What does it mean to build a moral life rooted in love? Philosopher Meghan Sullivan explores the concept of a “love ethic,” a framework that calls us to extend the same compassion and concern we show loved ones to strangers. 

Drawing on Aristotle’s idea of a friend as a second self and the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, she outlines three principles at the heart of love ethics: the inherent dignity of every person, love as the foundation of moral reasoning, and practical applications in daily life.

Meghan Sullivan: In today's society, we oftentimes separate love from moral philosophy in pretty profound ways.

We think about love as primarily a psychological phenomenon, something that we don't have a great deal of control over.

When we think about morality, we think about looking for rules and principles that do not have any exceptions, that are unemotional.

How could a certain emotion and attitude be so central to our lives but also be seemingly completely independent of ethics?

Aristotle famously said when you really love a friend, you experience that person as a second self. When they suffer, it feels like you too are experiencing their suffering. And the Love Ethic says those same feelings should be extended to strangers.

How do we navigate our lives in an era where our politics, our economics, our technology is causing us to become far more isolated and divided?

That question is a major impetus for us to think seriously about these ancient moral traditions that put love at the center of how we navigate our lives and how we navigate our society.

My name is Meghan Sullivan, and I am the director of Notre Dame's Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and the University Ethics Initiative.

A Love Ethic or a love-based approach to ethics says to love your neighbor with the same intensity with which you love yourself.

One of the origins of the Love Ethic in the Christian tradition comes from this very famous story that happens in the Gospel of Luke, “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

So here's the setup. One time there was a man traveling down a road when he's attacked by some robbers. And he is beaten within an inch of his life. A Jewish priest walks by and he doesn't stop. Next a Levite. A Levite would have been a very important person who served in the Jewish temple, who supported the priests. He moves to the side of the road and he just keeps walking. And then, Jesus says, a Samaritan comes down the road. And he rushes over and he rescues the man. He stays up with him all night, nursing his wounds and keeping him alive.

And what Jesus seems to be saying is you have the same moral obligation to do what the Samaritan did for this man.

Is that true?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan cries out for philosophical debate.

The most prominent way of interpreting the parable says this is primarily about our duty to help others.

Where I think we should push back a little bit is thinking, this isn't a parable about duty, It's a parable about love, and in particular, about what it means to find a reason to love a complete stranger.

A Love Ethic has three components.

First, what gives anyone moral significance is their mere human dignity. You don't have to do anything else to be of profound value except exist.

The second component of the Love Ethic is love is at the very basis of our moral reasoning. We should always be grounding our reasoning in interpersonal love, what it means to love another person who has dignity.

The final component of the Love Ethic are applications of these principles to all of the kinds of debates and puzzles that face us as we try to navigate contemporary society to create a moral code that others will want to live with.

If you're anything like me you read the news every day and you'll read some story that you really morally disagree with and you'll read about the people who are featured in the story who've made that terrible decision and you'll think, not only do I not love these people, but I really wish them the worst, like they are my enemies.

And the Love Ethic says to put ourselves more and more in this situation where we imagine having the reaction to complete strangers as we would to people that we love.

Imagine that stranger was your own parent, or your own sibling, or your best friend. Would you still feel that same level of resentment?

And we realize, you know, love is complicated.

You might have family members whom you love, who are part of a very different political party. You might have friends that are part of a really different racial group. You might have people that you love in your life who you oftentimes think make terrible decisions.

What the Love Ethic asks you to reflect on is the fact that you don't have any of those standards in your ordinary love life so why would you put any of those kinds of requirements on your concern for others?

And there are ways that you can go from being a less loving to a more loving person if you're willing to work that virtue muscle.

If you're looking with love, you just pay a little bit more attention to take in the details, allow them to affect you.

A big part of exhibiting the Love Ethic and practicing it means giving yourself a little bit more time to pay attention to other people rather than paying attention to all of the other things that are trying to demand our mental life in the 21st century.

Does the Love Ethic, does being a good Samaritan ask you to completely put aside all of your own interests, all of your own projects to rescue strangers?

I think that the answer is no.

We are talking about a more long-term moral and philosophical program, a way of life that people can adopt where they challenge their biases that tell them somebody is not worthy of their attention or concern.

It's really asking us to change our mindset about how we think of the social issues that vex us.

Thinking of them not as potential investments, not as abstract social concerns that are worth debating, but rather as ethical questions that are rooted in the lives of particular other people.

And that requires this capacity to pay more attention to others and to ask yourself some hard philosophical questions about what exactly it means to love the people that are put into your day-to-day life.