Love, Plural Subjects & Normative Constraint

Abstract

Andrea Westlund’s account of love involves lovers becoming Plural Subjects mirroring Margaret Gilbert’s Plural Subject Theory. However, while for Gilbert the creation of a plural will involves individuals jointly committing to pool their wills and this joint pool directly normatively constraining those individuals, Westlund, in contrast, sees the creation of a plural will as a ongoing process and she rejects the possibility of such direct normative constraint. This rejection appears to be required to explain the flexibility that allows for a central place for reciprocity in loving relationships. However, this paper argues against the existence of such flexibility and presents instead the case that variance in the normative pain of rebelling against the collective will should be understood by replacing Gilbert’s notion of all-or-nothing pooling of wills with an account that sees wills as becoming entangled through levels of identification with the plural subject.