Beauvoir on how we can love authentically

Abstract

Reading Beauvoir’s descriptions of love in The Second Sex (TSS), one would be forgiven for being pessimistic about the possibility of authentic love. What I will do in this paper is, using Beauvoir’s diagnosis of inauthentic love under patriarchy, construct a set of conditions that an authentic love would be guided by and strive to manifest. I will then defend the importance of Beauvoir’s views by demonstrating its explanatory power. Firstly, I will show how Beauvoir’s account can deal with two common contemporary problems that are often raised as objections against accounts of love that include a moral element. Then, in the third section, I will also show the value of this account by demonstrating its ability to explain why different kinds of love feel differently. The kind I will focus on will be unrequited love; this will be in dialogue with vision-based accounts to highlight Beauvoir’s unique contribution.