Søren Kierkegaard on love
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Søren Kierkegaard regarded love as a duty that called for personal commitment, not merely a feeling or a source of pleasure. He placed the duty to love within his larger concern that beliefs should shape the way a person lived. A life spent seeking interest and avoiding lasting obligations could fall short of that demand. For him, love belonged to the responsibilities a person had to accept in concrete life, rather than to ideas that could simply be admired.
Pleasure could conceal an escape
In Either/Or, Kierkegaard presented a pleasure-seeking way of life through a witty young man who was bored and unhappy beneath his cleverness. This portrayal helped explain his concern that constant interest could become a way of avoiding enduring commitments.
Responsibility belonged to each person
Kierkegaard distrusted the comfort of shared opinion because it allowed individuals to avoid answering for their choices. His emphasis on the single individual gave the duty to love a personal weight: general approval could not replace a person's own responsibility.
Religious commitment demanded more
His Christian outlook centered on the individual's relationship to Jesus Christ through faith. He opposed treating Christianity as inherited religious status or pleasant custom. This wider religious demand placed his account of duty within a life of costly commitment rather than social respectability.
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