… if you love me unconditionally, presumably you love everything else as well, since it is only conditions that separate me from the worms.
It’s worse than that. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, everything else loves Bob as well, since it is only conditions that separate Alice from the worms. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, then Alice also hates Bob, since it is only conditions that separate love from hate. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, she also loved Bob during the Big Bang, since it is only conditions that separate the present from the past.
Fortunately, this isn’t how language works, or the word “unconditional” would be unusable. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, this means that there are no conditions other that Alice, Bob, and (present tense) love. If Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies, it means that there are no conditions other than Germany, the Allies, and surrender. If Target offers unconditional refunds to veterans on purchases of clothing, there are no conditions other than Target, refund, veterans, purchases, and clothing.
Even if we instead assume that by ‘unconditional’, people mean something like ‘resilient to most conditions that might come up for a pair of humans’, …
Not quite. More like “resilient with very high probability to conditions that might come up for this pair of humans”. Unconditional love for a toddler may be resilient to biting and kicking and punching. Unconditional love for a mentally sound adult may not.
The general principle is that when people speak they don’t need to qualify high confidence statements. I can say something like “Bob is not going to commit treason” without qualifiers, assuming that Bob is not the treasonous type. Similarly I can say “Alice loves Bob unconditionally” without qualifying that in a wild conspiracy-theory hypothetical where Bob is committing treason, and Alice is about to find out, then Alice might soon have different feelings.
If I want to be more precise, I can use qualifiers - “completely unconditional”, “effectively unconditional”, “mostly unconditional”, “somewhat conditional”, etc.
… my impression is that [unconditional love] is still too rare to warrant being the main point on the love-conditionality scale that we recognize.
I agree it’s rare, but it’s an important point to label. It’s decision-relevant for marriage—if there is a 50% chance that Bob will get plump and a 50% chance that Alice would stop loving Bob if he got plump, then there is a 25% chance that their love will end for that reason. Depending on context, that may be reason enough not to marry (yet).
It’s also decision-relevant when deciding if to become a parent. Parents are expected to care for their children, unpaid and unconditionally, until adulthood. Providing unpaid care without love is hard. If a prospective parent cannot see themselves loving their children unconditionally, that may be reason enough not to have kids (yet).
Historically these have been key life decisions, so it seems natural that we have a common phrase to describe the desired states for making them.
It’s worse than that. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, everything else loves Bob as well, since it is only conditions that separate Alice from the worms. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, then Alice also hates Bob, since it is only conditions that separate love from hate. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, she also loved Bob during the Big Bang, since it is only conditions that separate the present from the past.
Fortunately, this isn’t how language works, or the word “unconditional” would be unusable. If Alice loves Bob unconditionally, this means that there are no conditions other that Alice, Bob, and (present tense) love. If Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies, it means that there are no conditions other than Germany, the Allies, and surrender. If Target offers unconditional refunds to veterans on purchases of clothing, there are no conditions other than Target, refund, veterans, purchases, and clothing.
Not quite. More like “resilient with very high probability to conditions that might come up for this pair of humans”. Unconditional love for a toddler may be resilient to biting and kicking and punching. Unconditional love for a mentally sound adult may not.
The general principle is that when people speak they don’t need to qualify high confidence statements. I can say something like “Bob is not going to commit treason” without qualifiers, assuming that Bob is not the treasonous type. Similarly I can say “Alice loves Bob unconditionally” without qualifying that in a wild conspiracy-theory hypothetical where Bob is committing treason, and Alice is about to find out, then Alice might soon have different feelings.
If I want to be more precise, I can use qualifiers - “completely unconditional”, “effectively unconditional”, “mostly unconditional”, “somewhat conditional”, etc.
I agree it’s rare, but it’s an important point to label. It’s decision-relevant for marriage—if there is a 50% chance that Bob will get plump and a 50% chance that Alice would stop loving Bob if he got plump, then there is a 25% chance that their love will end for that reason. Depending on context, that may be reason enough not to marry (yet).
It’s also decision-relevant when deciding if to become a parent. Parents are expected to care for their children, unpaid and unconditionally, until adulthood. Providing unpaid care without love is hard. If a prospective parent cannot see themselves loving their children unconditionally, that may be reason enough not to have kids (yet).
Historically these have been key life decisions, so it seems natural that we have a common phrase to describe the desired states for making them.