JPI 927
Spousal Love and the Relationship between Eros and Agape
Though it is generally evident that the other is to be loved "for his own sake," what is not so clear is what this evidence has to do with the love of self which stands so much at the heart of the most basic of natural inclinations. And were these two aspects of love held together in a unity, one would still have to give an account for such unity.
This course will attempt to give such an account by taking up the thorny problem of love at its various levels: the relation between love itself and its alternative ("rational self-interest"); the relation between love as inclination (amor naturalis) or passion, and love as an act (amor rationalis); the relation (within amor rationalis) between "love of concupiscence" and "love of friendship;" the relation between the various "objects" of love (between the self and the other, both God and neighbor); and finally the relation between Eros and Agape.
