The Fifth Life Principle: Be Loving

(page 2 of 2)

There were four words for "love" in ancient Greek:

1) Eros, from which we get "erotic," and which gives rise to most of what pop songs are about

2) Storge, or love between parent and child

3) Agape, or Godly love

4) Philos, the love of, well, everything else

"Philos" is the root of such words as philosophy (the love of wisdom), philology (the love of words), and philanthropy (literally, the love of people). Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, takes its name from this Greek root, and the great philharmonic orchestras are so named because they are "lovers of harmony." Bibliophiles love books, cinephiles love movies, and audiophiles are passionately devoted to the best reproductions of music. There are as many different kinds of love as there are things to be loved.

Love and Respect: A Deep Connection

In my view, the most perceptive analysis of love is that offered by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving. For Fromm, love involves not sacrificing ourselves for someone else or demanding that the other gives selflessly to us. Rather, the goal is to create an environment in which each person in the relationship can be the best he or she can be:

Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere equals to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use.

It is no accident that this description of love draws on Life Principle No. 3, for it is impossible to imagine a loving relationship that is not based on mutual respect. Thus, a full account of Life Principle No. 5 will show that treating ourselves with respect is one of the most important ways we can express love and compassion in our lives.

Love Yourself First

In discussing how she has learned to manage her fluctuating weight, Oprah Winfrey said, "I wasn't able to get my weight under control until I began to treat myself the way I treat others." Ethics, as we have noted, is about taking the rights and well-being of others as least as seriously as we take our own interests. Oprah's statement, however, reveals that many of us, perhaps women in particular, often value other people more than we value ourselves. The love of others must begin with the love of self. And look at all the ways in which we show a lack of love for ourselves:

•We choose food for ourselves that we know isn't good for us.

•We choose boyfriends or girlfriends, husbands or wives, lovers or "soul mates" we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

•We allow clutter to accumulate in our living or work space.

•We fail to exercise, in spite of knowing that exercise is essential for maintaining physical and mental health (or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, we push ourselves to the extreme).

•We engage in negative self-talk throughout the day, when we never talk to our friends or family this way.

•We obsess over what we should have done or fantasize about what we'd like to achieve while doubting we could ever get there.

In short, we fail to love ourselves. And that's not just unfortunate. It's unethical. Ethics is not solely about our relationships with lovers, bosses, assistants, and the community at large. It is also about our relationship to ourselves, not just because we cannot benefit others if we don't take care of ourselves, but because we owe it to ourselves to treat ourselves with respect.

The best way to apply Life Principle No. 5 is to keep Life Principles Nos. 1-4 in mind at all times and apply them to our own life. When we play in our minds that endless tape loop of negative self-talk, we violate Life Principle No. 1: Do No Harm. It harms our soul to speak poorly of ourselves. When we choose a steady diet of junk food over healthful meals, we violate Life Principle No. 2, Make Things Better. The scope of "things" should not be limited to those persons, places, and inanimate objects outside of us. When we dishonor our conscience, say by keeping quiet when we know we should speak out, we violate Life Principle No. 3: Respect Others.

Since we have the same intrinsic value that others do, it is unfair, and thus a violation of Life Principle No. 4, to deny ourselves that to which we are entitled. Consider the ways in which you can apply Life Principle No. 5 more consistently in your professional and personal life. How might doing so enrich the lives of others…and your own life as well?

For his analysis of the first four life principles, the author is indebted to Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Fifth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Bruce@TheEthicsGuy.com Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. is the corporate consultant, author, and public speaker known as The Ethics Guy. He has appeared on numerous national television shows and is the author of several books on ethics. His “Ask the Ethics Guy!” appears every other week on businessweek.com/managing/.