Love is a psychological bond

The argument

How and who we love is completely based on our individual psychology. Our individual health, self-esteem, experiences and families all impact our romantic relationships. Our psychology dictates who we love without any conscious input from ourselves. According to Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love, the psychology of love has three components: intimacy, passion and commitment. These three qualities together - consummate love - form the basis of a romantic love between two people. The feelings we have for another person are largely due to the psychology of our past. These immovable factors dictate whether or not we love someone.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument overstates its case in two ways, and it also sits oddly under the position it is meant to support. First, Sternberg's triangular theory catalogues components that make up love — intimacy, passion and commitment — but describing love's parts does not show that love operates 'without any conscious input': commitment in particular is standardly understood as something people choose and sustain, not a factor that simply happens to them, and passion has clear physiological correlates. So the theory cited does not establish the strong psychological determinism the body asserts. Second, that our health, upbringing and past experiences shape whom we are drawn to shows those factors influence love, not that they 'dictate' it as 'immovable' forces; people cultivate, resist and change their attachments, which is hard to reconcile with pure determinism. There is a further tension: the argument concludes that love is 'fundamentally a psychological bond', yet it appears under a position that love is biological — and the psychological and biological accounts it treats as rivals in fact overlap heavily, since attraction, passion and bonding have well-documented neurochemical underpinnings. Establishing that love has a psychological dimension does nothing to exclude its biological one, so the argument neither proves strict psychological determinism nor defeats the biological view.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Sternberg's theory catalogues components of love — intimacy, passion, commitment — but does not show love occurs 'without conscious input'; commitment is chosen and passion has physiological correlates, so it does not establish psychological determinism. [Rejecting P3] That past experiences shape whom we love does not make those factors 'immovable' or exclude biology — attraction and bonding have neurochemical underpinnings — so the psychological and biological accounts overlap rather than competing.