The examples are a little flakey. For instance, a “change in perspective” can itself become a form of self-deception in which we choose to ignore or deny or distorts truths that are unpleasant to us. It’s one thing to be charitable and to restrain premature judgements or to recognize some kind of genuine prejudice operating within us. It’s another to be Pollyannish and to deny what you know.

But I didn’t come here to pick apart the article. Rather, I want to address the main thesis which concerns love, morality, and the relation between the two. The author mentions that there is precedent in certain religious traditions to link the two — it fact, you can also see precedent in philosophical thought, like that of the Greeks — but the terms are not really given anything resembling definitions.

So, what is morality? Morality concerns voluntary actions in relation to the good. What makes a good action? One that furthers the actualization of an agent’s nature, which is to say the good of the agent. This is why choosing to eat vegetables is generally morally good, because it provides us with nutrients that sustain and contribute to our flourishing, and morally bad to eat shards of glass, because these act in opposition to our flourishing, incompatible as they are with our metabolism and destructive given the composition of our digestive system. Morality is about the voluntary acts of the agent as they concern the good of the acting agent.

(Now, some may be surprised, given the common framing of moral questions as mostly or entirely concerning “the other”. The key is to understand that human nature is deeply social. To act in ways that are opposed to our social nature is detrimental to us. Thus, for a human agent to murder a human being, the most odious of acts, is for the acting human agent to do severe harm to themselves through the very act of murdering someone. The injustice of the act is deeply corrupting and destructive to the acting human agent.)

Now that we have a definition of what morality is, what is love? Love is a movement toward the good. Love can be classified into two kinds, namely, eros and agape. Eros is ascending love, or the agent’s willing of a good for the sake of his own good. The agent recognizes that he lacks some good that would perfect and actualize him as the kind of thing he is, recognizes it in another, and seeks that good for his sake. The agent seeks to receive. Apage, which in Latin is caritas from which we get “charity”, is descending love, or a willing of the good of the other. The agent seeks to give. Agape is a matter of actualizing the good of the other in some way, but acting for the sake of the good of the other also spiritually actualizes the good of the giver.

So, if morality concerns voluntary actions for the sake of the good, and love is a voluntary movement toward the good, then of course morality is intrinsically concerned with love.