Philosophy for Teens

Questioning Life's Big Ideas (Grades 7-12)

Sharon M. Kaye, Paul Thomson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000495188
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What is love? Is lying always wrong? Is beauty a matter of fact, or a matter of taste? What is discrimination?The answers to these questions, and more, are examined in Philosophy for Teens: Questioning Life's Big Ideas, an in-depth, teenager-friendly look at the philosophy behind everyday issues. The authors examine some of life's biggest topics, such as:

• lying,
• cheating,
• love,
• beauty,
• the role of government,
• hate, and
• prejudice.

Both sides of the debates are covered on every issue, with information from some of the world's most noted philosophers included in a conversational style that teenagers will love. Each chapter includes discussions questions, thought experiments, exercises and activities, and community action steps to help students make reasoned, informed decisions about some of life's greatest debates.Examining life's big ideas and discovering their own opinions have never been easier or more exciting for today's teens.Grades 7-12

PART 1
Beauty

La Gue, 1895, William Bouguereau

CHAPTER 1
What Is Love?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003237167-3

The Photograph

Matt and Jen are two old friends having lunch together. As they are finishing, Matt pulls a photograph out of his wallet.

MATT: Well, here she is, Jen. <He proudly hands the picture to her.> My new girlfriend, Shawna. Isn’t she beautiful?

JEN: <Glances disinterestedly at the photo.> How could I tell whether or not she’s beautiful from an image?

MATT: What do you mean? <He snatches back the photograph.> It’s a great picture. You’re just jealous ’cause I’m in love.

JEN: Yeah, right. I’m actually making a point, OK? Beauty isn’t something you can see on the outside. It’s in a person’s soul. I’d have to know Shawna to be able to tell whether or not she’s beautiful.

MATT: Well, then take my word for it, hon. <Leaning back in his chair and smiling broadly, he ticks off each item on his fingers as he continues.> She’s attractive, she has a good job, she’s a great dancer, and she makes everyone laugh. How could you not love a woman like that? I’m telling you, this is the real thing.

JEN: Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. <She shakes her head.> True love isn’t about checking off items on a list. If Shawna gets laid off from work and runs out of good jokes, you’re not gonna love her anymore? And, what if she’s in an accident that scars her face and leaves her crippled? Are you gonna dump her for some other cute dancer?

MATT: Whoa! Those are some pretty awful prospects that I don’t need to be worrying about. But, I will say this. Beauty must be something you see on the outside because otherwise people would never fall in love. Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight? How do you explain that? Some kind of soul radar? <Matt wiggles his fingers over his head like antennae to poke fun at her view.>

JEN: Come on! There are a lot of different kinds of love. I know you have a soul, because you’ve changed a lot on the outside since we became friends, but you’re still the same person that I love.

MATT: Oh, man! Let’s not get all mushy now. <Matt makes a face.>

Questions:

• Why does Jen think beauty is something you cannot see? Why does Matt think you can see it? With whom do you agree more, and why?
• Describe someone you think is beautiful. Do you think this person is beautiful because of the qualities you described or because of something else?
• Describe someone you love. If someone asked you why you love this person, what would you say?
• Explain the difference between romantic love and friendly love.

What Is Love?

People say love makes the world go around. Almost every song on the radio is about love, and most of the movies we enjoy involve a love story. But, how many people stop to ask themselves what exactly love is? Philosophers are the ones who ask questions about things everyone else takes for granted. Love is something human beings have been taking for granted since the beginning of recorded history. Philosophers have been trying to figure out what it is for at least as long.

Plato (427–347 BC) was a philosopher who lived in Ancient Greece, in Athens. He was one of the first philosophers in Western history to record his philosophical ideas in a systematic way and he was immensely influential to the field of philosophy. He opened a school for philosophers in Athens called The Academy, which gave rise to our word academic. Plato’s most widely read work is Apology, an account of the trial of his teacher Socrates. In other works Plato investigated the concepts of such things as piety, virtue, the nature of justice, the nature of love, and the possibility of life after death, to name but a few. Plato wrote his philosophy books in the form of dialogues, much like the ones at the beginning of each chapter in this book. Why do you think he wrote this way?

Plato explored the nature of love in his dialogue, Symposium. It portrays a group of people at a party, each one presenting a theory on what love is. One of the men, a playwright named Aristophanes, argues that true love means you have found your “other half.” He tells everyone at the party that human beings were originally created in three different ways: (1) with both a male and a female half, (2) with two male halves, or (3) with two female halves. One of the gods became angry with humans, however, and split the halves apart, scattering them in every direction. Aristophanes suggests we should all devote our lives to finding our long lost other half. We’ll recognize our other half when we see it, because it was once part of us. Our other half is our true love.

Perhaps Aristophanes does not mean for us to take his story as literally true, but rather as a metaphor for the good feelings we have when we are in love.

While philosophers agree that love is good, they disagree over why it’s good. According to Plato, love is good because it is rational, meaning that there are reasons for it. He believed true love is always directed toward true beauty. True beauty is not something you see or feel. Rather, you come to know it exists by doing philosophy—that is, by thinking about it.

Plato argued that when you see something that strikes you as beautiful, you are really just seeing a partial reflection of true beauty, just as a painting or even a photograph only captures part of the real thing. True beauty, or what Plato calls the Form of Beauty, has no particular color, shape, or size. Rather, it is an abstract idea, like the number five. You can make drawings of the number five in blue or red ink, big or small, but the number five itself is none of those things. Abstract ideas are objects of thought that have no physical form. Think of the abstract idea of a triangle. Although it has no particular color or size, it somehow lies within each and every triangle you see. Plato thought the same was true of beauty. The Form of Beauty somehow lies within each and every beautiful thing you see.

According to Plato, when you love someone, you actually love the Form of Beauty that you see reflected within that per son. Because the Form of Beauty is the highest good, we have every reason to love it.

In an ancient poem called The Odyssey, Homer tells the story of a man named Odysseus and his wife Penelope. Odysseus and Penelope are very much in love. Then, one day Odysseus is called away to the Trojan War. Because he is gone for a long time, everyone assumes he is dead, and they demand that Penelope remarry. Men come from far and wide, each one claiming to be just as good as Odysseus. Penelope rejects every one of them. Soon a mysterious stranger comes along who really is just as good as Odysseus at everything. Fortunately for Penelope, the man turns out to be the long lost Odysseus himself, in disguise. What do you think Homer is trying to say about love in this story?

Penelope and the Suitors, 1912, by John William Waterhouse

The claim that love is rational has an interesting implication, however. If you see more beauty in person A than you see in person B, then you should love person A more than you love person B. If you see the same amount of beauty in two different people, then you should love them the same amount.

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was a French philosopher who disagreed with Plato. According to Montaigne, true love is irrational, meaning that there is no reason for it. He argued that love is at its best when it is maximally free, meaning not limited by any constraint, including reason. There is no way to explain or justify your feelings. If you truly love someone, you will never know exactly why.

Montaigne believed this account of true love especially applies to close friendships. Ask yourself this question: Why do you have the friends you have? You might say, “Because I like them.” But, now ask yourself a further question: Why do you like them? You might be tempted to answer, “I just do.” Montaigne said the same thing. Speaking of his own best friend, he wrote,

In the friendship I speak of, our souls mingle and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined them, and cannot find it again. If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I.

Beyond all my understanding, beyond what I can say about this in particular, there was I know not what inexplicable and fateful force that was the mediator of this union. … Our friendship has no other model than itself, and can be compared only with itself. (From “On Friendship,” by Michel de Montaigne, 1588/1993, p. 139)

Montaigne’s conception of love is very poetic, but it is also problematic. By saying that true love transcends reason, he leaves himself without a basis for justifying his love. This makes his love seem whimsical. Is Montaigne’s love so free that he can change his mind in the blink of an eye? If you loved someone yesterday for no reason at all, then what is there to keep you from loving someone else today, and yet another person tomorrow? Reasons seem to be the only thing to keep love from becoming fickle. Fickleness could e...