Here comes another Valentine’s day with its usual fetishism and creative fantasies. However, one of the ways to make this special is to ask if love can exist without equality. While we all have an idea of what love is, it is nonetheless one of those concepts that is too nuanced for a consensual definition. That the concept escapes religious confinement (although religion considers it its preserve) makes it more difficult to expound. As such, to attempt a thick description here will be preposterous. On the other hand, equality (in here also means justice) is a genus of love as regards consensual description. Ivory towers and scholars since Aristotle have not been able to exhaust its meaning. However, the fluidity of both concepts should not deny us an analysis of their reliability.
I am very conscious of the emotion the concept of equality generates. Often, it is reduced to sociopolitical analysis in our national discourse or power balance in a relationship scenario. By power balance, I mean the discourse on gender equality which is gaining traction within the Nigerian relationship-discourse. However, the problem with the Nigerian version of the debate is its lack of objective-thick descriptive analysis of the true meaning of equality. Each side of the debate on gender equality disguises the urge for more power as a demand for equality. Nonetheless, the question of equality cannot be ignored in social relations. As such, the pertinence of the question on equality in a relationship is salient. In another word, what type of equality does love require?
Ronald Dworkin (2000) notes that flat equality is a weak argument on equality. It is no equality at all. The idea of equality is variegated either as an opportunity or of resources or outcomes. All these sets of equality (especially resources and opportunity) require ethical individualism. This means that the individual is important in him/herself. The self deserves to be protected, rather than wasted. The self must not only be sustained biologically, it must be allowed to flourish. However, the flourishment of the individual demands his/her responsibility as long he/she has been provided the primary means of capability.
This sense of equality seems to conflict with the idea of love since love connotes kenotic social relations. However, while there is a heavy accent on the individual in this sense of equality, it does not exclude the other. Rather, it suggests that the personal concern of one is not more valuable than that of the other.
The equality (Justice) of the ethical individualism differs from that understood as giving what is “due to the other.” This is justice that is towards the other, his/her due, and rights. This understands justice beyond the principle of political relations and instruments of a social institution. it sees it as a virtue and a product of practical reasoning. As a virtue, it embodies proportionality, equality, and otherness.
This justice as equality is aware of what is due to other and is consistently disposed to give to the other what is his/hers. This is not a favor to the other but an entitlement of the other. This understands justice beyond a way of balancing competing claims. It goes beyond the contract tradition of Thomas Hobbes and Emmanuel Kant. It understands humans as naturally virtuous rather than as self-interested. As such, humans enter a form of social cooperation, knowing the naturality of social relations and human interdependence.
This is the sense of justice as equality directed by love. As Thomas Aquinas notes that charity (love) is the principle with which other virtues are directed to their ends, virtues had to be infused with charity. This implies that justice as equality predicated and reinforced by love flourishes in mutuality, exchange, and activation of the will.
What do we make of this abstract analysis in our 2020 Valentine’s Day? It means there cannot be love between peers without justice as equality. That is, justice that includes otherness and reciprocity. Any sense of love that is overtly invested in the “I’ without the “thou” lacks a key reciprocate of love, which is justice as otherness. And it is strange to a kenotic sense of love and justice. The only virtue greater than the sense of equality (justice) is altruism. The Islamic understanding of this concept is very instructive: “and they give others preference over themselves even though they were themselves in need” (Qur’an, Al Hashr, 59:9).
Preference for the other against the self does not imply self-deprecation. But that the “I” becomes the “thou” in some instances because the “I” is a “person” who cannot but self-communicate with actions. The person in love is altruistic and cannot be reduced to be a matter of the individual; rather, s/he engages in personal transcendence, subordinating the self (selfish- individual) to the self (transcendent-person). For the person in love, participation that corresponds to the social nature of the human person is proper to him/her. Hence, he/she chooses action with other people for the benefit of him/herself and others, even when those actions do not directly benefit him/her. This is the I-thou reflexivity in justice (equality) and love.
In this instance, the detestable ego of individuality is suppressed, and the actor/ lover enjoys fulfillment by making sacrifices, for he/she is also a beneficiary of sacrifices. Between the beloved, there is a common good of love and sacrifices. This implies that this year, you cannot receive a type of valentine gift that you cannot give. To do so is selfish and close to “stealing.” By “type”, I do not mean in degree but in nature. That is, her best should equal your best even if both best differ in degree. An expensive flower must not necessarily beget an expensive flower but the best of the recipient who has received the best of the giver.
Father Fidelis writes from University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN [email protected], www,areopagusinclinations.org
