Meghan Sullivan, "The Love Imperative: A Defense"

Meghan Sullivan (https://philosophy.nd.edu/people/faculty/meghan-sullivan/)
"The Love Imperative: A Defense"
Delivered for the Honors Program Speaker Series (October 2019)

We naturally think of love as discriminatory – you love your partner more than strangers, your friends more than your adversaries, and your home team over opponents. Indeed, most philosophers – influenced by the Greeks – have worked hard to carve out a theory of when and why we are permitted to be so partial in our affections.

Universal love, if we can even understand it, seems only like an option for saints or hippies, not a realistic or practical ethical framework for most of us. Meghan Sullivan’s lecture provoked listeners to think deeply about their philosophical approach to ethics and the motivation behind their morality.

Sullivan is professor of philosophy and the Rev. John A O’Brien Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame. Her research tends to focus on philosophical problems concerning time, modality, rational planning, value theory, and religious belief (and sometimes all five at once).

She has published work in many of the leading philosophy journals, including Nous, Ethics and Philosophical Studies. Sullivan is deeply interested in the ways philosophy contributes to the good life and the best methods for promoting philosophical thought.

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