love and respect essay

Respect Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on respect.

Respect is a broad term. Experts interpret it in different ways. Generally speaking, it is a positive feeling or action expressed towards something. Furthermore, it could also refer to something held in high esteem or regard. Showing Respect is a sign of ethical behavior . Unfortunately, in the contemporary era, there has been undermining of the value of Respect. Most noteworthy, there are two essential aspects of Respect. These aspects are self-respect and respect for others.

Self-Respect

Self-Respect refers to loving oneself and behaving with honour and dignity. It reflects Respect for oneself. An individual who has Self-Respect would treat himself with honour. Furthermore, lacking Self-Respect is a matter of disgrace. An individual who does not respect himself, should certainly not expect Respect from others. This is because nobody likes to treat such an individual with Respect.

Self-Respect is the foundation of a healthy relationship . In relationships, it is important to respect your partner. Similarly, it is equally important to Respect yourself. A Self-Respecting person accepts himself with his flaws. This changes the way how others perceive the individual. An individual, who honours himself, would prevent others from disrespecting him. This certainly increases the value of the individual in the eyes of their partner.

Lacking Self-Respect brings negative consequences. An individual who lacks Self-Respect is treated like a doormat by others. Furthermore, such an individual may engage in bad habits . Also, there is a serious lack of self-confidence in such a person. Such a person is likely to suffer verbal or mental abuse. The lifestyle of such an individual also becomes sloppy and untidy.

Self-Respect is a reflection of toughness and confidence. Self-Respect makes a person accept more responsibility. Furthermore, the character of such a person would be strong. Also, such a person always stands for his rights, values, and opinions.

Self-Respect improves the morality of the individual. Such an individual has a good ethical nature. Hence, Self-Respect makes you a better person.

Self-Respect eliminates the need to make comparisons. This means that individuals don’t need to make comparisons with others. Some people certainly compare themselves with others on various attributes. Most noteworthy, they do this to seek validation of others. Gaining Self-Respect ends all that.

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Respect of Others

Everyone must Respect fellow human beings. This is an essential requirement of living in a society. We certainly owe a basic level of Respect to others. Furthermore, appropriate Respect must be shown to people who impact our lives. This includes our parents, relatives, teachers, friends, fellow workers, authority figures, etc.

One of the best ways of showing respect to others is listening. Listening to another person’s point of view is an excellent way of Respect. Most noteworthy, we must allow a person to express his views even if we disagree with them.

Another important aspect of respecting others is religious/political views. Religious and cultural beliefs of others should be given a lot of consideration. Respecting other people’s Religions is certainly a sign of showing mature Respect.

Everyone must Respect those who are in authority. Almost everyone deals with people in their lives that hold authority. So, a healthy amount of Respect should be given to such people. People of authority can be of various categories. These are boss, police officer, religious leader, teacher, etc.

In conclusion, Respect is a major aspect of human socialization. It is certainly a precious value that must be preserved. Respectful behaviour is vital for human survival.

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Essays About Respect: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

If you are looking for the next topic for your essay, read our helpful prompts and example essays about respect to get started.

Respect is a fundamental pillar in a harmonious society. At a young age, we are taught that everyone is deserving of respect and should likewise respect others, regardless of diverging beliefs, cultures, and origins. The underlying golden rule is never to do what we don’t want others to do to us.

However, as we grow older, we find it harder to respect people who go against our moral standards and social mores. Nevertheless, acknowledging people and their rights could already be a form of respect. But when people do not care to meet this bare minimum for respect, conflicts and crimes can ensue. 

5 Essay Examples

1. on self-respect by joan didion, 2. respect, trust and partnership: keeping diplomacy on course in troubling times by ted osius, 3. the respect deficit by richard v. reeves, 4. the emotional attachment of national symbols by karina lafayette, 5. filipino hospitality and respect for the aged by kashiwagi shiho, 1. how to show respect to criminals, 2. respect vs. love in relationships, 3. showing respect on social media, 4. respecting indigenous cultures, 5. how to respect data privacy rights, 6. what is respect for parents day, 7. when employees do not feel respected , 8. respect for animals.

“To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.”

Didion explores misplaced self-respect through her experience of not making it to Phi Beta Kappa and the experience of others. What has been primarily associated with flattering others, self-respect, to Didion, is a virtue that can be developed when we emancipate ourselves from the expectations of others. 

“…[W]hen we show respect it has a big impact. Showing respect means figuring out what is really, truly important to our partners and taking that seriously. It costs America almost nothing and gets us almost everything.”

A former US ambassador to Vietnam shares that respect is a powerful tool to build and strengthen trading partners’ relationships. In the end, he suggests strengthening diplomacy with country partners, such as developing language and regional expertise.

“Here is a much deeper kind of inequality, caused not by a lack of resources, but by a lack of respect. You might be much richer or poorer than I am. But if we treat each other with mutual respect, we are, relationally speaking, equal.”

The essay talks about relational equality and how the lack of it could undermine both the sense of respect for others and the self. It touches on how the world’s meritocratic system has furthered the divide between classes and driven respect away from their reach. The urgent goal is to restore the sense of respect amid the bustle of our daily motions in life.

“National symbols deserve respect not because they are static representations of unchanging ideals, but because they offer a focal point for diverse societies to express and navigate what it is that unites and represents them.”

Respect for national symbols is imperative. But when the approach turns to one that is resistant to prospects of modifying national symbols, then we are missing out on opportunities to re-evaluate and re-invent how we can best represent our collective ideals. Instead of treating national symbols as sacred icons impervious to change, the best way to respect them and what they represent is to brave the thorny road of change. 

“When a Filipino child meets an older family member, the youth customarily greets them with a gesture called ‘mano po,’ taking the older relative’s hand and placing it on his or her own forehead to express profound respect for the elder.”

The essay thoroughly navigates how the Philippine society defends its elders, from the gestures of greeting to how the government, private sector, and non-profit organizations band together to support elders living alone. Other countries can learn from the Philippines’ experience in caring for their elders, especially in the quality care their nurses provide.

8 Thought-Provoking Prompts on Essays About Respect

It is easy to respect those who have worked hard and are deemed as typically well-behaved. But what about criminals who are stereotyped as not showing respect to others, or working hard? Are they deserving of our respect? Answer these questions and determine whether criminals are provided decent facilities and programs that inspire them to change. You can also look into how police officers keep track of their value of life to avoid the abuse of power and putting an end to life with unnecessary force. 

Take a deep dive into the differences between respect and love and discuss which is more important in a relationship. But first, explain the two and provide narrative examples to demonstrate their contrasts.

For example, with love, one might be inclined to say, “I’m willing to change myself for you.” But with a respect-filled relationship, boundaries are drawn. Hence, people can live comfortably with their true selves without having to worry about losing a partner.

Social media encourages people to say what they wouldn’t otherwise say in the physical world primarily because of the anonymity that social media grants them. In your essay, describe the effects of disrespect on social media. Social experts observe that disrespect propels cancel culture and decreases our tolerance of people with differing views. Do you agree with this? Add in other observations you have about mutual respect, or the lack of it, on social media.

Indigenous groups call for recognition and respect for their land and rich cultures. In this prompt, cite the challenges in promoting respect for the rights of indigenous peoples.

For example, how does the government reconcile the need to preserve their traditions with the need to alter practices that negatively impact the environment? Write down what else the government can do to support indigenous groups. One example is ensuring their participation in deliberating their lands’ use to enable them to give free, prior, and informed consent.

Data privacy is a fundamental human right, but our data can be easily harvested through every transaction and activity we make using our phones. This essay discusses the data privacy law in your country or state.

Write about the obligations the law has set for companies to sufficiently safeguard the personal data of their clients. Suppose you want to look at international data privacy standards. In that case, you can explore the General Data Protection Regulation , dissect its seven principles and find out how they play in the data privacy cycle from collection to disposal. 

Respect for Parents Day is celebrated in the US every August 1 to recognize the importance of parents’ roles in their children’s lives and the larger society. Dedicate this essay to celebrating your parents. Share with readers the hard work they do to raise you while handling a job or a business to build your future. Briefly narrate the origins of Respect Your Parents Day and provide tips on how families can best spend this day.  

In the workplace, some bosses abuse their power, overstep their boundaries and forget the basics of respect. How does disrespect affect the motivation and productivity of workers? Mull over this question and try to enumerate the negative impacts of disrespect in the workplace. Then, with the support of research studies, find out what motivational methods managers can employ to reinforce employees positively and help them receive the respect they deserve.

Over the years, the call for respect has extended beyond humankind and to the animal kingdom. First, hear the calls of advocacy groups combating the cruel practice of commoditizing animals or their parts for profit. Track how far their efforts have progressed.

You can also look into the International Convention for the Protection of Animals , a proposed treaty to address all animal issues, and research how it has moved forward to fill in the gap of an international agreement to protect animals.

Make sure your essays are clean and understandable with our list of the best essay checkers .

Tip : If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple five-paragraph essay instead.

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Love and Respect: Two Roads to a Successful Marriage

Emmanuel Abimbola

Respect is not merely a passive acknowledgment but an active appreciation and esteem for your spouse's God-given role and authority within the marriage.

The foundation of marriage is built upon the principles of love and respect, as depicted in Ephesians 5:33 : "Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and let the wife see that she reverences her husband."

In its purest form, genuine love mirrors Christ's love for the Church. It's sacrificial, unconditional, and selfless. Husbands are called to love their wives in this manner, cherishing and caring for them just as Christ cares for His Church. It means putting the needs and desires of your spouse above your own, supporting and nurturing their spiritual and emotional growth.

Respect, on the other hand, is a deep appreciation for the role and authority that God has placed within the husband. It's recognizing the leadership and decision-making responsibilities bestowed upon him. This respect isn't blind obedience but rather an acknowledgment of his position as the head of the household, akin to how we respect God's authority in our lives.

The intertwining of love and respect in marriage is essential. When a husband loves his wife with the same love Christ has for the Church, he fosters an environment of trust and security. The wife, in return, responds with respect, which further strengthens the marital bond. It creates a harmonious cycle where love begets respect, and respect reinforces love.

Genuine Mutual Love: The Cornerstone of a Godly Marriage 

Love is undeniably the cornerstone of a godly marriage, and at its core lies the concept of agape love. This selfless, unconditional love is profoundly inspired by God's example, as beautifully depicted in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 : "Love is patient; love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres."

For a marriage to flourish, both parties must have a genuine love for one another, and this love must be mutual, not one-sided. In this sense, love must be patient. It is the kind of love that perseveres through trials and tribulations, enduring the storms of life with unwavering faith. 

In a marriage, patience means not giving up on your spouse, even when faced with challenges or disagreements. It's about understanding that growth and change take time, and genuine love remains steadfast through it all.

Genuine love is also kind. It makes you gentle and compassionate toward your spouse, always seeking their well-being. It goes beyond mere politeness; it's about actively showing kindness and consideration in both words and actions. Kindness in marriage fosters an atmosphere of warmth and acceptance where spouses feel valued and cherished.

Also, true love does not envy or boast, and it is not proud. It promotes humility and contentment within the marriage. Instead of comparing your relationship to others or seeking recognition, true love encourages couples to find joy and fulfillment in the unique bond they share. It's about appreciating what you have without arrogance or jealousy.

Crucially, genuine love is not self-seeking. It's a love that prioritizes the needs and desires of your spouse over your own. It's about selflessness and putting their well-being above all else. In a godly marriage, this type of love leads to sacrificial acts of service, where each partner strives to make life better for the other.

Genuine love keeps no record of wrongs. It’s about forgiving and letting go of past mistakes and grievances. This is essential for fostering a climate of forgiveness and reconciliation in marriages. It's about moving forward together, unburdened by the weight of past transgressions.

True love rejoices with the truth and always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. This is a kind of love that seeks honesty and transparency in communication, builds trust through reliability, remains hopeful in the face of challenges, and endures through the highs and lows of life.

Respect: Honoring the Divine Design

For husbands, they must love their wives unconditionally, which means showing sacrificial love, care, and support. However, it also implies recognizing and valuing the unique qualities and contributions of your wives. Husbands are also called to honor their wives by acknowledging their worth, appreciating their strengths, and actively involving them in decisions that affect the family.

And for wives, they are required to "reverence" their husbands. This reverence is not about blind obedience but rather recognizing and respecting the leadership and responsibilities that God has placed upon husbands within the family. It's about valuing the husband's wisdom, guidance, and provision. This respect also involves uplifting their husbands with words of encouragement and affirmation.

In a practical sense, respect in marriage means listening attentively to your spouse's thoughts and opinions, even when you may have different viewpoints. It involves speaking to each other with kindness and consideration and avoiding hurtful or demeaning words. Respect also entails supporting and uplifting your spouse, both privately and publicly, rather than criticizing or undermining their efforts.

Furthermore, respect involves recognizing the importance of teamwork within the marriage. It's about working together, sharing responsibilities, and making decisions collaboratively while still honoring the roles and strengths that each spouse brings to the relationship. It's acknowledging that you are life partners, each with a unique contribution to make.

Respect in marriage is not a one-time gesture but an ongoing commitment. It's a daily practice of valuing and cherishing your spouse, even in the midst of challenges or disagreements. It's a reflection of the biblical principle found in Philippians 2:3 , which says, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves." This mutual esteem and respect build the foundation of a strong and Christ-centered marriage.

Mutual Submission

The concept of mutual submission in marriage is a profound and often misunderstood aspect of relationships. It's important to clarify that mutual submission does not imply a one-sided or oppressive dynamic but a joint effort based on mutual respect and a desire to honor God in the marriage.

The foundation of mutual submission can be found in Ephesians 5:21 , which states, "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." This verse sets the tone for the subsequent verses about the roles of husbands and wives in marriage. It emphasizes that both spouses are called to submit to one another out of reverence for God.

In practical terms, mutual submission means that both husband and wife willingly yield to each other's needs, desires, and viewpoints. It involves a balance between leadership and partnership in decision-making, recognizing the strengths and perspectives each spouse brings to the marriage.

Leadership within the context of mutual submission does not equate to domination or control. Instead, it means taking responsibility for the well-being of the family and providing guidance and direction, as Christ provides for the Church. Husbands are called to lead with humility, servant-heartedness, and a deep concern for their wives' spiritual and emotional growth.

Partnership, on the other hand, is about working collaboratively to make decisions that affect the family. It involves open and respectful communication, where both spouses actively listen to each other's viewpoints and seek consensus whenever possible. It also means recognizing and valuing each other's strengths and expertise in different areas.

One of the keys to successfully balancing leadership and partnership is communication. Spouses should openly discuss their expectations, desires, and concerns. This ensures that both husband and wife have a clear understanding of each other's needs and can work together effectively.

Mutual submission also means considering each other's well-being in decision-making. It involves asking questions like, "How will this decision affect my spouse?" and "Is this in the best interest of our family as a whole?" This mindset of mutual concern and care helps guide decision-making in a way that honors both individuals and the marriage itself.

Furthermore, it's important to remember that mutual submission is not a zero-sum game where one spouse's submission diminishes the other's authority. Instead, it's a model of mutual respect and love where both spouses willingly place each other's needs and interests above their own.

Synergy: Love and Respect in Harmony

The virtuous cycle of love and respect is a powerful dynamic within a Christ-centered marriage. It's a positive feedback loop where each partner's love inspires respect, and in turn, that respect fuels even greater love. Let's delve into how this cycle works.

In a Christian marriage, love is not just a feeling; it's a choice and an action. When one partner demonstrates love by showing care, understanding, and selflessness, it often triggers a response of respect from the other spouse. This respect is a recognition of the sacrificial love being shown and a genuine appreciation for the efforts being made to nurture the relationship.

For instance, when a husband consistently demonstrates love by actively listening to his wife's concerns, supporting her dreams, and valuing her opinions, she is more likely to respond with respect. She recognizes his commitment to her well-being and leadership within the marriage.

On the flip side, when a wife shows respect by acknowledging her husband's wisdom, supporting his decisions, and affirming his efforts, he feels honored and loved. This, in turn, motivates him to continue to love her sacrificially, creating a positive feedback loop.

The virtuous cycle of love and respect strengthens the emotional connection between spouses. It deepens the bond and creates an atmosphere of security and trust within the marriage. Both partners feel valued, cherished, and understood, which fosters a sense of unity and harmony.

In every moment, small or significant, let your love and respect shine as a beacon of God's love in your marriage. By doing so, you will not only achieve a successful and fulfilling marriage but also serve as a testament to the transformative power of love and respect in the journey of faith and love.

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This essay focuses on personal love, or the love of particular persons as such. Part of the philosophical task in understanding personal love is to distinguish the various kinds of personal love. For example, the way in which I love my wife is seemingly very different from the way I love my mother, my child, and my friend. This task has typically proceeded hand-in-hand with philosophical analyses of these kinds of personal love, analyses that in part respond to various puzzles about love. Can love be justified? If so, how? What is the value of personal love? What impact does love have on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved?

1. Preliminary Distinctions

2. love as union, 3. love as robust concern, 4.1 love as appraisal of value, 4.2 love as bestowal of value, 4.3 an intermediate position, 5.1 love as emotion proper, 5.2 love as emotion complex, 6. the value and justification of love, other internet resources, related entries.

In ordinary conversations, we often say things like the following:

• I love chocolate (or skiing).
• I love doing philosophy (or being a father).
• I love my dog (or cat).
• I love my wife (or mother or child or friend).

However, what is meant by ‘love’ differs from case to case. (1) may be understood as meaning merely that I like this thing or activity very much. In (2) the implication is typically that I find engaging in a certain activity or being a certain kind of person to be a part of my identity and so what makes my life worth living; I might just as well say that I value these. By contrast, (3) and (4) seem to indicate a mode of concern that cannot be neatly assimilated to anything else. Thus, we might understand the sort of love at issue in (4) to be, roughly, a matter of caring about another person as the person she is, for her own sake. (Accordingly, (3) may be understood as a kind of deficient mode of the sort of love we typically reserve for persons.) Philosophical accounts of love have focused primarily on the sort of personal love at issue in (4); such personal love will be the focus here (though see Frankfurt (1999) and Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) for attempts to provide a more general account that applies to non-persons as well).

Even within personal love, philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called “love”: eros , agape , and philia . It will be useful to distinguish these three and say something about how contemporary discussions typically blur these distinctions (sometimes intentionally so) or use them for other purposes.

‘ Eros ’ originally meant love in the sense of a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual passion (Liddell et al., 1940). Nygren (1953a,b) describes eros as the “‘love of desire,’ or acquisitive love” and therefore as egocentric (1953b, p. 89). Soble (1989b, 1990) similarly describes eros as “selfish” and as a response to the merits of the beloved—especially the beloved’s goodness or beauty. What is evident in Soble’s description of eros is a shift away from the sexual: to love something in the “erosic” sense (to use the term Soble coins) is to love it in a way that, by being responsive to its merits, is dependent on reasons. Such an understanding of eros is encouraged by Plato’s discussion in the Symposium , in which Socrates understands sexual desire to be a deficient response to physical beauty in particular, a response which ought to be developed into a response to the beauty of a person’s soul and, ultimately, into a response to the form, Beauty.

Soble’s intent in understanding eros to be a reason-dependent sort of love is to articulate a sharp contrast with agape , a sort of love that does not respond to the value of its object. ‘ Agape ’ has come, primarily through the Christian tradition, to mean the sort of love God has for us persons, as well as our love for God and, by extension, of our love for each other—a kind of brotherly love. In the paradigm case of God’s love for us, agape is “spontaneous and unmotivated,” revealing not that we merit that love but that God’s nature is love (Nygren 1953b, p. 85). Rather than responding to antecedent value in its object, agape instead is supposed to create value in its object and therefore to initiate our fellowship with God (pp. 87–88). Consequently, Badhwar (2003, p. 58) characterizes agape as “independent of the loved individual’s fundamental characteristics as the particular person she is”; and Soble (1990, p. 5) infers that agape , in contrast to eros , is therefore not reason dependent but is rationally “incomprehensible,” admitting at best of causal or historical explanations. [ 1 ]

Finally, ‘ philia ’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977). Like eros , philia is generally (but not universally) understood to be responsive to (good) qualities in one’s beloved. This similarity between eros and philia has led Thomas (1987) to wonder whether the only difference between romantic love and friendship is the sexual involvement of the former—and whether that is adequate to account for the real differences we experience. The distinction between eros and philia becomes harder to draw with Soble’s attempt to diminish the importance of the sexual in eros (1990).

Maintaining the distinctions among eros , agape , and philia becomes even more difficult when faced with contemporary theories of love (including romantic love) and friendship. For, as discussed below, some theories of romantic love understand it along the lines of the agape tradition as creating value in the beloved (cf. Section 4.2 ), and other accounts of romantic love treat sexual activity as merely the expression of what otherwise looks very much like friendship.

Given the focus here on personal love, Christian conceptions of God’s love for persons (and vice versa ) will be omitted, and the distinction between eros and philia will be blurred—as it typically is in contemporary accounts. Instead, the focus here will be on these contemporary understandings of love, including romantic love, understood as an attitude we take towards other persons. [ 2 ]

In providing an account of love, philosophical analyses must be careful to distinguish love from other positive attitudes we take towards persons, such as liking. Intuitively, love differs from such attitudes as liking in terms of its “depth,” and the problem is to elucidate the kind of “depth” we intuitively find love to have. Some analyses do this in part by providing thin conceptions of what liking amounts to. Thus, Singer (1991) and Brown (1987) understand liking to be a matter of desiring, an attitude that at best involves its object having only instrumental (and not intrinsic) value. Yet this seems inadequate: surely there are attitudes towards persons intermediate between having a desire with a person as its object and loving the person. I can care about a person for her own sake and not merely instrumentally, and yet such caring does not on its own amount to (non-deficiently) loving her, for it seems I can care about my dog in exactly the same way, a kind of caring which is insufficiently personal for love.

It is more common to distinguish loving from liking via the intuition that the “depth” of love is to be explained in terms of a notion of identification: to love someone is somehow to identify yourself with him, whereas no such notion of identification is involved in liking. As Nussbaum puts it, “The choice between one potential love and another can feel, and be, like a choice of a way of life, a decision to dedicate oneself to these values rather than these” (1990, p. 328); liking clearly does not have this sort of “depth” (see also Helm 2010; Bagley 2015). Whether love involves some kind of identification, and if so exactly how to understand such identification, is a central bone of contention among the various analyses of love. In particular, Whiting (2013) argues that the appeal to a notion of identification distorts our understanding of the sort of motivation love can provide, for taken literally it implies that love motivates through self -interest rather than through the beloved’s interests. Thus, Whiting argues, central to love is the possibility that love takes the lover “outside herself”, potentially forgetting herself in being moved directly by the interests of the beloved. (Of course, we need not take the notion of identification literally in this way: in identifying with one’s beloved, one might have a concern for one’s beloved that is analogous to one’s concern for oneself; see Helm 2010.)

Another common way to distinguish love from other personal attitudes is in terms of a distinctive kind of evaluation, which itself can account for love’s “depth.” Again, whether love essentially involves a distinctive kind of evaluation, and if so how to make sense of that evaluation, is hotly disputed. Closely related to questions of evaluation are questions of justification: can we justify loving or continuing to love a particular person, and if so, how? For those who think the justification of love is possible, it is common to understand such justification in terms of evaluation, and the answers here affect various accounts’ attempts to make sense of the kind of constancy or commitment love seems to involve, as well as the sense in which love is directed at particular individuals.

In what follows, theories of love are tentatively and hesitantly classified into four types: love as union, love as robust concern, love as valuing, and love as an emotion. It should be clear, however, that particular theories classified under one type sometimes also include, without contradiction, ideas central to other types. The types identified here overlap to some extent, and in some cases classifying particular theories may involve excessive pigeonholing. (Such cases are noted below.) Part of the classificatory problem is that many accounts of love are quasi-reductionistic, understanding love in terms of notions like affection, evaluation, attachment, etc., which themselves never get analyzed. Even when these accounts eschew explicitly reductionistic language, very often little attempt is made to show how one such “aspect” of love is conceptually connected to others. As a result, there is no clear and obvious way to classify particular theories, let alone identify what the relevant classes should be.

The union view claims that love consists in the formation of (or the desire to form) some significant kind of union, a “we.” A central task for union theorists, therefore, is to spell out just what such a “we” comes to—whether it is literally a new entity in the world somehow composed of the lover and the beloved, or whether it is merely metaphorical. Variants of this view perhaps go back to Aristotle (cf. Sherman 1993) and can also be found in Montaigne ([E]) and Hegel (1997); contemporary proponents include Solomon (1981, 1988), Scruton (1986), Nozick (1989), Fisher (1990), and Delaney (1996).

Scruton, writing in particular about romantic love, claims that love exists “just so soon as reciprocity becomes community: that is, just so soon as all distinction between my interests and your interests is overcome” (1986, p. 230). The idea is that the union is a union of concern, so that when I act out of that concern it is not for my sake alone or for your sake alone but for our sake. Fisher (1990) holds a similar, but somewhat more moderate view, claiming that love is a partial fusion of the lovers’ cares, concerns, emotional responses, and actions. What is striking about both Scruton and Fisher is the claim that love requires the actual union of the lovers’ concerns, for it thus becomes clear that they conceive of love not so much as an attitude we take towards another but as a relationship: the distinction between your interests and mine genuinely disappears only when we together come to have shared cares, concerns, etc., and my merely having a certain attitude towards you is not enough for love. This provides content to the notion of a “we” as the (metaphorical?) subject of these shared cares and concerns, and as that for whose sake we act.

Solomon (1988) offers a union view as well, though one that tries “to make new sense out of ‘love’ through a literal rather than metaphoric sense of the ‘fusion’ of two souls” (p. 24, cf. Solomon 1981; however, it is unclear exactly what he means by a “soul” here and so how love can be a “literal” fusion of two souls). What Solomon has in mind is the way in which, through love, the lovers redefine their identities as persons in terms of the relationship: “Love is the concentration and the intensive focus of mutual definition on a single individual, subjecting virtually every personal aspect of one’s self to this process” (1988, p. 197). The result is that lovers come to share the interests, roles, virtues, and so on that constitute what formerly was two individual identities but now has become a shared identity, and they do so in part by each allowing the other to play an important role in defining his own identity.

Nozick (1989) offers a union view that differs from those of Scruton, Fisher, and Solomon in that Nozick thinks that what is necessary for love is merely the desire to form a “we,” together with the desire that your beloved reciprocates. Nonetheless, he claims that this “we” is “a new entity in the world…created by a new web of relationships between [the lovers] which makes them no longer separate” (p. 70). In spelling out this web of relationships, Nozick appeals to the lovers “pooling” not only their well-beings, in the sense that the well-being of each is tied up with that of the other, but also their autonomy, in that “each transfers some previous rights to make certain decisions unilaterally into a joint pool” (p. 71). In addition, Nozick claims, the lovers each acquire a new identity as a part of the “we,” a new identity constituted by their (a) wanting to be perceived publicly as a couple, (b) their attending to their pooled well-being, and (c) their accepting a “certain kind of division of labor” (p. 72):

A person in a we might find himself coming across something interesting to read yet leaving it for the other person, not because he himself would not be interested in it but because the other would be more interested, and one of them reading it is sufficient for it to be registered by the wider identity now shared, the we . [ 3 ]

Opponents of the union view have seized on claims like this as excessive: union theorists, they claim, take too literally the ontological commitments of this notion of a “we.” This leads to two specific criticisms of the union view. The first is that union views do away with individual autonomy. Autonomy, it seems, involves a kind of independence on the part of the autonomous agent, such that she is in control over not only what she does but also who she is, as this is constituted by her interests, values, concerns, etc. However, union views, by doing away with a clear distinction between your interests and mine, thereby undermine this sort of independence and so undermine the autonomy of the lovers. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, then, on the union view, love is to this extent bad; so much the worse for the union view (Singer 1994; Soble 1997). Moreover, Singer (1994) argues that a necessary part of having your beloved be the object of your love is respect for your beloved as the particular person she is, and this requires respecting her autonomy.

Union theorists have responded to this objection in several ways. Nozick (1989) seems to think of a loss of autonomy in love as a desirable feature of the sort of union lovers can achieve. Fisher (1990), somewhat more reluctantly, claims that the loss of autonomy in love is an acceptable consequence of love. Yet without further argument these claims seem like mere bullet biting. Solomon (1988, pp. 64ff) describes this “tension” between union and autonomy as “the paradox of love.” However, this a view that Soble (1997) derides: merely to call it a paradox, as Solomon does, is not to face up to the problem.

The second criticism involves a substantive view concerning love. Part of what it is to love someone, these opponents say, is to have concern for him for his sake. However, union views make such concern unintelligible and eliminate the possibility of both selfishness and self-sacrifice, for by doing away with the distinction between my interests and your interests they have in effect turned your interests into mine and vice versa (Soble 1997; see also Blum 1980, 1993). Some advocates of union views see this as a point in their favor: we need to explain how it is I can have concern for people other than myself, and the union view apparently does this by understanding your interests to be part of my own. And Delaney, responding to an apparent tension between our desire to be loved unselfishly (for fear of otherwise being exploited) and our desire to be loved for reasons (which presumably are attractive to our lover and hence have a kind of selfish basis), says (1996, p. 346):

Given my view that the romantic ideal is primarily characterized by a desire to achieve a profound consolidation of needs and interests through the formation of a we , I do not think a little selfishness of the sort described should pose a worry to either party.

The objection, however, lies precisely in this attempt to explain my concern for my beloved egoistically. As Whiting (1991, p. 10) puts it, such an attempt “strikes me as unnecessary and potentially objectionable colonization”: in love, I ought to be concerned with my beloved for her sake, and not because I somehow get something out of it. (This can be true whether my concern with my beloved is merely instrumental to my good or whether it is partly constitutive of my good.)

Although Whiting’s and Soble’s criticisms here succeed against the more radical advocates of the union view, they in part fail to acknowledge the kernel of truth to be gleaned from the idea of union. Whiting’s way of formulating the second objection in terms of an unnecessary egoism in part points to a way out: we persons are in part social creatures, and love is one profound mode of that sociality. Indeed, part of the point of union accounts is to make sense of this social dimension: to make sense of a way in which we can sometimes identify ourselves with others not merely in becoming interdependent with them (as Singer 1994, p. 165, suggests, understanding ‘interdependence’ to be a kind of reciprocal benevolence and respect) but rather in making who we are as persons be constituted in part by those we love (cf., e.g., Rorty 1986/1993; Nussbaum 1990).

Along these lines, Friedman (1998), taking her inspiration in part from Delaney (1996), argues that we should understand the sort of union at issue in love to be a kind of federation of selves:

On the federation model, a third unified entity is constituted by the interaction of the lovers, one which involves the lovers acting in concert across a range of conditions and for a range of purposes. This concerted action, however, does not erase the existence of the two lovers as separable and separate agents with continuing possibilities for the exercise of their own respective agencies. [p. 165]

Given that on this view the lovers do not give up their individual identities, there is no principled reason why the union view cannot make sense of the lover’s concern for her beloved for his sake. [ 4 ] Moreover, Friedman argues, once we construe union as federation, we can see that autonomy is not a zero-sum game; rather, love can both directly enhance the autonomy of each and promote the growth of various skills, like realistic and critical self-evaluation, that foster autonomy.

Nonetheless, this federation model is not without its problems—problems that affect other versions of the union view as well. For if the federation (or the “we”, as on Nozick’s view) is understood as a third entity, we need a clearer account than has been given of its ontological status and how it comes to be. Relevant here is the literature on shared intention and plural subjects. Gilbert (1989, 1996, 2000) has argued that we should take quite seriously the existence of a plural subject as an entity over and above its constituent members. Others, such as Tuomela (1984, 1995), Searle (1990), and Bratman (1999) are more cautious, treating such talk of “us” having an intention as metaphorical.

As this criticism of the union view indicates, many find caring about your beloved for her sake to be a part of what it is to love her. The robust concern view of love takes this to be the central and defining feature of love (cf. Taylor 1976; Newton-Smith 1989; Soble 1990, 1997; LaFollette 1996; Frankfurt 1999; White 2001). As Taylor puts it:

To summarize: if x loves y then x wants to benefit and be with y etc., and he has these wants (or at least some of them) because he believes y has some determinate characteristics ψ in virtue of which he thinks it worth while to benefit and be with y . He regards satisfaction of these wants as an end and not as a means towards some other end. [p. 157]

In conceiving of my love for you as constituted by my concern for you for your sake, the robust concern view rejects the idea, central to the union view, that love is to be understood in terms of the (literal or metaphorical) creation of a “we”: I am the one who has this concern for you, though it is nonetheless disinterested and so not egoistic insofar as it is for your sake rather than for my own. [ 5 ]

At the heart of the robust concern view is the idea that love “is neither affective nor cognitive. It is volitional” (Frankfurt 1999, p. 129; see also Martin 2015). Frankfurt continues:

That a person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or with his opinions about them, than with the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and that guide and limit his conduct.

This account analyzes caring about someone for her sake as a matter of being motivated in certain ways, in part as a response to what happens to one’s beloved. Of course, to understand love in terms of desires is not to leave other emotional responses out in the cold, for these emotions should be understood as consequences of desires. Thus, just as I can be emotionally crushed when one of my strong desires is disappointed, so too I can be emotionally crushed when things similarly go badly for my beloved. In this way Frankfurt (1999) tacitly, and White (2001) more explicitly, acknowledge the way in which my caring for my beloved for her sake results in my identity being transformed through her influence insofar as I become vulnerable to things that happen to her.

Not all robust concern theorists seem to accept this line, however; in particular, Taylor (1976) and Soble (1990) seem to have a strongly individualistic conception of persons that prevents my identity being bound up with my beloved in this sort of way, a kind of view that may seem to undermine the intuitive “depth” that love seems to have. (For more on this point, see Rorty 1986/1993.) In the middle is Stump (2006), who follows Aquinas in understanding love to involve not only the desire for your beloved’s well-being but also a desire for a certain kind of relationship with your beloved—as a parent or spouse or sibling or priest or friend, for example—a relationship within which you share yourself with and connect yourself to your beloved. [ 6 ]

One source of worry about the robust concern view is that it involves too passive an understanding of one’s beloved (Ebels-Duggan 2008). The thought is that on the robust concern view the lover merely tries to discover what the beloved’s well-being consists in and then acts to promote that, potentially by thwarting the beloved’s own efforts when the lover thinks those efforts would harm her well-being. This, however, would be disrespectful and demeaning, not the sort of attitude that love is. What robust concern views seem to miss, Ebels-Duggan suggests, is the way love involves interacting agents, each with a capacity for autonomy the recognition and engagement with which is an essential part of love. In response, advocates of the robust concern view might point out that promoting someone’s well-being normally requires promoting her autonomy (though they may maintain that this need not always be true: that paternalism towards a beloved can sometimes be justified and appropriate as an expression of one’s love). Moreover, we might plausibly think, it is only through the exercise of one’s autonomy that one can define one’s own well-being as a person, so that a lover’s failure to respect the beloved’s autonomy would be a failure to promote her well-being and therefore not an expression of love, contrary to what Ebels-Duggan suggests. Consequently, it might seem, robust concern views can counter this objection by offering an enriched conception of what it is to be a person and so of the well-being of persons.

Another source of worry is that the robust concern view offers too thin a conception of love. By emphasizing robust concern, this view understands other features we think characteristic of love, such as one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved, to be the effects of that concern rather than constituents of it. Thus Velleman (1999) argues that robust concern views, by understanding love merely as a matter of aiming at a particular end (viz., the welfare of one’s beloved), understand love to be merely conative. However, he claims, love can have nothing to do with desires, offering as a counterexample the possibility of loving a troublemaking relation whom you do not want to be with, whose well being you do not want to promote, etc. Similarly, Badhwar (2003) argues that such a “teleological” view of love makes it mysterious how “we can continue to love someone long after death has taken him beyond harm or benefit” (p. 46). Moreover Badhwar argues, if love is essentially a desire, then it implies that we lack something; yet love does not imply this and, indeed, can be felt most strongly at times when we feel our lives most complete and lacking in nothing. Consequently, Velleman and Badhwar conclude, love need not involve any desire or concern for the well-being of one’s beloved.

This conclusion, however, seems too hasty, for such examples can be accommodated within the robust concern view. Thus, the concern for your relative in Velleman’s example can be understood to be present but swamped by other, more powerful desires to avoid him. Indeed, keeping the idea that you want to some degree to benefit him, an idea Velleman rejects, seems to be essential to understanding the conceptual tension between loving someone and not wanting to help him, a tension Velleman does not fully acknowledge. Similarly, continued love for someone who has died can be understood on the robust concern view as parasitic on the former love you had for him when he was still alive: your desires to benefit him get transformed, through your subsequent understanding of the impossibility of doing so, into wishes. [ 7 ] Finally, the idea of concern for your beloved’s well-being need not imply the idea that you lack something, for such concern can be understood in terms of the disposition to be vigilant for occasions when you can come to his aid and consequently to have the relevant occurrent desires. All of this seems fully compatible with the robust concern view.

One might also question whether Velleman and Badhwar make proper use of their examples of loving your meddlesome relation or someone who has died. For although we can understand these as genuine cases of love, they are nonetheless deficient cases and ought therefore be understood as parasitic on the standard cases. Readily to accommodate such deficient cases of love into a philosophical analysis as being on a par with paradigm cases, and to do so without some special justification, is dubious.

Nonetheless, the robust concern view as it stands does not seem properly able to account for the intuitive “depth” of love and so does not seem properly to distinguish loving from liking. Although, as noted above, the robust concern view can begin to make some sense of the way in which the lover’s identity is altered by the beloved, it understands this only an effect of love, and not as a central part of what love consists in.

This vague thought is nicely developed by Wonderly (2017), who emphasizes that in addition to the sort of disinterested concern for another that is central to robust-concern accounts of love, an essential part of at least romantic love is the idea that in loving someone I must find them to be not merely important for their own sake but also important to me . Wonderly (2017) fleshes out what this “importance to me” involves in terms of the idea of attachment (developed in Wonderly 2016) that she argues can make sense of the intimacy and depth of love from within what remains fundamentally a robust-concern account. [ 8 ]

4. Love as Valuing

A third kind of view of love understands love to be a distinctive mode of valuing a person. As the distinction between eros and agape in Section 1 indicates, there are at least two ways to construe this in terms of whether the lover values the beloved because she is valuable, or whether the beloved comes to be valuable to the lover as a result of her loving him. The former view, which understands the lover as appraising the value of the beloved in loving him, is the topic of Section 4.1 , whereas the latter view, which understands her as bestowing value on him, will be discussed in Section 4.2 .

Velleman (1999, 2008) offers an appraisal view of love, understanding love to be fundamentally a matter of acknowledging and responding in a distinctive way to the value of the beloved. (For a very different appraisal view of love, see Kolodny 2003.) Understanding this more fully requires understanding both the kind of value of the beloved to which one responds and the distinctive kind of response to such value that love is. Nonetheless, it should be clear that what makes an account be an appraisal view of love is not the mere fact that love is understood to involve appraisal; many other accounts do so, and it is typical of robust concern accounts, for example (cf. the quote from Taylor above , Section 3 ). Rather, appraisal views are distinctive in understanding love to consist in that appraisal.

In articulating the kind of value love involves, Velleman, following Kant, distinguishes dignity from price. To have a price , as the economic metaphor suggests, is to have a value that can be compared to the value of other things with prices, such that it is intelligible to exchange without loss items of the same value. By contrast, to have dignity is to have a value such that comparisons of relative value become meaningless. Material goods are normally understood to have prices, but we persons have dignity: no substitution of one person for another can preserve exactly the same value, for something of incomparable worth would be lost (and gained) in such a substitution.

On this Kantian view, our dignity as persons consists in our rational nature: our capacity both to be actuated by reasons that we autonomously provide ourselves in setting our own ends and to respond appropriately to the intrinsic values we discover in the world. Consequently, one important way in which we exercise our rational natures is to respond with respect to the dignity of other persons (a dignity that consists in part in their capacity for respect): respect just is the required minimal response to the dignity of persons. What makes a response to a person be that of respect, Velleman claims, still following Kant, is that it “arrests our self-love” and thereby prevents us from treating him as a means to our ends (p. 360).

Given this, Velleman claims that love is similarly a response to the dignity of persons, and as such it is the dignity of the object of our love that justifies that love. However, love and respect are different kinds of responses to the same value. For love arrests not our self-love but rather

our tendencies toward emotional self-protection from another person, tendencies to draw ourselves in and close ourselves off from being affected by him. Love disarms our emotional defenses; it makes us vulnerable to the other. [1999, p. 361]

This means that the concern, attraction, sympathy, etc. that we normally associate with love are not constituents of love but are rather its normal effects, and love can remain without them (as in the case of the love for a meddlesome relative one cannot stand being around). Moreover, this provides Velleman with a clear account of the intuitive “depth” of love: it is essentially a response to persons as such, and to say that you love your dog is therefore to be confused.

Of course, we do not respond with love to the dignity of every person we meet, nor are we somehow required to: love, as the disarming of our emotional defenses in a way that makes us especially vulnerable to another, is the optional maximal response to others’ dignity. What, then, explains the selectivity of love—why I love some people and not others? The answer lies in the contingent fit between the way some people behaviorally express their dignity as persons and the way I happen to respond to those expressions by becoming emotionally vulnerable to them. The right sort of fit makes someone “lovable” by me (1999, p. 372), and my responding with love in these cases is a matter of my “really seeing” this person in a way that I fail to do with others who do not fit with me in this way. By ‘lovable’ here Velleman seems to mean able to be loved, not worthy of being loved, for nothing Velleman says here speaks to a question about the justification of my loving this person rather than that. Rather, what he offers is an explanation of the selectivity of my love, an explanation that as a matter of fact makes my response be that of love rather than mere respect.

This understanding of the selectivity of love as something that can be explained but not justified is potentially troubling. For we ordinarily think we can justify not only my loving you rather than someone else but also and more importantly the constancy of my love: my continuing to love you even as you change in certain fundamental ways (but not others). As Delaney (1996, p. 347) puts the worry about constancy:

while you seem to want it to be true that, were you to become a schmuck, your lover would continue to love you,…you also want it to be the case that your lover would never love a schmuck.

The issue here is not merely that we can offer explanations of the selectivity of my love, of why I do not love schmucks; rather, at issue is the discernment of love, of loving and continuing to love for good reasons as well as of ceasing to love for good reasons. To have these good reasons seems to involve attributing different values to you now rather than formerly or rather than to someone else, yet this is precisely what Velleman denies is the case in making the distinction between love and respect the way he does.

It is also questionable whether Velleman can even explain the selectivity of love in terms of the “fit” between your expressions and my sensitivities. For the relevant sensitivities on my part are emotional sensitivities: the lowering of my emotional defenses and so becoming emotionally vulnerable to you. Thus, I become vulnerable to the harms (or goods) that befall you and so sympathetically feel your pain (or joy). Such emotions are themselves assessable for warrant, and now we can ask why my disappointment that you lost the race is warranted, but my being disappointed that a mere stranger lost would not be warranted. The intuitive answer is that I love you but not him. However, this answer is unavailable to Velleman, because he thinks that what makes my response to your dignity that of love rather than respect is precisely that I feel such emotions, and to appeal to my love in explaining the emotions therefore seems viciously circular.

Although these problems are specific to Velleman’s account, the difficulty can be generalized to any appraisal account of love (such as that offered in Kolodny 2003). For if love is an appraisal, it needs to be distinguished from other forms of appraisal, including our evaluative judgments. On the one hand, to try to distinguish love as an appraisal from other appraisals in terms of love’s having certain effects on our emotional and motivational life (as on Velleman’s account) is unsatisfying because it ignores part of what needs to be explained: why the appraisal of love has these effects and yet judgments with the same evaluative content do not. Indeed, this question is crucial if we are to understand the intuitive “depth” of love, for without an answer to this question we do not understand why love should have the kind of centrality in our lives it manifestly does. [ 9 ] On the other hand, to bundle this emotional component into the appraisal itself would be to turn the view into either the robust concern view ( Section 3 ) or a variant of the emotion view ( Section 5.1 ).

In contrast to Velleman, Singer (1991, 1994, 2009) understands love to be fundamentally a matter of bestowing value on the beloved. To bestow value on another is to project a kind of intrinsic value onto him. Indeed, this fact about love is supposed to distinguish love from liking: “Love is an attitude with no clear objective,” whereas liking is inherently teleological (1991, p. 272). As such, there are no standards of correctness for bestowing such value, and this is how love differs from other personal attitudes like gratitude, generosity, and condescension: “love…confers importance no matter what the object is worth” (p. 273). Consequently, Singer thinks, love is not an attitude that can be justified in any way.

What is it, exactly, to bestow this kind of value on someone? It is, Singer says, a kind of attachment and commitment to the beloved, in which one comes to treat him as an end in himself and so to respond to his ends, interests, concerns, etc. as having value for their own sake. This means in part that the bestowal of value reveals itself “by caring about the needs and interests of the beloved, by wishing to benefit or protect her, by delighting in her achievements,” etc. (p. 270). This sounds very much like the robust concern view, yet the bestowal view differs in understanding such robust concern to be the effect of the bestowal of value that is love rather than itself what constitutes love: in bestowing value on my beloved, I make him be valuable in such a way that I ought to respond with robust concern.

For it to be intelligible that I have bestowed value on someone, I must therefore respond appropriately to him as valuable, and this requires having some sense of what his well-being is and of what affects that well-being positively or negatively. Yet having this sense requires in turn knowing what his strengths and deficiencies are, and this is a matter of appraising him in various ways. Bestowal thus presupposes a kind of appraisal, as a way of “really seeing” the beloved and attending to him. Nonetheless, Singer claims, it is the bestowal that is primary for understanding what love consists in: the appraisal is required only so that the commitment to one’s beloved and his value as thus bestowed has practical import and is not “a blind submission to some unknown being” (1991, p. 272; see also Singer 1994, pp. 139ff).

Singer is walking a tightrope in trying to make room for appraisal in his account of love. Insofar as the account is fundamentally a bestowal account, Singer claims that love cannot be justified, that we bestow the relevant kind of value “gratuitously.” This suggests that love is blind, that it does not matter what our beloved is like, which seems patently false. Singer tries to avoid this conclusion by appealing to the role of appraisal: it is only because we appraise another as having certain virtues and vices that we come to bestow value on him. Yet the “because” here, since it cannot justify the bestowal, is at best a kind of contingent causal explanation. [ 10 ] In this respect, Singer’s account of the selectivity of love is much the same as Velleman’s, and it is liable to the same criticism: it makes unintelligible the way in which our love can be discerning for better or worse reasons. Indeed, this failure to make sense of the idea that love can be justified is a problem for any bestowal view. For either (a) a bestowal itself cannot be justified (as on Singer’s account), in which case the justification of love is impossible, or (b) a bestowal can be justified, in which case it is hard to make sense of value as being bestowed rather than there antecedently in the object as the grounds of that “bestowal.”

More generally, a proponent of the bestowal view needs to be much clearer than Singer is in articulating precisely what a bestowal is. What is the value that I create in a bestowal, and how can my bestowal create it? On a crude Humean view, the answer might be that the value is something projected onto the world through my pro-attitudes, like desire. Yet such a view would be inadequate, since the projected value, being relative to a particular individual, would do no theoretical work, and the account would essentially be a variant of the robust concern view. Moreover, in providing a bestowal account of love, care is needed to distinguish love from other personal attitudes such as admiration and respect: do these other attitudes involve bestowal? If so, how does the bestowal in these cases differ from the bestowal of love? If not, why not, and what is so special about love that requires a fundamentally different evaluative attitude than admiration and respect?

Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the bestowal view: there is surely something right about the idea that love is creative and not merely a response to antecedent value, and accounts of love that understand the kind of evaluation implicit in love merely in terms of appraisal seem to be missing something. Precisely what may be missed will be discussed below in Section 6 .

Perhaps there is room for an understanding of love and its relation to value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal accounts. After all, if we think of appraisal as something like perception, a matter of responding to what is out there in the world, and of bestowal as something like action, a matter of doing something and creating something, we should recognize that the responsiveness central to appraisal may itself depend on our active, creative choices. Thus, just as we must recognize that ordinary perception depends on our actively directing our attention and deploying concepts, interpretations, and even arguments in order to perceive things accurately, so too we might think our vision of our beloved’s valuable properties that is love also depends on our actively attending to and interpreting him. Something like this is Jollimore’s view (2011). According to Jollimore, in loving someone we actively attend to his valuable properties in a way that we take to provide us with reasons to treat him preferentially. Although we may acknowledge that others might have such properties even to a greater degree than our beloved does, we do not attend to and appreciate such properties in others in the same way we do those in our beloveds; indeed, we find our appreciation of our beloved’s valuable properties to “silence” our similar appreciation of those in others. (In this way, Jollimore thinks, we can solve the problem of fungibility, discussed below in Section 6 .) Likewise, in perceiving our beloved’s actions and character, we do so through the lens of such an appreciation, which will tend as to “silence” interpretations inconsistent with that appreciation. In this way, love involves finding one’s beloved to be valuable in a way that involves elements of both appraisal (insofar as one must thereby be responsive to valuable properties one’s beloved really has) and bestowal (insofar as through one’s attention and committed appreciation of these properties they come to have special significance for one).

One might object that this conception of love as silencing the special value of others or to negative interpretations of our beloveds is irrational in a way that love is not. For, it might seem, such “silencing” is merely a matter of our blinding ourselves to how things really are. Yet Jollimore claims that this sense in which love is blind is not objectionable, for (a) we can still intellectually recognize the things that love’s vision silences, and (b) there really is no impartial perspective we can take on the values things have, and love is one appropriate sort of partial perspective from which the value of persons can be manifest. Nonetheless, one might wonder about whether that perspective of love itself can be distorted and what the norms are in terms of which such distortions are intelligible. Furthermore, it may seem that Jollimore’s attempt to reconcile appraisal and bestowal fails to appreciate the underlying metaphysical difficulty: appraisal is a response to value that is antecedently there, whereas bestowal is the creation of value that was not antecedently there. Consequently, it might seem, appraisal and bestowal are mutually exclusive and cannot be reconciled in the way Jollimore hopes.

Whereas Jollimore tries to combine separate elements of appraisal and of bestowal in a single account, Helm (2010) and Bagley (2015) offer accounts that reject the metaphysical presupposition that values must be either prior to love (as with appraisal) or posterior to love (as with bestowal), instead understanding the love and the values to emerge simultaneously. Thus, Helm presents a detailed account of valuing in terms of the emotions, arguing that while we can understand individual emotions as appraisals , responding to values already their in their objects, these values are bestowed on those objects via broad, holistic patterns of emotions. How this amounts to an account of love will be discussed in Section 5.2 , below. Bagley (2015) instead appeals to a metaphor of improvisation, arguing that just as jazz musicians jointly make determinate the content of their musical ideas through on-going processes of their expression, so too lovers jointly engage in “deep improvisation”, thereby working out of their values and identities through the on-going process of living their lives together. These values are thus something the lovers jointly construct through the process of recognizing and responding to those very values. To love someone is thus to engage with them as partners in such “deep improvisation”. (This account is similar to Helm (2008, 2010)’s account of plural agency, which he uses to provide an account of friendship and other loving relationships; see the discussion of shared activity in the entry on friendship .)

5. Emotion Views

Given these problems with the accounts of love as valuing, perhaps we should turn to the emotions. For emotions just are responses to objects that combine evaluation, motivation, and a kind of phenomenology, all central features of the attitude of love.

Many accounts of love claim that it is an emotion; these include: Wollheim 1984, Rorty 1986/1993, Brown 1987, Hamlyn 1989, Baier 1991, and Badhwar 2003. [ 11 ] Thus, Hamlyn (1989, p. 219) says:

It would not be a plausible move to defend any theory of the emotions to which love and hate seemed exceptions by saying that love and hate are after all not emotions. I have heard this said, but it does seem to me a desperate move to make. If love and hate are not emotions what is?

The difficulty with this claim, as Rorty (1980) argues, is that the word, ‘emotion,’ does not seem to pick out a homogeneous collection of mental states, and so various theories claiming that love is an emotion mean very different things. Consequently, what are here labeled “emotion views” are divided into those that understand love to be a particular kind of evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object, whether that response is merely occurrent or dispositional (‘emotions proper,’ see Section 5.1 , below), and those that understand love to involve a collection of related and interconnected emotions proper (‘emotion complexes,’ see Section 5.2 , below).

An emotion proper is a kind of “evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object”; what does this mean? Emotions are generally understood to have several objects. The target of an emotion is that at which the emotion is directed: if I am afraid or angry at you, then you are the target. In responding to you with fear or anger, I am implicitly evaluating you in a particular way, and this evaluation—called the formal object —is the kind of evaluation of the target that is distinctive of a particular emotion type. Thus, in fearing you, I implicitly evaluate you as somehow dangerous, whereas in being angry at you I implicitly evaluate you as somehow offensive. Yet emotions are not merely evaluations of their targets; they in part motivate us to behave in certain ways, both rationally (by motivating action to avoid the danger) and arationally (via certain characteristic expressions, such as slamming a door out of anger). Moreover, emotions are generally understood to involve a phenomenological component, though just how to understand the characteristic “feel” of an emotion and its relation to the evaluation and motivation is hotly disputed. Finally, emotions are typically understood to be passions: responses that we feel imposed on us as if from the outside, rather than anything we actively do. (For more on the philosophy of emotions, see entry on emotion .)

What then are we saying when we say that love is an emotion proper? According to Brown (1987, p. 14), emotions as occurrent mental states are “abnormal bodily changes caused by the agent’s evaluation or appraisal of some object or situation that the agent believes to be of concern to him or her.” He spells this out by saying that in love, we “cherish” the person for having “a particular complex of instantiated qualities” that is “open-ended” so that we can continue to love the person even as she changes over time (pp. 106–7). These qualities, which include historical and relational qualities, are evaluated in love as worthwhile. [ 12 ] All of this seems aimed at spelling out what love’s formal object is, a task that is fundamental to understanding love as an emotion proper. Thus, Brown seems to say that love’s formal object is just being worthwhile (or, given his examples, perhaps: worthwhile as a person), and he resists being any more specific than this in order to preserve the open-endedness of love. Hamlyn (1989) offers a similar account, saying (p. 228):

With love the difficulty is to find anything of this kind [i.e., a formal object] which is uniquely appropriate to love. My thesis is that there is nothing of this kind that must be so, and that this differentiates it and hate from the other emotions.

Hamlyn goes on to suggest that love and hate might be primordial emotions, a kind of positive or negative “feeling towards,” presupposed by all other emotions. [ 13 ]

The trouble with these accounts of love as an emotion proper is that they provide too thin a conception of love. In Hamlyn’s case, love is conceived as a fairly generic pro-attitude, rather than as the specific kind of distinctively personal attitude discussed here. In Brown’s case, spelling out the formal object of love as simply being worthwhile (as a person) fails to distinguish love from other evaluative responses like admiration and respect. Part of the problem seems to be the rather simple account of what an emotion is that Brown and Hamlyn use as their starting point: if love is an emotion, then the understanding of what an emotion is must be enriched considerably to accommodate love. Yet it is not at all clear whether the idea of an “emotion proper” can be adequately enriched so as to do so. As Pismenny & Prinz (2017) point out, love seems to be too varied both in its ground and in the sort of experience it involves to be capturable by a single emotion.

The emotion complex view, which understands love to be a complex emotional attitude towards another person, may initially seem to hold out great promise to overcome the problems of alternative types of views. By articulating the emotional interconnections between persons, it could offer a satisfying account of the “depth” of love without the excesses of the union view and without the overly narrow teleological focus of the robust concern view; and because these emotional interconnections are themselves evaluations, it could offer an understanding of love as simultaneously evaluative, without needing to specify a single formal object of love. However, the devil is in the details.

Rorty (1986/1993) does not try to present a complete account of love; rather, she focuses on the idea that “relational psychological attitudes” which, like love, essentially involve emotional and desiderative responses, exhibit historicity : “they arise from, and are shaped by, dynamic interactions between a subject and an object” (p. 73). In part this means that what makes an attitude be one of love is not the presence of a state that we can point to at a particular time within the lover; rather, love is to be “identified by a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75). Moreover, Rorty argues, the historicity of love involves the lover’s being permanently transformed by loving who he does.

Baier (1991), seeming to pick up on this understanding of love as exhibiting historicity, says (p. 444):

Love is not just an emotion people feel toward other people, but also a complex tying together of the emotions that two or a few more people have; it is a special form of emotional interdependence.

To a certain extent, such emotional interdependence involves feeling sympathetic emotions, so that, for example, I feel disappointed and frustrated on behalf of my beloved when she fails, and joyful when she succeeds. However, Baier insists, love is “more than just the duplication of the emotion of each in a sympathetic echo in the other” (p. 442); the emotional interdependence of the lovers involves also appropriate follow-up responses to the emotional predicaments of your beloved. Two examples Baier gives (pp. 443–44) are a feeling of “mischievous delight” at your beloved’s temporary bafflement, and amusement at her embarrassment. The idea is that in a loving relationship your beloved gives you permission to feel such emotions when no one else is permitted to do so, and a condition of her granting you that permission is that you feel these emotions “tenderly.” Moreover, you ought to respond emotionally to your beloved’s emotional responses to you: by feeling hurt when she is indifferent to you, for example. All of these foster the sort of emotional interdependence Baier is after—a kind of intimacy you have with your beloved.

Badhwar (2003, p. 46) similarly understands love to be a matter of “one’s overall emotional orientation towards a person—the complex of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings”; as such, love is a matter of having a certain “character structure.” Central to this complex emotional orientation, Badhwar thinks, is what she calls the “look of love”: “an ongoing [emotional] affirmation of the loved object as worthy of existence…for her own sake” (p. 44), an affirmation that involves taking pleasure in your beloved’s well-being. Moreover, Badhwar claims, the look of love also provides to the beloved reliable testimony concerning the quality of the beloved’s character and actions (p. 57).

There is surely something very right about the idea that love, as an attitude central to deeply personal relationships, should not be understood as a state that can simply come and go. Rather, as the emotion complex view insists, the complexity of love is to be found in the historical patterns of one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved—a pattern that also projects into the future. Indeed, as suggested above, the kind of emotional interdependence that results from this complex pattern can seem to account for the intuitive “depth” of love as fully interwoven into one’s emotional sense of oneself. And it seems to make some headway in understanding the complex phenomenology of love: love can at times be a matter of intense pleasure in the presence of one’s beloved, yet it can at other times involve frustration, exasperation, anger, and hurt as a manifestation of the complexities and depth of the relationships it fosters.

This understanding of love as constituted by a history of emotional interdependence enables emotion complex views to say something interesting about the impact love has on the lover’s identity. This is partly Rorty’s point (1986/1993) in her discussion of the historicity of love ( above ). Thus, she argues, one important feature of such historicity is that love is “ dynamically permeable ” in that the lover is continually “changed by loving” such that these changes “tend to ramify through a person’s character” (p. 77). Through such dynamic permeability, love transforms the identity of the lover in a way that can sometimes foster the continuity of the love, as each lover continually changes in response to the changes in the other. [ 14 ] Indeed, Rorty concludes, love should be understood in terms of “a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75) that results from such dynamic permeability. It should be clear, however, that the mere fact of dynamic permeability need not result in the love’s continuing: nothing about the dynamics of a relationship requires that the characteristic narrative history project into the future, and such permeability can therefore lead to the dissolution of the love. Love is therefore risky—indeed, all the more risky because of the way the identity of the lover is defined in part through the love. The loss of a love can therefore make one feel no longer oneself in ways poignantly described by Nussbaum (1990).

By focusing on such emotionally complex histories, emotion complex views differ from most alternative accounts of love. For alternative accounts tend to view love as a kind of attitude we take toward our beloveds, something we can analyze simply in terms of our mental state at the moment. [ 15 ] By ignoring this historical dimension of love in providing an account of what love is, alternative accounts have a hard time providing either satisfying accounts of the sense in which our identities as person are at stake in loving another or satisfactory solutions to problems concerning how love is to be justified (cf. Section 6 , especially the discussion of fungibility ).

Nonetheless, some questions remain. If love is to be understood as an emotion complex, we need a much more explicit account of the pattern at issue here: what ties all of these emotional responses together into a single thing, namely love? Baier and Badhwar seem content to provide interesting and insightful examples of this pattern, but that does not seem to be enough. For example, what connects my amusement at my beloved’s embarrassment to other emotions like my joy on his behalf when he succeeds? Why shouldn’t my amusement at his embarrassment be understood instead as a somewhat cruel case of schadenfreude and so as antithetical to, and disconnected from, love? Moreover, as Naar (2013) notes, we need a principled account of when such historical patterns are disrupted in such a way as to end the love and when they are not. Do I stop loving when, in the midst of clinical depression, I lose my normal pattern of emotional concern?

Presumably the answer requires returning to the historicity of love: it all depends on the historical details of the relationship my beloved and I have forged. Some loves develop so that the intimacy within the relationship is such as to allow for tender, teasing responses to each other, whereas other loves may not. The historical details, together with the lovers’ understanding of their relationship, presumably determine which emotional responses belong to the pattern constitutive of love and which do not. However, this answer so far is inadequate: not just any historical relationship involving emotional interdependence is a loving relationship, and we need a principled way of distinguishing loving relationships from other relational evaluative attitudes: precisely what is the characteristic narrative history that is characteristic of love?

Helm (2009, 2010) tries to answer some of these questions in presenting an account of love as intimate identification. To love another, Helm claims, is to care about him as the particular person he is and so, other things being equal, to value the things he values. Insofar as a person’s (structured) set of values—his sense of the kind of life worth his living—constitutes his identity as a person, such sharing of values amounts to sharing his identity, which sounds very much like union accounts of love. However, Helm is careful to understand such sharing of values as for the sake of the beloved (as robust concern accounts insist), and he spells this all out in terms of patterns of emotions. Thus, Helm claims, all emotions have not only a target and a formal object (as indicated above), but also a focus : a background object the subject cares about in terms of which the implicit evaluation of the target is made intelligible. (For example, if I am afraid of the approaching hailstorm, I thereby evaluate it as dangerous, and what explains this evaluation is the way that hailstorm bears on my vegetable garden, which I care about; my garden, therefore, is the focus of my fear.) Moreover, emotions normally come in patterns with a common focus: fearing the hailstorm is normally connected to other emotions as being relieved when it passes by harmlessly (or disappointed or sad when it does not), being angry at the rabbits for killing the spinach, delighted at the productivity of the tomato plants, etc. Helm argues that a projectible pattern of such emotions with a common focus constitute caring about that focus. Consequently, we might say along the lines of Section 4.3 , while particular emotions appraise events in the world as having certain evaluative properties, their having these properties is partly bestowed on them by the overall patterns of emotions.

Helm identifies some emotions as person-focused emotions : emotions like pride and shame that essentially take persons as their focuses, for these emotions implicitly evaluate in terms of the target’s bearing on the quality of life of the person that is their focus. To exhibit a pattern of such emotions focused on oneself and subfocused on being a mother, for example, is to care about the place being a mother has in the kind of life you find worth living—in your identity as a person; to care in this way is to value being a mother as a part of your concern for your own identity. Likewise, to exhibit a projectible pattern of such emotions focused on someone else and subfocused on his being a father is to value this as a part of your concern for his identity—to value it for his sake. Such sharing of another’s values for his sake, which, Helm argues, essentially involves trust, respect, and affection, amounts to intimate identification with him, and such intimate identification just is love. Thus, Helm tries to provide an account of love that is grounded in an explicit account of caring (and caring about something for the sake of someone else) that makes room for the intuitive “depth” of love through intimate identification.

Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) argue that Helm’s construal of intimacy as intimate identification is too demanding. Rather, they argue, the sort of intimacy that distinguishes love from mere caring is one that involves a kind of emotional vulnerability in which things going well or poorly for one’s beloved are directly connected not merely to one’s well-being, but to one’s ability to flourish. This connection, they argue, runs through the lover’s self-understanding and the place the beloved has in the lover’s sense of a meaningful life.

Why do we love? It has been suggested above that any account of love needs to be able to answer some such justificatory question. Although the issue of the justification of love is important on its own, it is also important for the implications it has for understanding more clearly the precise object of love: how can we make sense of the intuitions not only that we love the individuals themselves rather than their properties, but also that my beloved is not fungible—that no one could simply take her place without loss. Different theories approach these questions in different ways, but, as will become clear below, the question of justification is primary.

One way to understand the question of why we love is as asking for what the value of love is: what do we get out of it? One kind of answer, which has its roots in Aristotle, is that having loving relationships promotes self-knowledge insofar as your beloved acts as a kind of mirror, reflecting your character back to you (Badhwar, 2003, p. 58). Of course, this answer presupposes that we cannot accurately know ourselves in other ways: that left alone, our sense of ourselves will be too imperfect, too biased, to help us grow and mature as persons. The metaphor of a mirror also suggests that our beloveds will be in the relevant respects similar to us, so that merely by observing them, we can come to know ourselves better in a way that is, if not free from bias, at least more objective than otherwise.

Brink (1999, pp. 264–65) argues that there are serious limits to the value of such mirroring of one’s self in a beloved. For if the aim is not just to know yourself better but to improve yourself, you ought also to interact with others who are not just like yourself: interacting with such diverse others can help you recognize alternative possibilities for how to live and so better assess the relative merits of these possibilities. Whiting (2013) also emphasizes the importance of our beloveds’ having an independent voice capable of reflecting not who one now is but an ideal for who one is to be. Nonetheless, we need not take the metaphor of the mirror quite so literally; rather, our beloveds can reflect our selves not through their inherent similarity to us but rather through the interpretations they offer of us, both explicitly and implicitly in their responses to us. This is what Badhwar calls the “epistemic significance” of love. [ 16 ]

In addition to this epistemic significance of love, LaFollette (1996, Chapter 5) offers several other reasons why it is good to love, reasons derived in part from the psychological literature on love: love increases our sense of well-being, it elevates our sense of self-worth, and it serves to develop our character. It also, we might add, tends to lower stress and blood pressure and to increase health and longevity. Friedman (1993) argues that the kind of partiality towards our beloveds that love involves is itself morally valuable because it supports relationships—loving relationships—that contribute “to human well-being, integrity, and fulfillment in life” (p. 61). And Solomon (1988, p. 155) claims:

Ultimately, there is only one reason for love. That one grand reason…is “because we bring out the best in each other.” What counts as “the best,” of course, is subject to much individual variation.

This is because, Solomon suggests, in loving someone, I want myself to be better so as to be worthy of his love for me.

Each of these answers to the question of why we love understands it to be asking about love quite generally, abstracted away from details of particular relationships. It is also possible to understand the question as asking about particular loves. Here, there are several questions that are relevant:

• What, if anything, justifies my loving rather than not loving this particular person?
• What, if anything, justifies my coming to love this particular person rather than someone else?
• What, if anything, justifies my continuing to love this particular person given the changes—both in him and me and in the overall circumstances—that have occurred since I began loving him?

These are importantly different questions. Velleman (1999), for example, thinks we can answer (1) by appealing to the fact that my beloved is a person and so has a rational nature, yet he thinks (2) and (3) have no answers: the best we can do is offer causal explanations for our loving particular people, a position echoed by Han (2021). Setiya (2014) similarly thinks (1) has an answer, but points not to the rational nature of persons but rather to the other’s humanity , where such humanity differs from personhood in that not all humans need have the requisite rational nature for personhood, and not all persons need be humans. And, as will become clear below , the distinction between (2) and (3) will become important in resolving puzzles concerning whether our beloveds are fungible, though it should be clear that (3) potentially raises questions concerning personal identity (which will not be addressed here).

It is important not to misconstrue these justificatory questions. Thomas (1991) , for example, rejects the idea that love can be justified: “there are no rational considerations whereby anyone can lay claim to another’s love or insist that an individual’s love for another is irrational” (p. 474). This is because, Thomas claims (p. 471):

no matter how wonderful and lovely an individual might be, on any and all accounts, it is simply false that a romantically unencumbered person must love that individual on pain of being irrational. Or, there is no irrationality involved in ceasing to love a person whom one once loved immensely, although the person has not changed.

However, as LaFollette (1996, p. 63) correctly points out,

reason is not some external power which dictates how we should behave, but an internal power, integral to who we are.… Reason does not command that we love anyone. Nonetheless, reason is vital in determining whom we love and why we love them.

That is, reasons for love are pro tanto : they are a part of the overall reasons we have for acting, and it is up to us in exercising our capacity for agency to decide what on balance we have reason to do or even whether we shall act contrary to our reasons. To construe the notion of a reason for love as compelling us to love, as Thomas does, is to misconstrue the place such reasons have within our agency. [ 17 ]

Most philosophical discussions of the justification of love focus on question (1) , thinking that answering this question will also, to the extent that we can, answer question (2) , which is typically not distinguished from (3) . The answers given to these questions vary in a way that turns on how the kind of evaluation implicit in love is construed. On the one hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of the bestowal of value (such as Telfer 1970–71; Friedman 1993; Singer 1994) typically claim that no justification can be given (cf. Section 4.2 ). As indicated above, this seems problematic, especially given the importance love can have both in our lives and, especially, in shaping our identities as persons. To reject the idea that we can love for reasons may reduce the impact our agency can have in defining who we are.

On the other hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of appraisal tend to answer the justificatory question by appeal to these valuable properties of the beloved. This acceptance of the idea that love can be justified leads to two further, related worries about the object of love.

The first worry is raised by Vlastos (1981) in a discussion Plato’s and Aristotle’s accounts of love. Vlastos notes that these accounts focus on the properties of our beloveds: we are to love people, they say, only because and insofar as they are objectifications of the excellences. Consequently, he argues, in doing so they fail to distinguish “ disinterested affection for the person we love” from “ appreciation of the excellences instantiated by that person ” (p. 33). That is, Vlastos thinks that Plato and Aristotle provide an account of love that is really a love of properties rather than a love of persons—love of a type of person, rather than love of a particular person—thereby losing what is distinctive about love as an essentially personal attitude. This worry about Plato and Aristotle might seem to apply just as well to other accounts that justify love in terms of the properties of the person: insofar as we love the person for the sake of her properties, it might seem that what we love is those properties and not the person. Here it is surely insufficient to say, as Solomon (1988, p. 154) does, “if love has its reasons, then it is not the whole person that one loves but certain aspects of that person—though the rest of the person comes along too, of course”: that final tagline fails to address the central difficulty about what the object of love is and so about love as a distinctly personal attitude. (Clausen 2019 might seem to address this worry by arguing that we love people not as having certain properties but rather as having “ organic unities ”: a holistic set of properties the value of each of which must be understood in essential part in terms of its place within that whole. Nonetheless, while this is an interesting and plausible way to think about the value of the properties of persons, that organic unity itself will be a (holistic) property held by the person, and it seems that the fundamental problem reemerges at the level of this holistic property: do we love the holistic unity rather than the person?)

The second worry concerns the fungibility of the object of love. To be fungible is to be replaceable by another relevantly similar object without any loss of value. Thus, money is fungible: I can give you two $5 bills in exchange for a $10 bill, and neither of us has lost anything. Is the object of love fungible? That is, can I simply switch from loving one person to loving another relevantly similar person without any loss? The worry about fungibility is commonly put this way: if we accept that love can be justified by appealing to properties of the beloved, then it may seem that in loving someone for certain reasons, I love him not simply as the individual he is, but as instantiating those properties. And this may imply that any other person instantiating those same properties would do just as well: my beloved would be fungible. Indeed, it may be that another person exhibits the properties that ground my love to a greater degree than my current beloved does, and so it may seem that in such a case I have reason to “trade up”—to switch my love to the new, better person. However, it seems clear that the objects of our loves are not fungible: love seems to involve a deeply personal commitment to a particular person, a commitment that is antithetical to the idea that our beloveds are fungible or to the idea that we ought to be willing to trade up when possible. [ 18 ]

In responding to these worries, Nozick (1989) appeals to the union view of love he endorses (see the section on Love as Union ):

The intention in love is to form a we and to identify with it as an extended self, to identify one’s fortunes in large part with its fortunes. A willingness to trade up, to destroy the very we you largely identify with, would then be a willingness to destroy your self in the form of your own extended self. [p. 78]

So it is because love involves forming a “we” that we must understand other persons and not properties to be the objects of love, and it is because my very identity as a person depends essentially on that “we” that it is not possible to substitute without loss one object of my love for another. However, Badhwar (2003) criticizes Nozick, saying that his response implies that once I love someone, I cannot abandon that love no matter who that person becomes; this, she says, “cannot be understood as love at all rather than addiction” (p. 61). [ 19 ]

Instead, Badhwar (1987) turns to her robust-concern account of love as a concern for the beloved for his sake rather than one’s own. Insofar as my love is disinterested — not a means to antecedent ends of my own—it would be senseless to think that my beloved could be replaced by someone who is able to satisfy my ends equally well or better. Consequently, my beloved is in this way irreplaceable. However, this is only a partial response to the worry about fungibility, as Badhwar herself seems to acknowledge. For the concern over fungibility arises not merely for those cases in which we think of love as justified instrumentally, but also for those cases in which the love is justified by the intrinsic value of the properties of my beloved. Confronted with cases like this, Badhwar (2003) concludes that the object of love is fungible after all (though she insists that it is very unlikely in practice). (Soble (1990, Chapter 13) draws similar conclusions.)

Nonetheless, Badhwar thinks that the object of love is “phenomenologically non-fungible” (2003, p. 63; see also 1987, p. 14). By this she means that we experience our beloveds to be irreplaceable: “loving and delighting in [one person] are not completely commensurate with loving and delighting in another” (1987, p. 14). Love can be such that we sometimes desire to be with this particular person whom we love, not another whom we also love, for our loves are qualitatively different. But why is this? It seems as though the typical reason I now want to spend time with Amy rather than Bob is, for example, that Amy is funny but Bob is not. I love Amy in part for her humor, and I love Bob for other reasons, and these qualitative differences between them is what makes them not fungible. However, this reply does not address the worry about the possibility of trading up: if Bob were to be at least as funny (charming, kind, etc.) as Amy, why shouldn’t I dump her and spend all my time with him?

A somewhat different approach is taken by Whiting (1991). In response to the first worry concerning the object of love, Whiting argues that Vlastos offers a false dichotomy: having affection for someone that is disinterested —for her sake rather than my own—essentially involves an appreciation of her excellences as such. Indeed, Whiting says, my appreciation of these as excellences, and so the underlying commitment I have to their value, just is a disinterested commitment to her because these excellences constitute her identity as the person she is. The person, therefore, really is the object of love. Delaney (1996) takes the complementary tack of distinguishing between the object of one’s love, which of course is the person, and the grounds of the love, which are her properties: to say, as Solomon does, that we love someone for reasons is not at all to say that we only love certain aspects of the person. In these terms, we might say that Whiting’s rejection of Vlastos’ dichotomy can be read as saying that what makes my attitude be one of disinterested affection—one of love—for the person is precisely that I am thereby responding to her excellences as the reasons for that affection. [ 20 ]

Of course, more needs to be said about what it is that makes a particular person be the object of love. Implicit in Whiting’s account is an understanding of the way in which the object of my love is determined in part by the history of interactions I have with her: it is she, and not merely her properties (which might be instantiated in many different people), that I want to be with; it is she, and not merely her properties, on whose behalf I am concerned when she suffers and whom I seek to comfort; etc. This addresses the first worry, but not the second worry about fungibility, for the question still remains whether she is the object of my love only as instantiating certain properties, and so whether or not I have reason to “trade up.”

To respond to the fungibility worry, Whiting and Delaney appeal explicitly to the historical relationship. [ 21 ] Thus, Whiting claims, although there may be a relatively large pool of people who have the kind of excellences of character that would justify my loving them, and so although there can be no answer to question (2) about why I come to love this rather than that person within this pool, once I have come to love this person and so have developed a historical relation with her, this history of concern justifies my continuing to love this person rather than someone else (1991, p. 7). Similarly, Delaney claims that love is grounded in “historical-relational properties” (1996, p. 346), so that I have reasons for continuing to love this person rather than switching allegiances and loving someone else. In each case, the appeal to both such historical relations and the excellences of character of my beloved is intended to provide an answer to question (3) , and this explains why the objects of love are not fungible.

There seems to be something very much right with this response. Relationships grounded in love are essentially personal, and it would be odd to think of what justifies that love to be merely non-relational properties of the beloved. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how the historical-relational propreties can provide any additional justification for subsequent concern beyond that which is already provided (as an answer to question (1) ) by appeal to the excellences of the beloved’s character (cf. Brink 1999). The mere fact that I have loved someone in the past does not seem to justify my continuing to love him in the future. When we imagine that he is going through a rough time and begins to lose the virtues justifying my initial love for him, why shouldn’t I dump him and instead come to love someone new having all of those virtues more fully? Intuitively (unless the change she undergoes makes her in some important sense no longer the same person he was), we think I should not dump him, but the appeal to the mere fact that I loved him in the past is surely not enough. Yet what historical-relational properties could do the trick? (For an interesting attempt at an answer, see Kolodny 2003 and also Howard 2019.)

If we think that love can be justified, then it may seem that the appeal to particular historical facts about a loving relationship to justify that love is inadequate, for such idiosyncratic and subjective properties might explain but cannot justify love. Rather, it may seem, justification in general requires appealing to universal, objective properties. But such properties are ones that others might share, which leads to the problem of fungibility. Consequently it may seem that love cannot be justified. In the face of this predicament, accounts of love that understand love to be an attitude towards value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal, between recognizing already existing value and creating that value (see Section 4.3 ) might seem to offer a way out. For once we reject the thought that the value of our beloveds must be either the precondition or the consequence of our love, we have room to acknowledge that the deeply personal, historically grounded, creative nature of love (central to bestowal accounts) and the understanding of love as responsive to valuable properties of the beloved that can justify that love (central to appraisal accounts) are not mutually exclusive (Helm 2010; Bagley 2015).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics , translated by W.D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., “ Philosophy of Love ,” in J. Fieser (ed.), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

character, moral | emotion | friendship | impartiality | obligations: special | personal identity | Plato: ethics | Plato: rhetoric and poetry | respect | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic

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Respect Essay

500+ words respect essay.

Respect is one way of expressing our love and gratitude towards others. It may indeed be the glue that binds people together. If respect is akin to “positive regard”, it is the belief that enables one to value other people, institutions, and traditions. If we want others to give us respect, it is important that we respect them too. Respect is the most powerful ingredient that nourishes all relationships and creates a good society. Students should learn the true meaning of respect. They must understand what respect means with reference to themselves and to other people. This ‘Respect’ essay will help them to do so. Students can also get the list of CBSE Essays on different topics and boost their essay writing skills. Doing so helps them to participate in various essay writing competitions.

Respect Begins with Oneself

Respect is an important component of personal self-identity and interpersonal relationships. We must respect and value ourselves so that the rest of the world recognises us and respect us. Respect is treating others the way we want to be treated. People treat us with the same amount of dignity and respect we show for others. Treating someone with respect means:

• Showing regard for their abilities and worth
• Valuing their feelings and their views, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them
• Accepting them on an equal basis and giving them the same consideration you would expect for yourself.

Respect is the overall esteem we feel towards a person. We can also feel respect for a specific quality of a person. For example, we might not like somebody’s behaviour, but we can respect their honesty.

Importance of Respect

Respect is a lesson that we learn over the years in our life. The ability to treat everyone with respect and equality is an easy trait to learn, but a difficult trait to carry out. Respect is one of the most valuable assets. A respectful person is one who shows care and concern for others. He is courteous, kind, fair, honest and obedient. With respect comes a better and more clear way of life. Respect for others helps to promote empathy and tolerance. It helps in building healthy relationships with family and friends. We feel motivated and happy when we are respected by others.

Ways to Show Respect to Others

Respect is a feeling of care for someone, which can be shown through good manners. There are several ways in which we can show respect to others. We all inculcate the value of respecting others from childhood. Doing namaste when guests come to our home is one way of showing respect to them. It is a gesture of acknowledgement & greeting people. We touch the feet of elders to show respect to them. We must take permission before using another person’s property. Teasing, threatening, or making fun of others can hurt them. So, we should respect others’ feelings and should not do anything that hurts them.

Respect is learned, earned, and returned. If we expect respect, then be the first to show it!

Students must have found “Respect Essay” useful for improving their essay writing skills. Visit the BYJU’S website to get the latest updates and study material on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams, at BYJU’S.

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You Are Worthy of Love and Respect

You Are A Good Person, Worthy of Love

Yes, you. You are worthy of love.

You deserve to be treated well by others. You deserve to be loved and respected. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have your needs met.

You are worth investing time and energy into. You are capable of great things. Your feelings are important. You have power and wisdom inside of you.

What you want matters. You are worthy or love.

And all this is still true, even if you make mistakes. Even if you are not perfect.

As a counselor and personal growth specialist , I work with some of the most phenomenally well put together, objectively successful, gorgeous, talented, and intelligent people in the world — who still genuinely believe that they are irredeemably flawed. 

These clients run multi-million dollar businesses, go on international adventures, and accomplish astounding things, yet they struggle to feel as though they are worthy of love and respect . The disconnect between how amazing they are and how they feel about themselves is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

So how about you? 

Take a second and re-read the paragraph at the top of the page. Do those statements feel true to you? Or does a part of you cringe away from them, thinking that such things might be true for others but not for you?

Does your brain instantly reject these ideas, firing back with an endless catalogue of your many mistakes and short-comings: all the “evidence” to prove that you are less worthy somehow?

Why is it so easy to lose your confidence, and your self esteem?

You are a perfect, unique snowflake gliding through your time here on Earth. There has never been anyone quite like you. You are smart, you are capable, and you are good. You are here to love and be loved. 

You have things about you that set you apart from other people. Maybe it’s your style, or your humor, or your tenacity. Maybe it’s the fearless way you’ve lived your life, or the heroic mountains you’ve climbed on your journey . Perhaps your most wonderful quality is the way you care so deeply for others.

But it’s easy to forget that when you have to fight for your right to be heard, respected and understood in a world that pushes back.

Every single one of us has been bruised on this journey through life. We’ve all been disappointed by people. We’ve taken risks, only to fall flat and feel humiliated for our efforts. Maybe toxic relationships have made you feel diminished . Perhaps you didn’t get your needs met at a time that you desperately needed support, and you are still carrying the scars of those primary wounds. 

Let’s Talk. Schedule a Free Consultation Today.

Over time, the injuries of life can erode your belief in yourself . You can be tricked into believing that your not-so-great life experiences define you.

Niggling doubts like, “Maybe my [insert one: critical father / rejecting Ex / high school chemistry teacher] was right about me,” or “This is probably the best I can expect,” keep you from feeling that you deserve more.

But you cannot let the inevitable traumas of the human experience break you. You cannot allow yourself to be diminished by others . You must never allow your core self to be ground away by disappointment. You can learn and grow from your experiences, and emerge a stronger, more confident version of yourself. 

You Deserve to Be Loved, You Are Worth of Love

Your self-esteem profoundly influences how you move through the world , and realizing that you are worthy of love and respect can change your life in three important ways:

• Other people will treat you the way you expect to be treated.
• You will rise to meet your expectations of yourself.
• You will make choices and take chances based on what you believe is possible.

Think about what could happen to you if you totally lost sight of your inner beauty, your worth, your potential, and your inherent right to be loved and respected? 

How chilling to consider the fate that might befall you if your life, and the people in it, began to conform to those expectations.

You must be your own hero . The world is hard enough without you tearing yourself down, beating yourself up for your failures, and telling yourself you’re not good enough .

When you stop believing in yourself and your worth as a person, your abilities, and that you deserve to be treated well , all is lost. No one else is going to be your champion — because no one else can.

Say it with me, “I Am Worthy of Love.”

It’s time for you to take your power back. All faith is a choice. All beliefs are voluntary. You can decide to love yourself first , and actively, intentionally build yourself up. 

You can support yourself from the inside out. Remind yourself daily, hourly, or minute-by-minute on especially challenging days:

Only you get to decide what you are worth. Only you get to decide how you deserve to be treated by others. Only you decide what is possible for you.

Decide today .

You are worthy of love and respect. You are capable of great things. You are a good, smart, strong person.

Make those statements your mantra. Believe they are so. Act as if they are so. And watch as the world rises to meet YOU…

One other thing: If reading this is making you instinctively want to argue with me, tell me all the reasons why this isn’t true for you… that’s an important sign that you have some personal growth work to do. Something happened along the way, through no fault of your own, that damaged your ability to think well of yourself . There can be all kinds of reasons for this. Sometimes it’s depression. Sometimes it’s trauma. Sometimes it’s having had negative, invalidating experiences with other people you trusted.

People are harmed in relationships… but they are also healed in relationships . Even though you might not always feel like it, I know that you are worthy of love and respect. Taking positive action to get connected to a caring and competent therapist who can help you heal and grow is what loving yourself looks like in action. If you’ve been hurting, I sincerely hope that you consider getting the support you deserve.

If you’d like to do this transformative work at Growing Self, I invite you to schedule a free consultation .

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

P.S. There is so much support for you here. While advice through blog posts and podcasts is no substitute for a relationship with a therapist, we have collections of free resources to help support and guide you on your journey of growth. Please visit our “Happiness Collections” to browse all of the content collections we have to support your well-being and find the ones that resonate with you. I hope you take advantage of them all!

Therapy Questions , Answered.

Support for your growth.

Our expert therapists have generously created an entire library of articles, activities, and podcasts to support you on your journey of growth. Please visit our “Happiness Collections” to browse our content collections, and take advantage of all the free resources we have for you. Or, if you’d like to educate yourself about the process and logistics of therapy, please help yourself to our “therapy questions” knowledge base below. It’s all for you!

Do I Need Therapy?

Wondering if your issues going to work themselves out, or is it time to talk to a professional? Here’s how to tell when it’s time for therapy.

Therapy Works, But How?

Great therapy can feel like magic, but it’s actually not. Learn how meaningful and effective therapy works .

What is Therapy Like?

What is therapy like? Learn what happens in therapy in order to feel empowered and confident.

What Kind of Therapist Do I Need?

There are many different kinds of therapists and many different types of therapy. What kind of therapist do you need? Find out!

What To Talk About in Therapy

Not sure what to talk about in therapy? Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out of your therapy sessions.

Therapy Consultation: What to Expect

How to prepare for your first therapy appointment , and learn what to expect in therapy sessions.

Coaching vs Therapy

What’s the difference between coaching and therapy? Find out which approach is right for you.

What is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the “gold-standard” of effective, evidence-based therapy. Learn about CBT.

What is Talk Therapy?

How does talking about something help you make changes? Or… does it? Learn the pros and cons of traditional talk therapy.

Why Evidence-Based Therapy Matters

Effective therapy is life-changing, but some therapy is a waste of time and money. Evidence-based therapy makes the difference.

How to Find a (Good) Therapist

Not all therapists are the same. Learn how to find a good therapist (and spot the warning signs of a bad one).

Therapy For Healthy Relationships

Working with a true relationship expert helps you learn, grow, love, and be loved. Learn about our approach to helping you build healthy relationships.

Guide to Online Therapy

Online therapy is just as effective but even easier than in person therapy. Here’s what to expect from good online therapy.

Denver Therapist

Explore your options for a Denver therapist who specializes in personal growth and healthy relationships.

How to Get a Therapist

Ready to try therapy? Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to get a therapist who is competent to help you.

Therapy Reviews

Curious to know more about what working with us is really like? Browse Growing Self reviews / “best online therapy reviews” from our clients.

How Much Does Therapy Cost?

Good therapy is priceless, but not all therapy is valuable. Learn the cost of therapy that’s affordable and effective.

Does Insurance Cover Therapy?

Yes, insurance covers therapy… but only sometimes. Learn when (and how) health insurance covers therapy , and when it doesn’t.

Help Someone Get Help

If you have a loved one who is struggling in their relationship, you can help them get help by “gifting” therapy. Here’s how…

Divorce & Breakup Recovery

Losing a relationship is uniquely painful and challenging. With the right support, you can heal, grow, and move forward. Learn about our divorce and breakup recovery services.

More Questions? Let’s Talk.

We’re available by phone, email and chat, and happy to answer any of your questions personally. Get in touch, anytime.

Start Therapy

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20 Comments

Thank you Doctor and God Bless you for reminding me what I need to hear. I am in recovery from alcoholism (3 years). I now work in the field of addiction rehabilitation. I have accepted who I am and love myself as never before..❤

I’ve been in two marriages, both have been emotionally controlling. I feel so much stronger and worthy as a single person. Reading this has brought me to my knees knowing that I have allowed myself to be treated with disrespect and with no voice in decisions. Both times, I have lost myself to the point of existing without hope. After reading this, I am going to seek help so I can stop this pattern and maybe find someone who is decent. Thank you for making this resource available for me.

Honestly, I’ve been having the hardest time to think I’m worth anything. My ex didn’t care about me most of the relationship, but I gave him my all, especially since it was LDR. He didn’t talk to me though. He ghosted me, and didn’t talk to me for two of our anniversaries. Am I worthy of love? It feels like I don’t. I promise you, I gave him my all. I always make time for someone, especially my SO, no matter what. I feel like I’ll never be able to get swept off my feet, cause I’ll just fall again, and not in the good way. Am I worthy? Am I even pretty? Am I bareable to even look at? Was i just so horrible and annoying that he couldn’t talk to me on our anniversaries, for a week straight? I was loosing myself over him, feeling like I should be in a mental asylum over him. I want to get better, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to go by everyday and not think of him. In a way, it feels like I’m just dragging on, not living. With school and having to take care of my parents and having a heartbreak that I can’t focus on too much, it’s really hard.

Hey there, I don’t know who you are, but all I know is that no matter what happened, you are worthy! You are beautiful inside and out just cuz you’re you. I was dumped three times by the people who loved me most…I know how you feel. But don’t let those people define you. You are you no matter if they see your worth or not. He’s stupid for letting you go. Hope everything goes well…

I have to get better

I love this article. I have been struggling in my business recently because of my self esteem. I am having a difficult time believing that another human could ever love me or actually care about me. It was not a pressing issue to change until now that I am realizing how it is drastically negatively affecting every aspect of my life. This article helped put my mind is a positive state and it helped me understand that I should deserve love in my life. I appreciate you taking the time to write it and putting it out in the world

Thank you. I had self doubt, feelings of being used, love for one day then abandoned. I just want the world to reach me and take my hand and keep me close. I feel cold and I don’t want that. I wonder who’s there waiting for me. I wonder who she is and where. It’s been nearly 10 years and I cant find her. But this gave me some light and I thank you.

Aidan, you aren’t alone in feeling lonely as you search for a partner. I hope you find some encouragement, here, with your fellow commenters who are in similar situations (they’re out there – that’s why I recorded this podcast, after all!), or perhaps you’d find more support by working with a therapist or dating coach . Warmest regards, Lisa

Gisselle, I’m so glad to hear you found it helpful! Thank you for letting me know! xoxo, Dr. Lisa

I recently left my narcissist husband. I am struggling financially and emotionally with the enormity of the move, starting over, and connecting with friends to fill the void. I have realized over the past few months that I allowed myself to be manipulated, dismissed and discarded over and over again. The gaslighting and abuse got so bad that I stopped talking to him because everything I said would be twisted and used to make me into a villain. I am at peace with the decision but the disappointment and self-deprecation is something I battle daily. I know that, with time, I will find a place of self-confidence and self-love, but I’m a long way from that place right now. One day at a time…sometimes one hour at a time.

NC, thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience. I’m sorry you went through this. Congratulations on taking that huge, and very difficult, step: getting out of that relationship! What you’re describing is the experience of recovering from narcissistic abuse. As you continue on this healing journey, I hope you meet with a therapist for support. I also recommend these books, if you’re interested!: “Hope and Healing” by Jantz, “Psychopath Free” by MacKenzie, “Whole Again” by MacKenzie, “The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook” by Marlow-MaCoy, and “The Emotional Abuse Recovery Workbook” by Comito. Warm regards, Dr. Lisa

Thank you for the book suggestions. I will check them out. I was working with a therapist during the really frightening period of planning to leave, executing the move, and then couch surfing for a month until I found a suitable place. I am unable to coordinate regular counseling sessions right now, but I hope to find a way to do so soon.

Thank you for this wonderful message. I saved it in my phone so I can go back and read it when I need to. These words were very impactful for me and hit home.

Thank you for spreading kindness and self love!

Thank you so much for the kind words Kyana, I am so happy that this was helpful to you. Wishing you all the love, happiness, and success in the world! xoxo LMB

Comments are closed.

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Love And Respect

Have we ever thought about the difference between love and respect? When we say we love someone, what does that mean? When we say we respect someone, how is different from loving that person?

To this question, Imam Safi Khan of Dar-us-Salaam said,

“Love is the ability to give something, while respect is the ability to take something.”

Think about  it; when you love someone, you want to give them something that will make them happy. When you respect somebody, you are willing to listen and take from what they say. For humans, it’s part of our nature that it’s easier for us to give advice than to take advice. It’s easier for us to reprimand someone than to get reprimanded ourselves. So using the same analogy, we can safely say that it’s easier to love someone than to show them respect. If we truly do respect someone, then that means that if they share their thoughts with us or gives us advice, we take the advice and try to act upon it instead of saying “It’s my way or the highway” or just listening with one ear and letting it come out of the other ear. The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa salaam) said,

“ He is not one of us who does not show tenderness to the young and who does not show respect to the elder .” (Tirmidhi).

Love and Respect Towards Parents

From this Hadith, we can see that one of the great tribulations that will befall us is that people will start to treat their friends better than their parents. It also says that people will respect someone for wrong reasons: instead of respecting them because of their moral conduct, they will respect them out of fear of retribution. Sadly, these trials have already begun on our Ummah as we see both happening in the modern world. We, as Muslim youth, should try our best not to fall in these trials ourselves by increasing our time with our parents, so that when they see us, they feel happy and make Du’a for us. The Prophet (salallahu alahyhi wa sallam) said, “Three Duas are such in which there is no doubt of their acceptance: 1) Father’s Dua 2) Traveler’s Dua 3) Dua of the oppressed” (Tirmidhi).

I conclude with this story – there was once a boy who was especially known because of his love for his mother. One day, a group of people asked the boy, “We see that you do everything for your mother. However, we never see you eat from the same plate as your mother even though you do so many other things. Why is this so?” The boy replied, “I fear that if I eat with my mother and I take a piece that she wanted, she may get hurt as a result.” Subhanallah – stories like these should make us reflect on our relationship with our parents and we should really ask ourself if our love and respect is at a level that we are satisified with.

May Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala help us to show love to the young and to show respect to our elders. Ameen…

Arif Kabir is the Founder and Director of MYM. He loves to read, design, and spend time with his wife and family. He has a Master's in Human Computer, completed his Qur'anic memorization under Sh. Muhammad Nahavandi, and works as a consultant in product management and UX design. He writes for MYM to contribute to the growing collections of Islamic English literature and to inspire fellow Muslim youth.

Subhanallah… It really is easier to love than to give respect, especially with your parents. That’s one of the toughest things to implement. You always end up messing up somewhere, somehow, making your parents angry without really realizing it. But the hard part is you don’t KNOW what makes them angry.

May Allah make it easier for us to have better relationships with our parents… one day we’ll have kids and if we treat our parents rudely, God knows what they’ll treat US like haha..

Yeah, you have a point – what goes around comes around.

I remember hearing a story in which a man had gotten tired of living with his dad who had gotten rather old. One day, he took his day out to the outskirts of town with the intention of “getting rid of him”. When they reached the destination, the father asked his son, “What are you doing to me?” The son replied that he was going to kill him and then proceeded to take him to the rocks without taking care of his father’s pleas for mercy. Finally, the father said, “If you’re going to kill me, then at least kill me over there,” pointing at a small hut. The son looked at him questioningly and asked him why.

The father replied and said, “Because I had killed my own father at that location”.

I like this article because it removes a lot of confusion and gives a whole new look on love and respect. I like that quote by the Imam. Nice. By the way, because of thefather story, I remembered a story I heard in school. There was an old man with his son and they were sitting somewhere. A crow came and sat there too. The old man asked his son, “What is that?” and he replied, “It’s a crow.” He asked again and again, “What is that?” and that son got annoyed. He lost his patience and said, “Can’t you see?! It’s a crow! How many times are you going to ask me?!” And the old man said, “When you were a young boy, I brought you here and a crow came and sat by us. You asked me what it was 25 times (I think, or 20) and I answered you calmly.” That was the patience that the father had for his child but the son could do the same.

I like this article because it removes a lot of confusion and gives a whole new look on love and respect. I like that quote by the Imam. Nice. By the way, because of thefather story, I remembered a story I heard in school. There was an old man with his son and they were sitting somewhere. A crow came and sat there too. The old man asked his son, “What is that?” and he replied, “It's a crow.” He asked again and again, “What is that?” and that son got annoyed. He lost his patience and said, “Can't you see?! It's a crow! How many times are you going to ask me?!” And the old man said, “When you were a young boy, I brought you here and a crow came and sat by us. You asked me what it was 25 times (I think, or 20) and I answered you calmly.” That was the patience that the father had for his child but the son could do the same.

wow. its so true that its easier to love than respect. i love how you ended with the story, and showed us how respectful that boy was to HIS mother…it sort of made me feel guilty

also to be respected you have to respect

Agree with Sumaiya here- reading the end of this article definitely made me feel guilty, Insh’Allah, we can all improve in respecting our parents.

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Essay on Respect: Best Samples Available for Students

• Updated on  
• Nov 7, 2023

Essay on Respect: Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect.’ We all deserve respect from others when they interact with us, regardless of how we are as individuals. Polite, considerate and courteous behaviour are all part of respect. Respect is a larger concept which encompasses treating others the way you would like to be treated, listening to different viewpoints with an open mind, and refraining from causing harm or offence to others. It is considered a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships, effective communication, and a harmonious society. Let’s discuss more through some samples in the essay on respect.

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Respect in 100 Words
• 2 Essay on Respect in 200 Words
• 3 Essay on Respect in 300 Words

Also Read: World Sight Day Activities to Plan for Your School

Essay on Respect in 100 Words

Respect is a two-way concept; you receive respect when you show respect to others. Whether you are in a professional or a personal environment, talking respectfully is always appreciated. Respect is not just talking politely but a profound acknowledgement of the dignity of others. 

Respect involves listening to others with an open mind, appreciating the uniqueness of everyone, and refraining from actions that cause harm or undermine the well-being of others. We can consider respect as a timeless virtue. It is necessary for maintaining healthy relationships, communities, and societies. From the way we talk to the way we behave, respect is highlighted in our every move.

Also Read: Essay on Parents

Essay on Respect in 200 Words

‘Respect is what we owe; love, is what we give.’ – Philip James Bailey

How can you expect others to respect you when you cannot serve it to others? We never disrespect people whom we care about. Neither do they. As humans when interacting with others, we expect respectful behaviour from others. It is considered the fundamental aspect of binding human interactions and enabling us to live in harmony with others. 

We can acknowledge and appreciate people, which is one of the most important parts of respectful behaviour. At its essence, respect transcends cultural barriers and fosters empathy, understanding, and kindness among individuals.

Respect is shown via thoughtful actions and considerate behaviour. It involves treating others with courtesy, refraining from causing harm and valuing diverse perspectives. When one respects another person, one listens attentively, seeking to understand rather than to judge. This practice nurtures a culture of open communication and mutual understanding, facilitating the resolution of conflicts and the forging of strong, enduring relationships.

Our respectful attitude and behaviour cultivate a sense of belonging and safety in social settings. In school, respect forms the basis for effective learning and growth. The respectful behaviour of teachers and students fosters an atmosphere of trust and collaboration, nurturing an environment where knowledge is shared, and intellectual curiosity is encouraged.

Essay on Respect in 300 Words

‘Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.’ – Clint Eastwood

Respect functions as the cornerstone of considerate and empathetic human interaction, forming the basis for a harmonious and equitable society. What we learn is what we say to others. Our respectful behaviour shows our inherent value and dignity. It also fosters empathy, understanding, and compassion, nurturing relationships that are founded on mutual admiration and consideration.

Showing a passive attitude that reflects in one’s behaviour and treatment of others shows who we really are. It entails treating individuals with dignity and kindness, valuing their perspectives, and honouring their rights and boundaries. When one demonstrates respect, they engage in thoughtful communication, listen attentively, and seek to understand differing viewpoints. Such actions lay the groundwork for trust and cooperation, facilitating the resolution of conflicts and the cultivation of strong, enduring bonds.

There are three types of respect: Respect for Personhood; Respect for Authority; and Respect for Honour.

• Respect for personhood is the recognition and acknowledgement of the inherent dignity, autonomy, and worth of every individual. This concept emphasizes the importance of treating each person as a unique and valuable being, deserving of ethical consideration and moral regard.
• Respect for authority acknowledges the legitimacy and position of individuals or institutions that hold power or influence in a particular context. It involves recognizing the roles and responsibilities of those in positions of authority and adhering to their directives or decisions within the boundaries of ethical and legal standards.
• Respect for honour upholding the principles of integrity, dignity, and moral uprightness in both oneself and others

Respect is not confined to personal relationships and educational institutions; it is a fundamental element that shapes the fabric of society.

Ans: Here are some best tips for respecting people: act responsibly, be empathetic, accept mistakes, listen to others, be relentlessly proactive, pay attention to non-verbal communication, keep your promises, etc.

Ans: To write an essay you need to highlight what respect means to you and how it can serve as an effective tool for coexisting with others. The concept of respect goes beyond talking politely and actively listening. It is considered a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships, effective communication, and a harmonious society. 

Ans: Here are three types of respect: Respect for Personhood, Respect for authority and Respect for honour.

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Love and Relationship Essay

The word ‘love’ is observed to have distinct meanings in various settings and contexts. Different people from various cultural settings would tend to have different perceptions about love. Generally, love refers to some kind of inexplicable feeling which is felt by people towards others, probably those of the opposite sex. Relationship on the other hand would refer to the condition of people being connected or associated with each other.

We have all experienced love at one moment of life, but it is as though there is still much we don’t know about love itself. Humans have always asked inexplicable questions about love such as, “Why do we fall in love?” or “What makes us love others?” We may not necessarily have perfect answers for all the questions regarding love but there is no doubt that we have been closer to the right answers for most of these questions through the perception of psychologists.

For instance, according to love psychologists, the reason as to why we fall in love will depend on our minds. The way our minds perceive love is what comes out to us as love. Sometimes, these perceptions may match with the perceptions of another person and in that case love is certain to be realized.

Different groups of people have different views about love. Some communities would see it as something that would be contained in the eyes while others just associate it with blood thus the observations ‘love is in the eyes of the beholder’ and ‘blood is thicker than water’ respectively.

However, some aspects in life have come up to disqualify these perceptions, making people to search for other alternative explanations. For instance, let us consider the situation of blind people. Does their incapability to see hinder them from loving? More importantly, if love was really contained in the blood, will there be any cases concerning lost identities in life as we can see today?

Having asked ourselves these questions, it would be easy for us to appreciate the psychological view of love that is determined by our minds as the perfect answer to most of the questions we frequently ask ourselves regarding love. The issue of love and what makes people fall in love has been a subject of debate all over the world for a very long time. There may never be false love as some thinkers would observe, but we are all informed of the many uncertainties associated with love nowadays.

Think of someone who is strolling down the street without any specific focus or intention then suddenly, he bumps on a lady and it happens they fall in love at the first sight. How can this situation be explained? There is no other perfect manner we can explain this but through the ‘idea of the mind.’

What had just happened between the two people would depend on their brains. Single people; ones who are not in any relationship will always be in hunt for love and if someone fitting their criteria crosses their path, they will definitely be attracted to them and these feelings would trigger love instantly.

The person in this example fell in love with the lady she met on the street owing to the opportunistic perceptions of his mind that he was single and he needed a lover. This is just what happens to many people in this world as far as love is concerned.

As it would be observed, most people would appear to be crazy in love at the beginning of their relationship. This however is likely to change over the time and that fire would fade away as they continue seeing each other. They can even start having feelings of hate against each other.

This is another stand which can be used to justify the hypothesis in this argument. Most of the times, humans are misguided by their minds to make instant choices about love, instead of taking their time to think of the possible outcomes which are likely to arise later. This way, they end up making the wrong choices in what can be termed as ‘rushed love.’ This is a misunderstood situation that would be characterized by arguments and hate against each other come in the future.

To avoid such situations, psychologists have observed a number of factors for people to consider before thinking of falling in love. First of all, we should try to establish a checklist about the things we expect to see in our future lovers and some of the aspects which can apply in the checklist might include behavior, appearance, and education. A checklist is more likely to guide us to the right people thus sparing us future disappointments in relationships.

Through the observations of this topic, we get to learn the benefits of psychology in helping us come into terms with some behaviors and processes of life. Through psychology, we can gain practical benefits regarding various aspects of life. Psychology is always certain to offer satisfying answers to most of the questions we may frequently ask ourselves about many things facing us in our daily lives.

For instance, in the above case concerning love psychology would provide the right answers and the perfect guideline on how to go about it without regrets. This would help people make the right decisions thus avoiding future disappointments. In this case, we should see the capability of psychology in giving us the perfect guideline about sensitive issues of life.

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Essay on Respect 11 Models

Writing an Essay on respect is important, because respect is a noble quality that every person should have.

Respect for others is a good thing, and therefore we will present articles or paragraph examples about respect and the importance of respect for both the individual and society, and why we should acquire this civilized behavior, which is beneficial for everyone.

We will also explain the importance of raising children and teaching them to respect others, even if they differ from us in thinking, gender, opinion, or otherwise. We will present many topics to suit all educational levels.

Essay on respect

Respect is a noble trait and we must teach it to our children from a young age, because educating children is much easier than educating young people.

When a child learns some good behaviors in his childhood, he gets used to them, and it becomes a distinctive behavior for him.

In order for the society to be safe, we must promote the idea of ​​respect for others, and various media can be used to promote this idea so that it becomes a behavior for individuals.

Respect for others helps the progress and prosperity of peoples, because when we respect others, we will listen seriously to their opinions and thus benefit from everyone’s experiences.

Respect defintion

We can define respect in a simple way as not contempt of others, no matter how we differ with them in opinions, ideas and beliefs. A person must also be respected without regard to his nationality, gender, religion, color, or anything else.

This requires that we treat others with respect, even if they are less educated than us, less money, beauty, or otherwise.

The importance of respect

It is important that respect prevail among people, even if their education and abilities differ. Every individual in society has a great role that we cannot do without, and we should not consider some people as unimportant, because each of us needs the other.

The rich needs someone to work for him in his factories, farms or trade, in order for this money to grow and increase, and the poor needs to work for the rich in order to get the money he needs to buy his food, housing, clothes, and so on.

From the foregoing it becomes clear that the relationship between the rich and the poor is a beneficial relationship, in which both parties benefit. Therefore, respect must be the basis for dealing between them, because if workers strike, the rich will not be able to invest his money, and thus it will not increase.

Likewise, if the rich do not provide job opportunities for the poor, they will not find the money necessary to purchase their needs, and thus each of them needs the other.

The state has established laws regulating the relationship between businessmen and workers in order to guarantee the rights and duties of each.

How do we develop respect among people?

Given the importance of respect in strengthening relationships between people, it is important to work on developing respect among members of society, by following several means, including:

• The role of the family in making its children respect others

The child’s behavior is determined from a young age by what he learned from his parents, siblings and relatives. These are the first to influence the child’s behavior. The child acquires his behavior by imitating his family members. Therefore, there must be respect among family members so that the child learns this good manners.

• The role of the school in making students respect others

The school plays a major role in developing respect among students, by raising awareness of the importance of the teacher’s role, and that students must respect their teacher and appreciate the effort he makes for their education.

There must also be mutual respect between students, and that we respect the opinions of others and do not underestimate their abilities.

• The role of the media in spreading a culture of respect for others

There must be a positive role for the media in spreading a culture of respect for others, through programs, series and films that show that people are different in customs, traditions and religions, but there must be mutual respect between them.

At the end of an essay on respect and its importance, we must teach our children this good behavior, and that is through our own behavior towards others.

The child imitates what he sees of behavior and cannot differentiate between good behavior and bad behavior, and therefore the responsibility lies with the family to raise its children well and teach them to respect others, then the role of the school and the various media comes.

Importance of respect essay

Respect is a noble character that should be possessed by all members of society. When respect prevails between people, this reduces the problems that arise as a result of differences in thinking or customs and traditions. Respect for others brings points of view closer together, and thus everyone lives in peace.

In many cases, the problems stem from a lack of respect for the rights of others, whether this is between family members, classmates or work colleagues.

Respecting the rights of others is important, but this does not conflict with fair competition. The family must cultivate this benign behavior among its children. The elder must be respected and the elder be sympathetic to the younger, thus strengthening the bonding between family members, and cooperation and love being the basis for dealing with them.

Self respect essay

Self-respect is one of the reasons for success. When you respect yourself, you will be able to overcome the difficulties you face, and one of the manifestations of self-respect is that you respect the rights of others. Because the infringement of the rights of others will be faced by the infringement of your rights by others.

Also, your interest in excel in your education is a manifestation of self-respect, because people love a hardworking person who is successful in his work, and so your respect for yourself will make others respect you as well.

One of the manifestations of self-respect is the interest in your appearance and elegance, personal hygiene and other things that make you a person loved by others.

In fact, the importance of respect is great for both the individual and society.

Respect For Others Essay

Respect for others is a good behavior that we must learn from childhood. I have learned to respect others from my family members, as I witnessed my mother respecting and appreciating my father, and they consulted in all matters pertaining to the family, and none of them made a decision without the consent of the other.

Also, my brothers respect my father and mother, and obey their orders, so there is mutual respect and love between my family members. I also learned this good behavior. I respect my parents and I respect my brothers. Respect for others has become a constant behavior for me throughout my life.

I respect my teachers and my schoolmates. Respect is a noble behavior that everyone should have in order for security and cohesion to prevail among people.

Short Essay on Respect

There is no doubt that respect is a good behavior that we must promote among all individuals, because respect makes us listen to the ideas of others seriously, and thus we can benefit from their experiences. Respecting others leads to cooperation and the progress of the country.

I grew up in a close-knit family, in which the young respect the elder, and the elder sympathize with the young, and therefore there is love and affection between my family members.

Respecting others is the duty of every individual, and there are many laws that regulate the relationship between people so that respecting others and not offending them is the prevailing system in society.

Learning to respect others from a young age is very important, because this trait will make you loved by others.

Respect for elders essay

One of the good manners that we must learn from childhood is to respect the elderly, and in my family I have acquired this good behavior. We respect my grandparents and listen to their advice, they are very experienced.

Adults give us advice and guidance, and make us feel love and affection, which makes us happy. We help them to do household chores, and to purchase their requirements.

I visit my grandfather and grandmother every week. On the weekend, I go to visit my grandfather and grandmother. I spend a good time with them, as I listen to my grandfather talking about different historical stages about my country.

Respecting and providing assistance to the elderly is essential and benefits everyone. I feel proud when I speak with my grandfather and learn from him the history of my country, the old customs and traditions.

Respect your parents essay

One of the most important things that we must learn is to respect our parents, they are the reason for our existence in this life, and they are the people who love us the most in this life.

The great effort that each father and mother makes to provide for the needs of their children must be met with thanks from the children.

Respecting our parents is our duty, as it is the least expression of our appreciation for their great efforts to make us happy.

Our parents are the ones who give us love and affection and they support us in life. We go to them in times of difficulties, and they always find solutions to our problems.

Respect for father and mother is the most important kind of respect, and if you get used to respecting them, you will respect others as well, and there is no love without respect. Your love for your parents must be accompanied by respect for them.

Respect your elders essay

It is important to respect everyone who is older than us, especially if these are our grandparents or teachers. This is because their preference over us is great, so my grandparents are my origin and they protect me and support me in my life.

My grandparents are not stingy with money or psychological support, they are indeed a support for me in this life.

They give me advice wholeheartedly, and they like me to be a successful person. I feel safe because I have grandparents.

Also, respecting my teachers is a duty, as they made a great effort to teach and educate me, and they always guided me to the path of success and excellence.

It is my duty to respect my teachers, I respect them very much and will continue to appreciate their kindness to me throughout my life.

Respecting our elders is an indication of the good education of our children, and that they will be great men in the future.

100 Word essay on respect

Respect is a good moral that must be taught to children from a young age, because education in childhood is much easier and better than education in adulthood. The child in his first years learns by imitating others, especially family members. The child must learn from an early age to respect his parents and his siblings.

Respecting those who are older than us is essential, because this will allow us to benefit from their experiences and make us feel loved by others. It is important to respect our parents and teachers, as we must respect our brothers and colleagues.

Respect for others makes us feel safe and avoid much harm, because everyone around us will reciprocate love and respect.

Respect for parents essay

When we realize how our parents suffered to provide our needs, our respect for them will be the least we can do for them. Sometimes we may feel that our parents treat us harshly, but in fact they are working for our best interest.

Our parents are the most caring people for us, they wish us success  in our lives, and our parents endure many hardships in order for their children to be happy. They don’t skimp on us with effort or money.

Respecting our parents increases their ability to give and makes them feel happy. In fact, our parents do not expect any thanks from us in return for their great effort, but respecting them is something we must do, and this is the least gratitude and appreciation we can express for them.

Respect definition essay

Difference is an essential thing in human life. There is no congruence between people in ideas, beliefs, customs, traditions, and others. Therefore, respect was an essential thing in dealing with human beings.

By respecting others, we can listen to their opinions and study their ideas, then discuss with them objectively and show them our point of view, and why we differ with them.

There is no doubt that respecting the rights of others leads people to live in peace. Therefore, laws have been established that regulate the relationship between individuals within the same society, as well as laws that respect the rights of states.

When these laws are adhered to, security and peace will prevail, and nations will develop and progress.

Dear student, a basic form was submitted for the topic on respect, In addition to many other models such as, Importance of respect essay, Essay on respect, Respect defintion .

If you prefer to add any other topic, you can contact us through the comments of this article and we will study your request and add it as soon as possible.

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What is respect in a healthy relationship?

People have a lot of different ideas about what the word “respect” means. Sometimes, it is used to mean admiration for someone important or inspirational to us. Other times, respect refers to deference towards a figure of authority, like a parent, relative, teacher, boss or even a police officer. In this context, it is presumed that respect should be given to those who have certain types of knowledge and power. And then other times, respect means upholding the basic right that every person has to make their own choices and feel safe in their own daily lives.

In this post, we’re talking about respect in the context of dating . In a healthy relationship , partners are equals, which means that neither partner has “authority” over the other. Each partner is free to live their own life, which can include deciding to share some aspects of their life with their partner. Respect also means that, while we may not always agree with our partner/s, we choose to trust them and put faith in their judgment. This trust can be built over time as your relationship progresses and you learn more about each other.

How do you show respect in a healthy relationship?

Respect in a relationship is reflected in how you treat each other on a daily basis. Even if you disagree or have an argument (and arguments do happen , even in healthy relationships!), you are able to respect and value each other’s opinions and feelings by “fighting” fair . Respect isn’t about controlling someone or making them do what you want them to do. Respect is actually about the freedom to be yourself and to be loved for who you are.

In a healthy relationship, respect looks like:

• Talking openly and honestly with each other
• Listening to each other
• Valuing each other’s feelings and needs
• Compromising
• Speaking kindly to and about each other
• Giving each other space
• Supporting each other’s interests, hobbies, careers, etc.
• Building each other up
• Honoring each other’s boundaries , no matter what

Self-respect

While it’s important to respect your partner in a relationship, it’s also really important to have respect for yourself, whether single or dating. Self-respect is the key to building confidence and maintaining healthy relationships with other people throughout your life.

So, what is self-respect? Self-respect is acceptance of yourself as a whole person. It doesn’t mean you think you’re perfect; in fact, we all deserve respect even though we are NOT perfect. You have worth and value just because you’re you. Self-respect means you hold yourself to your own standards, and you try not to worry too much about what other people think of you. You take care of your body and mind (or you’re learning how!), whether that’s through eating healthy foods, moving your body in ways that feel good to you, reading and learning, going to therapy, practicing your faith or any number of things that honor who you are.

Do you have questions about what’s healthy/not healthy in a relationship? Are you concerned that your partner doesn’t respect you? Call, chat or text with a loveisrespect advocate today and let’s talk it out.

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Example Of Essay On Friends And Family, Love And Respect

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Family , Parents , Friendship , World , Friends , Fall , Stay , Yourself

Published: 02/27/2020

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You can’t get anywhere only by yourself. You need family and friends to support you at all times. They are the ones who get your back when you fall, who help your every attempt and who cheer with your victories. But you don’t get all this assistance without being caring, respectful and reliable. All my life I’ve lived with this in my mind. I try to show in every action my love toward other. My closest friends I keep near me, doing for them everything I believe they would do for me. My family is the most important thing in the world: without them I would be nothing, and there wouldn’t be anything worth fighting for. And you have to be loyal too. I don’t abandon my parents when they seem to need me, as I try to be available to my friends at any moment. It is all about letting them know that you wouldn’t replace them no matter what, and that you can count on them as well. The longer you know a person, the more you know them and better you recognize their feelings and needs. For that you also need responsibility. You let people down when you say you’re going to do something and you end up not doing it. This makes the relationship fall apart, which is always something hard to recover. I can’t say to my parents that I will stay at home and then just go out — this would make them not trust me anymore. In order to build up confidence you’ve got to true, stay close and, of course, show affection. The values I carry with me are those supposed to be inside every person. It’s hard sometimes to keep them in a world full of violence and poverty like ours, but when you really believe in yourself all you have to do is look around and find your family and friends beside you.

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• Love, Trust and Respect

Love, Trust and Respect - Essay Example

• Subject: Sociology
• Type: Essay
• Level: Masters
• Pages: 1 (250 words)
• Downloads: 16

Extract of sample "Love, Trust and Respect"

It is important for two people to respect each other’s beliefs, personalities, and cultures so that conflicts will be minimized and the possibility of losing the passion will diminish. Trust is also very important in a relationship bound by love because it serves as a glue that holds two different people together who do different things. The modern world now demands both male and female to contribute to the economic status of the nation and is now a challenge to modern lovers because they have to be away from each other most of the hours of the day and probably even demand more time from others.

This situation exposes lovers to temptations that may be difficult to fight, however, when one partner is well aware of how much trust the other has for him, and that trust is respected and valued, love can remain pure between them.

• animals should be treated with the same respect as humans
• Love Conquers All
• Cited: 2 times
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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Respect — Parent as Most Important Humans In Your Life: Respecting Our Parents

Parent as Most Important Humans in Your Life: Respecting Our Parents

• Categories: Parent-Child Relationship Parents Respect

About this sample

Words: 316 |

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 316 | Page: 1 | 2 min read

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Works Cited

• Kim, E. Y. (2017). Parent-child relationships in the context of honor and respect: The role of cultural orientations and generational status. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(4), 1112-1125.
• Zakeri, H., & Dolatshahi, B. (2019). Parental respect in Iranian culture: The relationship between adolescents' respect for parents and their well-being. International Journal of Psychology, 54(2), 165-173.
• Fuller, A., & Sabarwal, S. (2017). The role of parental respect and cultural socialization in the psychological well-being of South Asian college students. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 45(3), 201-214.
• Grusec, J. E., & Davidov, M. (2010). Integrating different perspectives on socialization theory and research: A domain-specific approach. Child Development, 81(3), 687-709.
• Feldman, R., Bamberger, E., & Kanat-Maymon, Y. (2013). Parent-specific reciprocity from infancy to adolescence shapes children's social competence and dialogical skills. Attachment & Human Development, 15(4), 407-423.
• Parke, R. D., & Buriel, R. (2006). Socialization in the family: Ethnic and ecological perspectives. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 429-504). Wiley.
• Grusec, J. E., & Danyliuk, T. (2019). Parents' perspectives on autonomy and relatedness in parenting: Cultural, social, and developmental considerations. Developmental Review, 52, 1-16.
• Telzer, E. H. (2016). Expanding the social reorientation function of adolescent neurodevelopment: A role for respect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(3), 151-153.
• Steinberg, L., & Silk, J. S. (2002). Parenting adolescents. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 1. Children and parenting (2nd ed., pp. 103-133). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Essay on Respecting Elders

Students are often asked to write an essay on Respecting Elders in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Respecting Elders

Understanding respect.

Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone due to their qualities, achievements, or age. It’s a way to show that we value others. Respecting elders is a vital part of many cultures around the world. It’s about showing kindness and politeness to older people.

Why Respect Elders?

Elders have lived longer than us. They have experienced more life and have learned many lessons. They can share their wisdom with us. By respecting them, we show that we value their knowledge and experience. This helps us learn and grow.

Ways to Show Respect

Respecting elders can be shown in many ways. We can listen to them when they speak, help them when they need it, and be polite to them. We can also show respect by valuing their opinions and learning from their experiences.

Benefits of Respecting Elders

Respecting elders benefits us too. We learn from their wisdom and gain a better understanding of life. It also helps us develop good manners, kindness, and empathy. These are important qualities that can help us in our lives.

In conclusion, respecting elders is important. It shows that we value them and their wisdom. It helps us learn and grow. It’s a simple and important way to show kindness and understanding to those older than us.

Also check:

• Speech on Respecting Elders

250 Words Essay on Respecting Elders

Introduction.

Respecting elders is a key virtue that we should all have. It means showing honor and kindness to people who are older than us. This is not just because they are older, but because they have lived more, seen more, and learned more. They are like walking books of knowledge and life lessons.

Elders deserve our respect because they have spent many years gathering wisdom and experience. They have faced many challenges and learned from them. This makes them a valuable source of advice and guidance. We can learn a lot from their stories and life lessons, which can help us avoid making the same mistakes.

There are many ways to show respect to elders. One simple way is to listen when they speak. By paying attention, we show that we value their words and wisdom. We can also show respect by helping them when they need it, like holding the door open or offering a seat. Small acts of kindness can mean a lot.

The Benefits of Respecting Elders

Respecting elders is not just about being polite. It also brings many benefits. When we respect elders, we build strong relationships with them. They can share their wisdom and experience with us. This can help us grow and learn. Also, by respecting elders, we set a good example for younger ones to follow.

Respecting elders is an important value that we should all practice. It helps us to learn, grow, and build strong relationships. Let’s always remember to show respect and kindness to our elders, as they have much to share with us.

500 Words Essay on Respecting Elders

What is respect.

Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone due to their abilities, qualities, or achievements. It is a way of treating or thinking about something or someone. If you respect your teacher, you admire her and treat her well.

Who are Elders?

Elders are people who are older than us. They can be our parents, grandparents, teachers, or anyone who is older in age. They have lived longer than us and have more life experiences. They have seen and done many things that we have not. That’s why they are often wiser than us.

Why Should We Respect Elders?

We should respect elders because they are full of wisdom and experiences. They have lived through times that we can only imagine. They have faced many challenges and overcome them. By respecting them, we can learn from their experiences and wisdom.

Respecting elders is also a way of showing gratitude. They have done a lot for us. They have taken care of us, taught us, and helped us grow. So, it is only fair that we show them respect in return.

How to Show Respect to Elders?

There are many ways to show respect to elders. One way is to listen to them. When they talk, we should pay attention and show interest. This shows that we value their words and wisdom.

Another way is to help them. As they get older, they may need help with certain tasks. We can offer our help and make their lives easier.

We can also show respect by being polite. We should use polite words and gestures when we talk to them. We should also avoid arguing or talking back.

Respecting elders has many benefits. First, it helps us learn from them. Their wisdom and experiences can guide us in our lives.

Second, it helps us build good relationships with them. When we show respect, they feel valued and appreciated. This can lead to strong and healthy relationships.

Third, respecting elders can help us become better people. It teaches us to be humble, grateful, and considerate. These are important qualities that can make us better human beings.

In conclusion, respecting elders is very important. It is a way of showing gratitude and learning from their wisdom. It also helps us build good relationships and become better people. So, let’s always remember to respect our elders.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Respecting Cultural Diversity Begins At School
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