It is not that uncommon for people to experience severe dementia and become extremely needy and rapidly lose many (or all) of the traits that people liked about them. Usually, people don’t stop being loved just because they spend their days hurling obscenities at people, failing to preserve their own hygiene, and expressing zero affection.
I would guess that most parents do actually love their children unconditionally, and probably the majority of spouses unconditionally love their partners.
(Persistent identity is a central factor in how people relate to each other, so one can’t really say that “it is only conditions that separate me from the worms.”)
Ending a relationship/marriage doesn’t necessarily imply that you no longer love someone (I haven’t been married but I do still love several of my ex-partners), it just implies that the arrangement didn’t work out for one reason or another.
Perhaps the majority of spouses think they unconditionally love their partners, and think they are unconditionally loved back, but some are wrong. Prediction is hard.
Unless you also think the United States is an outlier in terms of spouses who don’t unconditionally love each other, I guess you have to endorse something like Kaj_Sotala’s point that divorce isn’t always the same as ending love though, right?
I’d say my identity is another condition that separates me from the worms, but you are right it is a special one, and perhaps ‘unconditionally’ means ‘only on condition of your identity’.
It is not that uncommon for people to experience severe dementia and become extremely needy and rapidly lose many (or all) of the traits that people liked about them. Usually, people don’t stop being loved just because they spend their days hurling obscenities at people, failing to preserve their own hygiene, and expressing zero affection.
I would guess that most parents do actually love their children unconditionally, and probably the majority of spouses unconditionally love their partners.
(Persistent identity is a central factor in how people relate to each other, so one can’t really say that “it is only conditions that separate me from the worms.”)
How do you square this with ~50% of marriages ending in divorce?
Ending a relationship/marriage doesn’t necessarily imply that you no longer love someone (I haven’t been married but I do still love several of my ex-partners), it just implies that the arrangement didn’t work out for one reason or another.
Perhaps the majority of spouses think they unconditionally love their partners, and think they are unconditionally loved back, but some are wrong. Prediction is hard.
The United States is an outlier in divorce statistics. In most places, the rate is nowhere near that high.
Unless you also think the United States is an outlier in terms of spouses who don’t unconditionally love each other, I guess you have to endorse something like Kaj_Sotala’s point that divorce isn’t always the same as ending love though, right?
I’d say my identity is another condition that separates me from the worms, but you are right it is a special one, and perhaps ‘unconditionally’ means ‘only on condition of your identity’.