[hist-analytic] Gricean Love

[jlsperanza at aol.com]

I am re-reading Bayne´s below, and indeed see that my changing the 
scenario:
Jack and Jill both love Jake, the sheepdog.
will not do. This may be something they share, and mutually share, at 
the volitive, conative, or as I prefer, boulemaic, level. But surely, 
as Bayne notes,
Jack and Jill love each other.
only with some provisos, which he gives, counts as ´reciprocal´ love.
Surely their shared love for Jake cannot be ´reciprocal´ love. It is 
sad that I chose the example of a dog, since well, a dog cannot 
reciprocate. But if we imagine Jake to be a human being, you may get my 
drift.
---
So perhaps, "mutual love" _is_ a misnomer.
On the other hand, perhaps there IS something, pretty vacuous, though, 
alla Grice´s maxims, that Jack and Jill share if only the true 
conjunctive analysis -- which Bayne rejects -- holds.
Oddly, I once discussed Grice´s views on this with Stich. I recall his 
summing up of Grice´s position after years. He said, Stich said, 
¨preposterous!¨. I was so hurt -- this was at Campinas, that I couldn´t 
sleep for days.
Anyway, the passage I was referring to Stich was the ending note in 
¨Method in philosophical psychology¨, by Grice, where he considers 
things like love, or as he´d prefer
    loving
-- his point being that talk of this expands the original motivation he 
held at that particular presidential address of bringing in 
psychological attitudes,
   which _will_ include ´desire´,
only with an explanatory role in mind. When you
    love
somebody, you are beyond that. You don´t ascribe a psychological 
attitude to someone only to explain the other´s behaviour. But because, 
Grice writes, "of your CONCERN for the other".
Seeing his mentioning of benevolence, if only in his conversational 
shade in his ¨Conversation¨ lectures at Oxford in 1966, one may see 
what he means. Although of course, loving is not being benevolent.
But Bayne´s idea of not harming each other, and the mutual respect, 
etc., may have something to do with this.
So I would propose that an analysis of "loving" WILL entail, or yield 
as per logical implication (if you don´t want to use Moore´s mannerism 
-- ´entail´ I mean -- that one desires the other´s welfare or 
something. In which case, this pretty vacuous content, rather than a 
full shared OBJECT(ION) of desire, will do. (I speak of "objection" of 
desire half-jocularly, but what I mean is that it´s not Jake that they 
both love, Jack, and Jill, but rather they have some concern -- rather 
than a mere assumption of the doxastic type -- for each other.
The next step, of course, is go the whole hog, as Grice had done 
previously in ¨Method¨. Humans are intelligent enough to be able to 
deal with regularities formulated in PRETTY general terms. We do not 
need, or at least philosophers -- for I KNOW people -- constants for 
individuals like Jack, Jill, and Jake, delightful as they may be. So we 
may just deal with
    a, b, c, ... n
And in fact, it´s even better, as Bayne does, to deal with variables 
for individuals
    x, y, z. 

  -- where the range is however, persons, rather than, say, cats 
(¨delightful as they are´, Grice adds), or ´chairs´.
So, the Matthew (I don´t use Saint unless I´m obliged) requirement of 
the Golden Rule,
   Love thy neighbour
may be all we need, with some provisos. The ¨more than you love 
yourself¨, or ¨just as you love yourself´seems otiose -- vide Grice´s 
conversational maxims.
I.e. for any given range of individuals, x1, x2, x3, etc. ... ¨love thy 
neighbour¨ holds. This would actually place the narcissistic (in a 
domain of individuals with a one-member class, x) otiosely theorematic.
On the other hand, reference to "avoid harm" SHOULD be replaced by a, I 
suggest, more general consideration in terms of mere boulemaic states. 
For, to echo a list-member who should remain anonymous, but whose name 
starts with a D, what of the masochist? It wouldn´t do, convincingly, 
to say that hers is a borderline case.
So, instead, by having the restriction, ´let the other fulfill her 
goals´, seems enough. The person itself should rather have THAT 
honoured than a benevolent protection from Leviathan or what not.
In which case, we should be back to reciprocity. But again, I don´t 
think I engage in too many reciprocal actions. I tend to be pretty 
convoluted in my psychologisms, and I don´t think people I quotidianly 
(?) deal with need to reciprocate me on anything.
Grice´s example on holding the gate for me to pass seems otiose. In 
fact, I often the man outside the taxi would rather NOT hold the door 
for me. I LIKE to open doors.
Reciprocity in mutual knowledge is a barbarism enough, possibly 
psychologically irrealisable. Recall that Grice avoids infinites like 
the rats, and would rather have anti-sneak clauses added here and there 
in case what you are asking for is, rather, manifestness, or overtness 
of intentions, desires, or other.
But more later, I hope.
Cheers,J. L. Speranza   for the Grice Club

-----Original Message-----From: Baynesr at comcast.netTo: hist-analytic 
<hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk>Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:13 
pmSubject: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian I would like 
to clarify a point in view of JL (Speranza)'s mention of my introducing 
the "amorous" relation entailed by being "in love."While being in love 
certainly carries this implication, this is not my reason 
forintroducing it. Let me clarify this somewhat.John may love Mary and 
Mary may love John, even though they are not "in love."They are in this 
circumstance of reciprocity under no obligation to one another.But it 
appears to me to be the case that once they are "in love" they at 
onceare subject to a mutual or reciprocal obligation; there is 
something they "owe"each other which they did not under those 
circumstances where the only thingthat could be said was that John 
loves Mary and Mary loves John. So what isit that transforms this sort 
of reciprocity into a state of being in love. It is this,that the lover 
know that he is loved by the beloved. Once this is a fact, then 
thereexists the reciprocity that characterizes being in love over and 
above the bareconjunctive reciprocity mentioned. My contention at this 
point is that obligationarises from reciprocity; and the sort of 
reciprocity is epistemic, viz. that one KNOW that the beloved indeed 
love me; so the beloved is known to love meand because I know I love 
the beloved, there is this reciprocity: x knows y lovesx and x knows x 
loves y, so 'knows x loves y' and 'knows y loves x'  entails thatx 
knows they love *each other*. Thus the reciprocity is epistemic! But 
there ismore to this epistemic relation than one might think.The 
obligation of the beloved to the beloved is reciprocal; that obligation 
arises from such a state as being in love. This reciprocity in turn is 
epistemic; and soI claim that the obligation arises ultimately from an 
epistemic relation, not a moral fact. I might go so far as to say that 
the "ought" is not to be derived from the"is" but from the "known to 
be." I think this might be a new slant on an old problem.If anyone who 
knows the literature better than I (and they are legion) let me knowif 
anyone else has proposed it.