In this paper I examine the role that humility plays in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Nature of Love, giving special attention to the interrelation between humility and love as von Hildebrand expresses and explores it throughout this book. Consideration is also given to an apparent foil of humility, the virtue of magnanimity or greatness of soul; to an authentic foil of both humility and love, the vice of pride; and to the way von Hildebrand understands the relationship between natural and supernatural virtue as it pertains to humility. To grasp von Hildebrand’s theory of humility more fully, both in itself and as it applies to his theory of love, I turn to another of his works: Humility, Wellspring of Virtue. The paper’s conclusion reflects briefly on the relationship between Dietrich von Hildebrand’s appreciation for humility as a preeminent virtue and his own great-souled struggle against National Socialism.

One of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s most significant contributions in his Ethics is the distinction between three “categories of importance,” three types of motives for human actions as well as voluntative and affective responses. They are the “subjectively satisfying,” the “objective good for the person,” and “value” (in the sense of the important in itself). Although the second is called “objective good for the person,” von Hildebrand understands it as the good for the agent or the person responding. Thus, this category comprises those objects which are truly in the agent’s (or responding person’s) interest (rather than what is only satisfying or pleasing for the moment, but possibly opposed to one’s true interest). In his Moralia, von Hildebrand presents the objective good for another as an additional “source of morality” (as he calls it). There, he argues, however (as he does in his book The Nature of Love in which he discusses that source in detail), that the interest in another’s good is an outgrowth of love. Contrary to that, I intend to show that in human motivation, a concern for another’s good may exist prior to and independently of love as von Hildebrand understands it; that acting out of a sincere concern for the well-being of others can occur on behalf of those persons of whom the agent would not be prepared to say that he loves them. I further intend to show that this motive is to be distinguished from intending to do what one understands to be right (which includes cases in which one wishes to act in accordance with one’s duty), as well as from aiming at the realization of a value. Thus, human actions are to be divided into self-regarding and non-self-regarding ones. The first comprise those aiming at the subjectively satisfying and those aiming at the (objective) good for the agent; the second comprise those aiming at the (objective) good for someone other than the agent, those aiming at conforming one’s conduct to what one understands to be right, and those aiming at the realization of an object that is important in itself.

One of the deepest contributions of Dietrich von Hildebrand towards a philosophy of love is the ingenious chapter seven of his book The Nature of Love on the intentio benevolentiae of love (the “intention of benevolence”). According to von Hildebrand, the intention of benevolence constitutes in some sense the inner core of love and its goodness and should always, as he explains, take priority over that other most distinctive trait of love, the intentio unionis, the “desire for union.” This paper shows that von Hildebrand’s distinction between the three “categories of importance” (of the “good”) allows us to understand the benevolent intention and desire for the happiness of the beloved person in a deeper way than was possible ever before. This benevolent intention enables the loving person to see and experience the objective goods for the beloved person from within. The loving person partakes in his affective and free response of love in the innermost and unique center of the beloved person to whom the objective good for him or her is directed. In the intentio benevolentiae, however, the objective good for the beloved person is desired and willed by the loving person not only inasmuch as it is endowed with intrinsic value, but also insofar as it addresses itself to the unique center of consciousness of the beloved person. This applies to all categories of love, even the love of an enemy. Above and beyond this, however, in the love of friendship and in spousal love, in parental love, etc., the objective goods and evils for the other person are not only desired and rejoiced in under the point of view that they are goods for the beloved person, as also in the love of neighbor. Rather, because they are goods and evils for the person beloved in friendship or spousal love, they also become (indirect) objective goods for the friend or spouse. The paper ends with a comparison between some of the texts of Saint Anselm on heaven and von Hildebrand’s chapter, showing that what Anselm says in a sublime text on heaven (that in heaven we will not rejoice more over our own good and blessedness than over that of the beloved persons, and even will rejoice in the beatitude of God more than in our own) can only be truly understood by analyzing it in the light of von Hildebrand’s insights and sharp distinctions. Thus von Hildebrand makes a decisive contribution to the clarification of a central topic in the philosophia perennis: the benevolence of love.

The Nature of Love has rightly been defined as a Summa of von Hildebrand’s thought, but Hildebrandian philosophy is an organic whole, and many insights contained in that treatise are rooted in works written many years before. Understanding his other inquiries into the essence of the spiritual relations which can be performed only by persons is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the significance of von Hildebrand’s masterpiece on love. This paper focuses on von Hildebrand’s phenomenological investigations into the “birth” of human relationships and their effects on the self-realization of the person as they are described mainly in Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft, in some other works, and in a few unpublished pages. This paper, then, is divided into three parts: (1) The first part is dedicated to summarizing von Hildebrand’s analysis of the essence of personal relationships as spiri­tual acts, as social acts, and as acts which involve value responses. Von Hildebrand’s anthropology is essentially a metaphysical and relational philosophy of the person: the person is a spiritual substance—an individual subject—and at the same time a subject who is called to realize himself through his relationships to the world, to other human subjects, and to God. (2) On the basis of this framework, the second part of the paper develops a phenomenological description of the path that begins from the initial spiritual contact between persons and leads to the I-Thou relation. This analysis, according to von Hildebrand, must consider above all the communication between persons and the conditions for interpersonal reciprocity, union, and communion. On the basis of these investigations, we can understand why love is the most perfect kind of relationship. This is true from the point of view of the relation in itself, since love is the relationship which can produce the deepest link between persons; but it is also true from the point of view of the relata (the terms of the relation), since love fosters the highest realization of the persons as individuals. This inquiry also reveals the deep connection between von Hildebrand’s works Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft and The Nature of Love. (3) The third and final part of the paper aims to further deepen our understanding of von Hildebrand’s insights into the effects of love on the human person by drawing on some of his minor works and unpublished writings. Von Hildebrand’s crucial argument in this regard is that love is the most perfect act, since it affects the perfection of the persons involved, that is, both the lover and the beloved. Only in loving and in being loved is the human being re-affirmed in his being and awakened to his full personal existence and essence.

Modern philosophers tend to regard morality as intrinsically universalist, embracing universal norms that apply formally to each moral agent qua moral agent, independent of particularities such as familial relationships or membership in a specific community. At the same time, however, most of us think (and certainly act as if) those particularist properties play a significant and legitimate role in our moral lives. Accordingly, determining the proper relationship of these two spheres of the moral life is of great importance, but a fully successful resolution of this tension re­mains lacking. I believe Dietrich von Hildebrand’s work on love, and specifically his development of the idea of Eigenleben (Subjectivity) in The Nature of Love, offers a fruitful way forward. In this paper I begin by laying out some of the chief features of the universalist character of modern moral theory in both Kan­tianism and consequentialism. I then articulate some of the ways in which von Hildebrand’s understanding of Eigenleben offers us genuine insights towards articulating a substantive account of the proper relationship of the universal demands of morality and the particularist demands of my own life. Specifically, von Hildebrand’s critique of extreme altruism shows that moral agents cannot be properly understood according to merely formal properties like rationality, because each person’s particular Eigenleben is the only real grounds for moral agency. Von Hildebrand develops a critique of depersonalized universalism similar to Bernard Williams’s later criticisms of Kantian moral thought, while offering a positive account that is in many ways more compelling. Ultimately, von Hildebrand allows us to see that a genuine Subjectivity is the necessary ground for the possibility of love, including and especially the love of God, which serves as the basis for a genuine morality based on objective values. Building on this insight we can begin to articulate an account of the moral life grounded in answering the call of God that can do justice to both our universalist and particularist intuitions.