as romantic.
While obviously I have no way of determining this for certain, I would suggest that Nussbaum may not have distinguished between the two quite different types of love because for her (and, indeed, for many people) they are never present without one another. Alternately, she may personally define romance as being inextricable from sexual feelings, and simply failed to address the fact that not all people associate the two to that extent.
No comments:
Post a Comment