Thanks man, likewise. 

> The love in the OP definition could just as readily be ascribed to infatuation. It's really not necessarily love at all. 

I disagree. Infatuation could be a reaction to physical attractiveness or relative opulence. I'm not a huge Ayn Rand fan but I agree with her on selfishness and love.

> This "act" of being is a prerequisite for anyone born into this world.

I appreciate the quotes on "act" because, as I'm sure we can both agree, "being" isn't an action undertaken to reduce felt uneasiness. It's not a prerequisite of being born; being born is a prerequisite of being, as are conception and gestation. Conception, gestation and birth are also prerequisites of purposeful action, but not sufficient on their own to demonstrate the purposeful action of a fetus or infant. 

> I would call the love I have for my son unconditional. 

I know you would. I anticipated the love a parent has for their child in the original article.

> To say that this love (which is another term not well-defined here, I feel) is "conditional" because it is based on the condition of him being my son, seems to render the whole argument silly either way. Everything is based on the condition of existence in the first place. 

- I defined "love" as an involuntary reaction to virtue. If we need to hash out the definitions of "reaction" or "virtue", we can. I think this definition itself is sufficient, though.
- You're oscillating between "being my son" and "being" as though they were the same thing. I'm not arguing that your love for your son presupposes your son's existence - of course it does; I'm saying it is a condition of your son's relation to you, and of your son's virtue. If your son stabbed every moving thing he saw with a kitchen knife, you'd feel differently about him. If your son had somehow been born to a different set of parents, you'd feel differently about him (if you were aware of him at all). Of course he wouldn't even be yours in that circumstance, but the point is that billions of children exist. There are conditions as to why you feel the way you do about your son but not those other children. If there wasn't, you'd have the same love for all children that you do for your own.

> Everything is based on the condition of existence in the first place.

Just to reiterate, this isn't my claim. Calling a claim I didn't make silly is not really an argument.

> I think "love" and "unconditional" here may potentiate the opening of a whole can of semantic worms.

I personally think there is more wiggle room in "virtue" and "reaction", as noted above. I didn't bother to nail those terms down for the purpose of this article but I don't disagree that I'm opening a semantic can of words. :-)

> All that said, I also agree with Rand.

I know we're just nitpicking. And I'm sure you love your son very much. Thanks for the response man!

> Western thinking seeks empirical explanations of a phenomenon like "love.". The individual is paramount and explanations of "love" based on "individuals engage in purposeful action to relieve their own feelings of uneasiness" make sense.

I don't mean to be rude but it looks like you skimmed what I wrote without taking its meaning. I'm explicitly rejecting empirical explanations of love in favor of a praxeological, or introspective explanation.