12 - On seeking the good of others independently of one's own good; and other unfinished business

Summary

We now turn to some difficulties for, and objections to, the accounts of philia, erōs and desire for good which we have attributed to Socrates in the Lysis. The chief difficulty, and the only one which we will get to discuss in any detail at all, is the Vlastosian, Kantian idea of love which claims that if one does not seek the good of the beloved independently of one's own good, what one has called love isn't really love at all, but at best a refined form of selfishness (see especially Chapter 10, §3 above). We then note very briefly some remaining questions which we cannot here treat fully, but with at any rate some indication of how we might try to answer these questions.

THE VLASTOSIAN, KANTIAN REQUIREMENT THAT LOVE BE FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS INDEPENDENTLY OF ONE'S OWN GOOD

We begin with a doubt that may strike readers when they try to take in our suggestion that love is possible for a psychological egoist. For psychological egoists do seem to have to restrict themselves to a rather bloodless theory of the desires that bring us to action – of those desires that constitute the desire-half of belief-desire explanations of actions. True, we have suggested that we are not repudiating the existence of such other desires as thirst or hunger or sexual desire in the explanation of action.