Building a New Conceptual Framework for the Nature of Love and its Relation to Human Flourishing

Goal

Love is central to human flourishing, it is the popularly recognised mainstay of most people's lives and hopes, and the pillar of much religious practice and rhetoric. However, there are huge disagreements about its nature, origin, and spiritual significance. How are we to comprehend and relate the different dimensions of love? What, if anything, does it have to do with God? How does it impact upon morality? What is its relation to our cognitive, affective, and social capacities? And how are we to negotiate and reconcile the different levels of explanation – philosophical, theological, neuroscientific, biological, psychological, sociological – that must be operative if we are to tackle these issues aright?
The goal is to challenge some orthodox philosophical, theological, and scientific approaches to the concept of love, to instigate an evidence-based approach which is appropriately interdisciplinary and innovative, and to make explicit the practical implications of our research in a manner which will be of moral and spiritual benefit to individuals and communities.
The various projects and activities will inaugurate a new conceptual framework in terms of which to tackle the nature of love and its relation to human flourishing.

Opportunity

This is a new opportunity to tackle the question of the 'creativity and ultimate purpose of love' as Sir John Templeton puts it, and to embody his vision of a truly interdisciplinary framework. Much orthodox thinking in the relevant areas involves contestable assumptions and frameworks. There is an opportunity to make explicit the relevant difficulties, and propose an alternative that is supported by rigorous, evidence-based, research. A principle task will be to set up appropriate channels of communication between the relevant disciplines, and to inaugurate a framework in which the various accounts of love are tested 'on the ground'.

Roadblocks

One challenge is that there are disagreements between scientists, philosophers, and theologians concerning the nature and significance of love. For example, many neuroscientists take cognition and affect to be two dimensions of love supported by independent neural circuits whereas others defend a more integrative model. Analogously oppositional approaches are to be found in philosophy (reason versus passion; reason versus emotion) and theology (agape versus eros).
A second challenge is that many researchers object to thinking of love in spiritual or religious terms.
A third, related, challenge is that many researchers think that it is unscientific to engage in theological enquiry.

Breakthroughs Needed

The addressing of conceptual issues is central to any serious intellectual work, and this requires open-minded dialogue, philosophical acuity, and an eye to the experimental and experiential data. In the context of engaging in experiments in love we must begin with the lived reality of loving as a human experience and activity. An inclusion of these experiences through a qualitative research stream will offer an empirical basis for subsequent experimentation, and this will be a starting-point for interdisciplinary dialogue. Project workshops and seminars will facilitate such dialogue, and sub-grants will tackle the issues from different perspectives. It will be necessary, for example, to address neuroscientific disagreements by facilitating philosophical reflection on the relevant experimental data. The groundwork for such discussion is already under way (see final section), and radical breakthroughs are possible with appropriate interdisciplinary collaboration.
The second and third challenges are addressed by taking the concept and practice of love as the starting point for discussion. Everybody accepts that love is central to human flourishing, the disagreements concern how we are to comprehend its limits. It is essential that atheists and theists are brought into dialogue in both philosophical and scientific settings (facilitated by conferences, workshops, seminars, and sub-grants).

Key Indicators of Success

3 years: quality of applications in response to sub-grants, post-docs, and PhD scholarships; audience feedback to questionnaires; evidence that funded activity has brought advances in understanding; evidence that there has been a change in prevailing attitudes in the relevant areas.
5 years: evidence that sub-grants brought us closer to our goal; positive reports attesting to the value of this research; increase in the discussion of the idea at conferences and seminars.
10 years: positive reviews of published material in top journals and wider press; citations; themes taken up as research topics; a significant shift in understanding at all these levels.

Additional Information

Many thinkers in the relevant fields could offer important contributions to this work, some of whom have taken part in the research projects mentioned below. The following 5 figures would be ideal collaborators.
Prof Fiona Ellis (philosopher, University of Roehampton) https://roehampton-online.academia.edu/fionaellis; project director https://www.questforgodproject.com/)
Dr Clare Watkins (theologian, University of Roehampton) https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/clare-watkins.
Dr Daniel De Haan (Research fellow in the philosophy of cognitive neuroscience, University of Oxford) https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-daniel-d.-de-haan
Prof Raymond Tallis (clinical neuro-scientist and philosopher) http://www.raymondtallis.co.uk/pages/home.html)
Prof Paul Fiddes (theologian, University of Oxford) https://loveinreligion.org/