ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the relevant difficulties would mean letting go of the idea that love and other forms of caring are distinct; the resulting approaches are not really theories of love at all, because they emphasize the continuity between loving caring and other forms of caring. It shows that how love is special may be a misguided enterprise. Love as caring concern can obscure the difference between selfishness and self-sacrifice, and collapse the distinction between deference and self-directedness. The chapter suggests that some theories of love face challenges related to fairness and equality, especially when it comes to competing interests. While union and concern may function to create a special context of caring context against a background of asymmetrical gender roles, they are ill suited for gender equality, since they elide the distinctions that are necessary for making judgments about fairness and reciprocity.
