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What does it mean to love? Does love complete us, giving us purpose and meaning? Or does it tie us down and even harm us? Is erotic desire complicit in oppression, or could it deliver liberation? Are our desires extricable from the wrongs of our societies? And in today's world, is love still worth the trouble?This book develops a critical theory of sexual love and friendship, offering profound new ways to understand the troublesome nature of eros. Federica Gregoratto explores the ambivalence of erotic love, which is at once intimately interwoven with heterosexism, racism, and neoliberal capitalism yet entices us with the tantalizing possibility of transformation. Drawing on a rich array of sources—from Frankfurt School critical theory to feminist thought and contemporary philosophies of emotions and affects, as well as poetry, novels, films, and music—she argues that love provides unexpected resources for political agency, resistance, and emancipation. Gregoratto makes a passionate defense of erotic freedom as an adventurous process through which we understand, together with others, who we are and who we want to become, both in our individual existences and in our social lives. Wide-ranging and daring, Love Troubles invites us to reflect on our fraught amorous experiences, showing why we should cherish and learn from them.

Love and Sexuality in Social Theory considers the role that love and sexuality play in private and public life. Drawing on both classical and contemporary social theory, this book presents both theoretical and empirical studies of love and sexuality as social factors, from the earliest reconstructions of modern emotional life to the most recent analyses of liquid love. With attention to the consequences that passions and desires have both on morals and behaviour, it departs from the analysis of society in terms of the division of labour and utilitarian mechanisms to consider how a society based on performances values human energy and emotional behaviour in a contradictory way. This book, therefore, presents and discusses classic authors, from Georg Simmel and Pitirim Sorokin to Marianne Weber and Simone De Beauvoir, through the work of Erving Goffman and ending with contemporary authors such as Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, and Eva Illouz.By presenting love as the social foundation of altruism, an essential element in modern conceptions of subjectivity, and a force shaping intimacy and contemporary social life, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, particularly those interested in social theory and the sociology of emotions.

Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy — found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion — and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and even anti-sex, cisist, sexist, and heterosexist reputation, Kant's writings on happiness and virtue (Part I) and right (Part II) in fact yield fertile philosophical ground on which we can explore specific contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, sexual or gendered identity, marriage, trade in sexual services, and sex- or gender-based oppression. Indeed, Kant's philosophy provides us with resources to appreciate and value the diversity of human ways of loving and the existential importance of our embodied, social selves. Structured on a thematic basis, with introductions to assist those new to Kant's philosophy, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone who cares about these issues and wants to make sense of them.

How is love different from lust or infatuation? Do love and marriage really go together'like a horse and carriage'? Does sex have any necessary connection to either? And how important are love, sex, and marriage to a well-lived life? In the Second Edition of this lively, lucid, and comprehensive book, Raja Halwani explores and elucidates the nature, uses, and ethics of romantic love, sexuality, and marriage. It is structured in three parts: Love examines the nature of romantic love and how it differs from other types of love, such as friendship and parental love. It also investigates the relationship of love to morality and asks what limits morality puts on romantic love and even whether romantic love is inherently moral. Sex demonstrates the difficulty in defining sex and the sexual, and examines what constitutes good and bad sex in terms of pleasure,'naturalness,'and moral permissibility. It discusses the nature of sexual desire and its connection to objectification and virtue, all the while looking at specific sexual engagements such as pornography, BDSM, and raced desires. Marriage traces the history of the institution and describes the various forms in which marriage exists and the reasons why people marry. It also investigates the necessity of marriage and ways in which it requires reform. Updates and Revisions in the Second Edition Expands the coverage of love and morality from one to two chapters, incorporating much of the recent literature on love as a moral emotion. Includes a new chapter on sex and virtue ethics. Ends each of the chapters on sex with an'applied'topic, such as pornography, BDSM, prostitution, racial sexual desires, and adultery. Increases coverage of the nature and purpose of marriage, including debates surrounding same-sex marriage, but also moving beyond these debates to include issues on minimal marriage, temporary marriage, polygamy, and other forms of marriage. Updates the Further Reading and Study Questions sections at the end of each chapter and provides an up-to-date comprehensive bibliography at the back of the book. Includes new discussions of topics on the nature of love; love and reasons; distinctions between two types of romantic love; love and its connections to moral theories; definitions of crucial sexual concepts; objectification; virtue and sex; racial sexual desires; and the definition of marriage and whether it is important as an institution.

How is love different from lust or infatuation? Do love and marriage really go together “like a horse and carriage”? Does sex have any necessary connection to either? And how important are love, sex, and marriage to a well-lived life? In this lively, lucid, and comprehensive textbook, Raja Halwani pursues the philosophical questions inherent in these three important aspects of human relationships, exploring the nature, uses, and ethics of romantic love, sexuality, and marriage. The book is structured in three parts: Love begins by examining how romantic love differs from other types of love, such as friendship and parental love. It asks which properties of love are essential, whether people have a choice in whom they love, and whether lovers have moral obligations to one another that differ from those they owe to others Sex demonstrates the difficulty in defining sex and the sexual, and examines what constitutes good and bad sex in terms of pleasure,'naturalness', and moral permissibility. It offers theoretical and applied ethical approaches to a wide range of sexual phenomena Marriage traces the history of the institution, and describes the various forms in which marriage exists and the reasons why people marry. It also surveys accounts of why people should or should not marry, and introduces the main arguments for and against gay marriage. Features include: suggestions for further reading online eResource site with dowloadable discussion questions a clear, jargon-free writing style.

存在の根底にあるもの、生／生存のポリティクスの現在と系譜とを問い、性／性愛の新しい問題圏を拓くために、近代の外を望見する。「哲学の原点」に立ち還ることを基本方針に編成したシリーズ。