Posted by alexandra_k on October 18, 2005, at 1:22:33
I just knew I'd come across this idea again...
'An interesting example with which to develop the Machiavellian perspective is romantic love. Most accounts of this emotion regard it as a device to create and maintain long-term pair bonds. According to Robert Frank, love is a 'commitment mechanism' a guarantee that a person will remain committed to a relationship even when temporarily more rewarding relationships become available (Frank, 1988). A special emotion is needed for this purpose, because simple means-end rationality will dictate choosing the current best option at each moment. Melvyn Konner, in contrast, has pointed out that in traditional societies few people have the option of forming a long-term pair bond on the basis of romantic attraction. Instead, he suggests that the irruptive, passionate love that western societies treat as teh occasion for the formation of life-long partnerships may have as its primary evolutionary function motivating behaviours such as mate desertion and copulation outside the pair bond (kinner, 1982: 315-316). This suggestion has become more credible since it was first made in the light of the increasing emphasis in behavioural ecology on female promiscuity. Females in a wide range of species search for the 'best genes' independent of the need in many of the same species to maintain a stable bond with a single male to provide economic support for offspring. In humans, mate desertion and promiscuity are risky behaviours as far as immediate survival goes. They carry a high probability of agonistic interactions with other members of the group. If the advantages of these behaviours for reproductive fitness are great enough, however, love might evolve as a special motivational system designed, not to enforce commitment when impulse argues against it, but to motivate adultery when prudence argues against it'.
Paul Griffiths: Basic Emotions, Complex Emotions, Machiavellian Emotions p33-34
Available from:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000604/00/Machiavellian_Emotions.pdf
poster:alexandra_k
thread:568417
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20051002/msgs/568417.html