I'm not saying thoughts aren't driven by emotion. The ability to reason and value things comes from emotion and thought but love is not part of a logical analysis it comes from desire and affinity for affection.
Allow me another chance at explaining what I meant by state of mind.
Have you ever found yourself driving without thinking about driving? As if you were on "auto pilot"? People often go on "auto pilot" if they drive frequently to the same places over and over, and it happens even more frequently when it's part of your daily routine. Such as driving home from work. You don't think about it. In other words, your state of mind becomes reactive, rather than proactive. You're not giving any thought to your actions, you're merely aware of the situation and letting your body react independent from your thoughts. And if you're like me, I think about things that I'll be doing once I get home, or I'm planning some other things to do in the next few days, but I'm not actively thinking about driving. What does this tell us? That we can be active in various other thoughts, while letting our state of mind take care of things that we are not paying attention to. That is what I mean by state of mind. Your awareness of the current situation is.....somewhat fleeting. You're not actively involved, instead you're actively involved in other thoughts that are entirely different from what your body is doing.
Now, could you have been on "auto pilot" when you were a beginner driver? No, because your motor skills have not been developed yet. Since they're not developed, your state of mind needs to be actively aware of what your are doing, in order for you to drive correctly. Once you become familiarized with it, and developed sufficient muscle memory, your mind gradually becomes reactive, rather than proactive. In other words, this is a learned response; Not instinct. Although it may seem a person on "auto pilot" may have a natural ability to drive, making it
look like instinct.
I mentioned drunkenness as a state of mind. Alcohol impairs our minds if drunk in excess. More accurately, it impairs our thought process. It sort of forces us into a state of mind, a sort of "auto pilot", except without us having secondary thoughts (as in the example above). Which explains why so many people do stupid things when they're drunk. But notice, that alcohol is what caused the state of mind, an outside source. Again, not part of instinct.
Love, I would argue, is a learned response (like a state of mind). One that naturally occurs in a social species like Humans. I want to point out that naturally occurring is not the same as instinct.
Look at a newborn child. What does he know? From instincts, he knows hunger, pain, satisfaction, warmth, comfort, etc. But does he truly know love? He may recognize his caretaker, and he may expect to be satisfied or comforted whenever he sees the caretaker, and he may smile or coo or make other affectionate gestures when the caretaker is present, but does this constitute love? I don't think that would be enough. Skinner would say that the newborn is conditioned to make those responses because it reinforces it's behavior when the caretaker is more affectionate towards the newborn.
Look at an older child. Does he know love now? Young children do not know the difference from good and bad, they do not have enough life experience (as argued by Kohlberg). They do however know the difference from reward and punishment. If a child only knows that much, I don't think he would be able to understand authentic love.
Finally you look at the young adult and it is clear that many of them do realize the thing we call love. How did this happen? I'm not sure exactly how, but the progression of events seem to suggest that knowing love is a learned response. We don't seem to possess it when we are born.
