SKC Workshop Spring 2025

Michael Au-Mullaney

(Fordham University, USA)

Kierkegaard on the Motivation and Normative Justification of Christian Love

Some readers of Kierkegaard have seen him as endorsing a bestowal account of the reasons for Christian love, that is, that love is a free act of the lover without regard for the value of the beloved. Many others see Kierkegaard as endorsing a qualities-responsive view, in which Christian love is a response to recognizing the intrinsic value of the beloved’s humanity. I argue both such readings miss a distinction between a normative justifying basis for love and a motivational explanation of why we love. I argue Kierkegaard held that Christian love was normatively justified by the intrinsic value of each human being, but that it is not motivated by a perception of this intrinsic value. This is because he thought only having Christian love could allow an agent to perceive intrinsic value. Thus, Christian love must be motivated in some other way. I argue that Kierkegaard claimed every human being was created with a fundamental urge to love that is typically obstructed by our false conceptions of love, but which can be released by adopting the faith that every human being is worthy of our love (without perceiving this worth). This is done when the Christian, in faith, obeys the command “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.