HIGHER GROUND: I Love, Therefore I Am
In the age of AI, it’s time to rethink what makes us human
As seen in The Dallas Morning News / PDF version / More Commentary
By Kyle Ogden
“I think, therefore I am.” Four centuries ago, René Descartes offered that elegant sentence as proof of human existence. His insight was simple and bracing: If I am thinking, then I must exist. Even doubt requires a thinker. In a world hungry for certainty, rational thought became the firm ground on which human identity stood, especially as Descartes’ Enlightenment successors gained influence. To think was not just something humans did; it was who we were.
Long before Descartes, Aristotle reached a similar conclusion. He argued that what distinguishes humans from plants and animals is our capacity to reason well over the course of a lifetime. According to Aristotle, plants grow, animals feel and perceive, but humans deliberate, judge and choose. Our highest good — what he called eudaimonia, or human flourishing — came from exercising reason in accordance with virtue. A good life was not about pleasure or status, but about living thoughtfully, ethically and purposefully.
For more than 2,000 years, that framework worked. To be human was to think. To flourish was to reason well. It was our unique advantage. Until now.
Today, we find ourselves in a moment neither Aristotle nor Descartes could have imagined. Artificial intelligence systems can now do many things that once belonged exclusively to the human mind. They analyze data, solve complex problems, write essays, diagnose disease, compose music and carry on conversations. In many domains, machines already outperform humans at what we long believed defined us: thinking.
This reality has unsettled me. Recently, I shared that unease in conversation with two sociologists from Baylor University, Matthew Lee and Byron Johnson, leaders of the Global Flourishing Study — a major international research effort examining what helps human beings truly thrive. I posed the question to them plainly: If machines can think, calculate and reason alongside us, what happens to the idea that rational thought makes us uniquely human? Are we watching the foundation of a 2,000-year-old understanding quietly erode?
Lee’s response surprised me, not because it was complex, but because it was so clear. Perhaps, he suggested, the highest human function is not reason alone, but love.
At first glance, that may sound sentimental. But decades of research into human flourishing tell a remarkably consistent story. Across cultures and continents, the strongest predictors of a good life are not IQ, income or professional achievement. They are close relationships, compassion, generosity, empathy and a felt sense of being loved — and loving in return.
The famous Harvard Study of Adult Development, which followed hundreds of lives for more than 70 years, reached a simple conclusion: “Happiness is love. Full stop.” Strong, caring relationships were the clearest predictors of health, longevity and life satisfaction. Wealth and status barely registered by comparison.
Here’s the crucial distinction for our time: Love is not something machines can truly replicate. A computer can process language. It can simulate empathy. It can even say the words “I love you.” But it does not care. It does not sacrifice. It does not suffer with us or rejoice for us. Love requires vulnerability, moral commitment and presence — qualities rooted in lived experience and genuine human connection.
This does not mean reason is unimportant. Our minds remain extraordinary tools. Intelligence builds bridges, cures diseases and expands knowledge. But reason without love is incomplete. Intelligence can build systems; love builds trust. Intelligence can optimize outcomes; love gives those outcomes meaning. Intelligence asks, “What can be done?” Love asks, “What should be done — and for whom?”
As artificial intelligence continues to advance, it may force us to refine what we mean by intelligence. But it also invites us to reclaim something even more essential. If thinking is no longer ours alone, then perhaps loving was never meant to be optional. Perhaps love has always been the highest human function. We simply did not need to say it out loud until now.
In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms, our humanity will not be measured by how closely we resemble machines, but by how fully we embody what machines cannot: compassion, kindness, mercy, gratitude and responsibility for one another.
Descartes was right in his time: To think was proof of existence. Aristotle was right in his time: To reason well was the path to flourishing. But our time may be asking something more of us. Perhaps the truest expression of being human today is not “I think, therefore I am,” but something deeper and more enduring: Amo, ergo sum.
I love, therefore I am.
Kyle Ogden is president and CEO of the Thanks-Giving Foundation.