demand that someone close to her to lie to her, and furthermore without acknowledging that this is what she was asking! To demand that your partner subvert their reason, and engage in doublethink
One scary thought I had a while back is that this is essentially what friendship and especially love is, i.e., sabotaging one’s rationality, specifically one’s ability to honestly asses one’s friend’s/lover’s usefulness as an ally as a costly way to signal one’s precommitment not to defect against the friend/lover even when it would be in one’s interest to do so.
On the other hand, it’s just as easy to make up a story in the opposite direction: friendship and love are what we call having a true judgement of a person’s fundamental virtue that is unswayed by transient, day to day circumstances.
One scary thought I had a while back is that this is essentially what friendship and especially love is, i.e., sabotaging one’s rationality, specifically one’s ability to honestly asses one’s friend’s/lover’s usefulness as an ally as a costly way to signal one’s precommitment not to defect against the friend/lover even when it would be in one’s interest to do so.
On the other hand, it’s just as easy to make up a story in the opposite direction: friendship and love are what we call having a true judgement of a person’s fundamental virtue that is unswayed by transient, day to day circumstances.
“Love is the inability to follow a logical argument concerning the object of one’s affection.”
… is a quote along those lines, from a former classmate; with which I do not actually agree.
But “usefulness as an ally” does not at all fully capture a loved one’s value to me, even absent any failures of rationality.
(Not that you said it does, I’m just pre-empting likely replies.)
Feel free to substitute whatever you feel is appropriate for “usefulness as an ally”.
The difference is that I explain it in terms of game theory.