Oppositional relationships

Here are three symmetric oppositional possibilities:

1. Competition: x and y have shared knowledge that they are pursuing incompatible goals.

2. Moral opposition: x and y have shared knowledge that they are pursuing incompatible goals and each takes the other’s pursuit to be morally wrong.

3. Mutual enmity: x and y have shared knowledge that they each pursue the other’s ill-being for a reason other than the other’s well-being.

The reason for the qualification on reasons in 3 is that one might say that someone who punishes someone in the hope of their reform is pursuing their ill-being for the sake of their well-being. I don’t know if that is the right way to describe reformative punishment, but it’s safer to include the qualification in (3).

Note that cases of moral opposition are all cases of competition. Cases of mutual enmity are also cases of competition, except in rare cases, such as when a party suffers from depression or acedia which makes them not be opposed to their own ill-being.

I suspect that most cases of mutual enmity are also cases of moral opposition, but I am less clear on this.

Both competition and moral opposition are compatible with mutual love, but mutual enmity is not compatible with either direction of love.

Additionally, there is a whole slew of less symmetric options.

I think loving one’s competitors could be good practice for loving one’s (then necessarily non-mutual) enemies.