The Unconditionality of Love: Value, Singularity and Sacrifice

This article addresses the question of love’s unconditionality. Drawing mainly on Husserl, Scheler, Arendt, and Patočka, it shows how love is both ubiquitous and unnecessary. There is no limit to what can be loved, but equally, all things can be related to without love. Love is at once unnecessary and yet constitutive of relations. It is shown that this peculiar characteristic of love is indicative of the fact that in love the object of love is seen in its singular being, and its qualities appear as expressions of that singularity. Love in that sense is transformative of the relation with the love-object, and this transformation becomes manifest in the commitment of the lover to sacrifice, following the call of the beloved. This sacrifice is a ‘sacrifice for nothing’ (Patočka), reflecting the unconditionality of the love-object through a suspension of all instrumentality and exchange relations. This article concludes with a short reading of the ‘good Samaritan’ parable as giving exemplary expression to the unconditionality of love.