The phrase "unconditional love" is sloppy and rightly criticized, but there are meanings of it that can hold a lot of value and wisdom.

This page is a stub, created on 2025-06-15. Its contents are notes on the issues and angles I want to address about this topic.

I've passively considered this issue over the last handful of years, but I haven't really straightened out my thinking on it. I was recently inspired by my friend Angela's Facebook post, linking to Xenia Ioannou's article, "If You Love Everyone, You Love No One", with a tagline that reads "There is no such thing as unconditional love. All love has conditions; the thing you love has to be a value. If it's not a value, you can't love it.".

I agree in spirit with that, as well as the article, but it's for a very specific meaning of "unconditional love". Here is what I commented on Angela's post:

I agree with this and think this is the better usage of the word "unconditional", but in my studies, especially of the Mindfulness philosophies and also of the psychological literature, I get the impression that they mean something different by "unconditional love" than what is rightly critiqued here. Their usage is problematic because of the confusion it sows; I'm not defending it.

I also am not sure that I can adequately articulate this alternative meaning, but vibe-wise, I think it's meant to imply a certain kind of attitude you have in the context of a narrow engagement, such as making sure your child knows you love them, irrespective of some acute misdeed, that your love for them isn't conditional on any one particular thing, even if, clinically, you can say that overall, your love for them is indeed conditional on the sum total of their choices and actions. (I'm reminded of how we often experience people as ends in themselves, even though, clinically, our relationships with others are really only justified by the value we derive from them, rendering those people means to the end of our own happiness--but we still use the language of caring for others for their own sake, though that's technically wrong.)

The other dimension of "unconditional love" that I've picked up on is that it is about YOUR state of mind, that you will proceed on the premise of love in your heart, regardless of what is around you; it's about deciding how YOU will engage with the world. Your love for any one person may be conditional, but operating on the premise of love is unconditional. Again, that's not perfect, and there's some sloppiness built into that, but both that and the previous usage are completely compatible with judgment and holding people accountable. (I'm reminded of when I learned that "humane" doesn't mean treating things--like animals--as though they are human, but treating things as a human would / ought to treat them. It's not about the object; it's about the subject.)