This professional paper investigates and questions the extent to which romantic love is a matter of agency. Toward this end, I draw a distinction between two contrasting conceptions of romantic lovethe agent-external conception and the agent-centered conception. In this paper I make the assumption that the agent-external conception is pervasive and commonplace in contemporary culture, and that it conceives of romantic love as being involuntary and without agency. My investigation then questions the accuracy of this agent-external conception by juxtaposing it with what I consider to be an agent-centered conception of romantic love. An agent-centered conception, I claim, conceives of romantic love as being a purposive and voluntary endeavor constituted by certain practices on the part of the lover indicative of agency. In order to justify this claim, I examine various practices involved in romantic loving that instantiate this agency. In doing so I not only suggest that romantic love is, to an extent, constituted by practices indicative of agency but that the agent-external conception fails to account for these instances. By examining a commonplace appearance and beliefwhich holds that the romantic lover is involuntarily compelled to love her belovedI suggest that an agent-centered conception of romantic love can explain that while this appearance does exist, it is nevertheless wrong in its assertion that romantic love is without agency. By investigating some important features of romantic love I propose that an agent-centered conception is better suited to account for this commonplace appearance, which is often used as evidence for the agent-external conception. The upshot of this investigation suggests that an agent-centered conception more accurately recognizes the extent to which romantic love involves and is a matter of agency.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-05242013-153256 |
| Date | 11 June 2013 |
| Creators | Swatek, Richard Edward |
| Contributors | Matthew Strohl |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-05242013-153256/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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