Love, Morality, and Alienation

Is love incompatible with morality? A popular criticism of standard moral theories such as consequentialist theories and Kantian ethics—any theory that holds that the reasons of morality are impartial—is that such theories cannot accommodate the reasons of love. Either the reasons of love are not moral reasons, yet outweigh moral reasons in many situations, or they are moral reasons that are partial, not impartial. Many moral theorists try to retain both impartiality and the special moral nature of partial reasons for close relationships by presenting approaches that justify partial norms on the basis of impartial reasons. These writers are divided on the issue of whether or not such approaches need to be self-effacing. For those who argue that the indirection need not be self-effacing, and that people should be able to step back and evaluate all of their normative commitments, a problem is raised by writers such as Susan Wolf who argue that even considering the possibility of violating a close relationship norm for the sake of morality is problematic to the relationship in question. This article challenges this view of Wolf’s, arguing that, in effect, we can provide justifications for “silencing” when it really is practically appropriate in standard moral theories that do not threaten good relationships.