{"id":4481,"date":"2026-02-25T01:38:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T09:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4481"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:44:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T20:44:44","slug":"reprint-love-is-a-virtue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/02\/25\/reprint-love-is-a-virtue\/","title":{"rendered":"Reprint: Love is a Virtue"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a feeling \u2013 thinking about love as a virtue can change how we respond to\u00a0hate<\/h4>\n
\n
Seeing hate as a feeling tied to love, rather than being its opposite, might help us choose how to respond.
\nLusky\/E+ via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tucker J. Gregor<\/a>, University of Iowa<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Love and hate seem like obvious opposites. Love, whether romantic or otherwise, involves a sense of warmth and affection for others. Hate involves feelings of disdain. Love builds up, whereas hate destroys.<\/p>\n

However, this description of love and hate treats them as merely emotions. As a religious ethicist<\/a>, I am interested in the role love plays in our moral lives: how and why it can help us live well together. How does our understanding of the love-hate relationship change if we imagine love not as an emotion but as a virtue?<\/p>\n

The 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas is a foundational thinker in the history of Christian ethics. For Aquinas, hate is not the antithesis of love, or even opposed to it. In his most important work, the \u201cSumma Theologiae<\/a>,\u201d he writes that hate responds to love. In other words, hate is a reaction to threats against what we love, or what we deeply value. We can better understand the experience of hate by getting clear on what it means to love.<\/p>\n

Greek roots<\/h5>\n

Today, scientists know that feelings of love<\/a> are related to biochemical processes<\/a> that release chemicals in the brain, increasing pleasure and excitement. Beyond mere biology or even emotions, some philosophers and psychologists contend that love is also a practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Love can also refer to a virtue: a habit or settled disposition that increases the likelihood of people thinking, feeling and acting<\/a> in ways that promote happiness and well-being. For example, the virtue of courage can help people endure and thrive in the midst of fear and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Love is more than a feeling; it\u2019s a virtue that helps promote others\u2019 well-being.<\/span>
\nFatCamera\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The concept of virtue is as old as philosophy itself. In the \u201cRepublic<\/a>,\u201d written in the fourth century B.C.E., Plato distinguishes between virtue in general and the individual virtues that he believes characterize well-being, such as wisdom, courage, moderation and justice.<\/p>\n

Love is not among them. Instead, he associates love \u2013 for which he used the Greek word \u201ceros\u201d \u2013 with feelings of physical desire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was Aristotle, one of Plato\u2019s students, who inched love closer toward virtue. In Aristotle\u2019s \u201cNicomachaen Ethics<\/a>,\u201d he writes that virtue involves learning how to act and feel \u201cat the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way.\u201d The individual virtues are cultivated over time through repetition.<\/p>\n

For an act to be virtuous, one must consciously and deliberately act for the sake of some moral value. For example, Aristotle states that a generous person does good by giving wealth to the right people<\/a>. Someone who spends with the aim of receiving some benefit in return merely appears generous. The person\u2019s character and the spirit in which they give matters.<\/p>\n

The virtuous life isn\u2019t easy \u2013 but true friends can help. Aristotle believed that relationships of mutual respect and concern can empower us to develop virtues. Unlike friendships that are situational or superficial, these deeper connections are characterized by \u201cphilia<\/a>,\u201d a kind of love. Friendships based in philia are virtuous: They involve mutual accountability and concern for each other, as if each person were an extension of oneself.<\/p>\n

Aquinas\u2019 take<\/h5>\n

The Christian moral tradition builds and elaborates on these Greek foundations. For Christian theologians and moral philosophers, love can refer to an emotion, an affection, a duty and, yes, a virtue.<\/p>\n

Aquinas considers virtue to be a stable disposition of the will \u2013 our capacity to choose \u2013 that contributes to a well-lived life<\/a>. Individual virtues are good habits that influence how we relate to ourselves and other people in our daily lives, including love.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
An early 16th-century painting of Thomas Aquinas by the Italian artist Fra Bartolomeo.<\/span>
\nWikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He also considers love to be a theological virtue \u2013 a gift of God\u2019s grace that people can choose to embrace or reject. \u201cCaritas,\u201d or \u201ccharity\u201d in Latin, is defined as friendship with God. Aquinas writes that it has a social benefit, too: Caritas inclines people toward treating their fellow humans with kindness, acting to advance others\u2019 well-being.<\/p>\n

The other types of love, eros and philia, are subjective. They respond to our perception of value in other people and things. Caritas creates value in other people, whether or not we are able to see it.<\/p>\n

Love and hate<\/h5>\n

How can approaching love as a virtue \u2013 rather than an emotion, affection or biochemical reaction \u2013 help us understand feelings of hatred?<\/p>\n

From Aquinas\u2019 perspective, the feeling of hate is dependent on and conditioned by the people and things that we love, or that we consider good for ourselves and other people, whether that\u2019s a sports team, a movie or an ideology.<\/p>\n

Yet if we take love to be a virtue \u2013 a daily habit that we choose to guide our practices \u2013 then we can exercise a degree of control over how we respond to feelings of hatred.<\/p>\n

Consider how much hate there is in politics, such as hatred of a particular policy, politician or belief \u2013 or hatred of injustice itself. But at root, perhaps that hate is a response to love; for example, love for one\u2019s neighbors, one\u2019s country or one\u2019s ideals. Recognizing that possibility can help us respond with a loving choice, like peaceful protest, as a way to advocate for rights. By cultivating the virtue of love, people are more likely to engage in practices of care and empathy necessary for communities to thrive.<\/p>\n

Distinguishing between feelings of love, practices of love and the virtue of love can empower us to respond to feelings of hatred. Becoming better lovers requires engaging with destructive emotions, rather than running from them.\"The<\/p>\n

Tucker J. Gregor<\/a>, Doctoral Candidate in Religious Studies, University of Iowa<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a feeling \u2013 thinking about love as a virtue can change how we respond to\u00a0hate Seeing hate as a feeling tied to love, rather than being its opposite, might help us choose how to respond. Lusky\/E+ via Getty Images Tucker J. Gregor, University of Iowa Love and hate seem like obvious opposites. Love, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1184,241,1183,1185,1180,1181,1182],"class_list":["post-4481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-experiences","tag-aquinas","tag-aristotle","tag-charity","tag-grace","tag-love","tag-philosophy","tag-virtue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4481"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4483,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481\/revisions\/4483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}