Love as a Joyful Compassionate Caring

The aim of this chapter is to account for the nature of love. To do so, it develops a view that continues Kierkegaard’s understanding of love as a selfless caring, while also substantially differing from it. Accepting Kierkegaard’s position that love is a kind of caring, and agreeing with him on the importance of equality and self-denial to loving correctly, it claims, however, that Kierkegaard’s view is nevertheless insufficient. Kierkegaard offers a thin model of love that fails to account for its diversity, and hence disregards the distinctive nature of romantic love. The alternative presented in the chapter is of love as a joyful compassionate caring, and it is argued that joy in the presence of the beloved not only is essential to love, but is also that which distinguishes between the different kinds of love.