Kristie Miller & Marlene Clark 
Dating – Philosophy for Everyone 
Flirting With Big Ideas

DATING

PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE

Speed dating, online dating, group blind dating, dating consultants… A booming dating industry is catering to an ever-increasing number of single adults in the twenty-first century, with the market for a mate now pulling in more than a billion dollars a year in the United States. So, how do we successfully attempt to navigate the dating minefield?

Progressing from the first flirtatious moment of eye contact to the selection of a ‚mate, ‚ Dating – Philosophy for Everyone includes a number of playful yet relevant essays for anyone who has dated, is dating, or intends to date again. It offers fascinating philosophical explorations of topics such as:

* The taboos of dating and how to play the dating game

* Should science teach men how to attract women?

* The problem of having too much choice

The vicissitudes of dating and mating are explored from a number of perspectives, all of which will help demystify coupling in the twenty-first century for those young daters just entering the fray, and those veterans returning to the game.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword viii
Joshua Wolf Shenk

Acknowledgments xi
Kristie Miller and Marlene Clark

Flirting with Big Ideas: An Introduction to Dating – Philosophy for Everyone 1
Kristie Miller and Marlene Clark

Part I GETTING STARTED: From Flirting to Dating 11

1 The Philosophy of Flirting 13
Carrie S. Jenkins

2 Good Girls Don’t, but Boys Don’t Either: Toward a Conservative Position on Male Flirting 19
Emily Langan

3 Love for Sale: Dating as a Calculated Exchange 37
Jennifer A. Samp and Andrew I. Cohen

4 The Dating Elevator: Pushing the Right Buttons and Moving from Floor to Floor 49
John Rowan and Patricia Hallen

Part II NO-NO’S: Dating Taboos 65

5 ‚Crazy in Love‘: The Nature of Romantic Love 67
Mary Beth Yount

6 I’m Dating My Sister, and Other Taboos 76
Kristie Miller

7 Just Pushy Enough 90
Anne Barnhill

8 Buy My Love: On Sex Workers, Gold Diggers, and ‚Rules Girls‘ 101
Kyla Reid and Tinashe Dune

Part III ROLLING RIGHT ALONG: Dating Like a Pro 115

9 Against Matchmaking 117
Joshua S. Heter

10 Hitting the Bars with Aristotle: Dating in a Time of Uncertainty 126
Richard Paul Hamilton

11 I’ve Never Been on a Date (yet Somehow I Got Married!) 139
Andrew Terjesen

12 Morality, Spontaneity, and the Art of Getting (Truly) Lucky on the First Date 151
Christopher Brown and David W. Tien

Part IV ANOTHER WORLD: Cyber-Rendezvous 165

13 Dating and Play in Virtual Worlds 167
Bo Brinkman

14 How To Be Yourself in an Online World 180
Dan Silber

Part V FROM DATE TO MATE: ‚Natural‘ Selection? 195

15 Evolutionary Psychology and Seduction Strategies: Should Science Teach Men How to Attract Women? 197
Hichem Naar and Alberto Masala

16 Mating, Dating, and Mathematics: It’s All in the Game 211
Mark Colyvan

17 Why Less May Be More: Dating and the City 221
Marlene Clark

Notes on Contributors 233

Über den Autor

Editors

KRISTIE MILLER is a research fellow in philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia.

MARLENE CLARK is an Associate Professor of English at the City College Center for Worker Education, City University of New York.

Series Editor

FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics.