Ordo Amoris (“The Order of Love”) is a moral principle that suggests that there is a proper order to how we should give consideration to others. It says that consideration should be determined in terms of increasing concentric circles around ourselves - one should first care for their immediate family, then their blood relatives, then their friends, then their community, then their nation, then all of the people of the world.

Although it seems like a reasonable approach to morality, this idea turns out to have absurd implications when properly considered. I know this because I formerly believed in a variant of this notion. In fact, I even began writing an article defending it a few years ago. I got halfway through writing it before I realized it's absurdity.

I was surprised, therefore, to discover that not only has this idea been conceptualized prior to my realization of it, but that it has actual implications on the world. I realized this when JD Vance defended himself from the suggestion that his attitudes towards foreign aid were contrary to his Catholic faith by referencing the concept:

We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.

Far from agreeing with Vance, then-Pope Francis rebuked him, writing in a letter to his bishops:

The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25–37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

I thought that I would add my secular thoughts on this concept to the discussion.

Like all moral philosophies, Ordo Amoris makes sense on a surface level. It seems that we have responsibilities to some people which supercede our responsibilities to others. For instance, we consider it to be an act of supreme charity for a man to give all of his wealth to the poor, unless that man happens to have young children. By giving all of his money to the poor, the man neglects the needs of his own children. This seems to be fundamentally wrong.

Early Christian philosophers understood this as God giving us a set of responsibilities. The theory goes that God put me in a family, thus, my job must be to love my family. He also put me in a community, yet the extent to which I am a member of my community is much lesser the extent to which I am a member of my family. Thus, I must have a greater responsibility to my family than to my community, since I am more directly involved with them.

Also like all moral philosophies, the flaws begin to appear when we take it to it's logical extreme.

Consider the following example: Suppose I am driving my son to a soccer game, when an infant crawls in the path of my car. If I slam on the brakes, the infant will be saved, but my son will be a few minutes late to the game. If, however, I continue driving, the infant will be crushed, but my son will be on time to the game.

Ordo Amoris dictates that I give more consideration to my son (who is a member of my immediate family) than to the infant (who is merely a member of my community). Thus, it would seem to dictate that I not step on the brakes and squash the infant under my car. This is an absurd outcome.

This outcome, of course, is a result of taking Ordo Amoris as being binary - clearly the harm to the baby of me hitting it is greater than the harm of my son arriving late to his soccer game. So we might reformulate the idea to say that we should extend more consideration to those closer to us unless the harm to the other would be great. Yet it isn't clear where “great harm” ends and “minor harm” begins. Furthermore, at this point, it seems that our moral decisions would be the same whether the parties were close to us or not. It therefore seems that unless we accept a binary rendering of the concept, it just boils down to utilitarianism (which is flawed in it's own way).

My previous example focused on “great harms”, but the problems also extend to “great benefits”. For instance, under the concept of Ordo Amoris, nepotism would actually be one of the highest moral goods. For example, if I am a manager at a company, and I need to fill a new position, should I choose a candidate that is extremely competent, or a close family friend who lacks the skills required? Most people would consider it to be unfair for me to choose the close family friend, but Ordo Amoris would dictate that doing so fulfills my moral obligation to my family.

It becomes very difficult to conceive of a way to save Ordo Amoris in the face of these challenges.

Do not be tricked into thinking that because Ordo Amoris dictates that a certain thing is good that it must therefore be good, even if it feels wrong. Moral intuition precedes moral philosophy. if the philosophy does not fit our intuition, it is the philosophy that is flawed, not our intuition. As is often said, the map is not the territory – and a map that doesn't describe the territory is a bad map.

Imagine that you have only ever seen beautiful paintings that contain the color red. All other paintings which do not contain the color red are ugly. You might then, reasonably, state that in general all red paintings are beautiful. Suppose, then, that I showed you an ugly painting that was red. Would you be forced to claim, against your intuition, that the ugly painting was beautiful, or would you be forced to change your beliefs about the world? Of course, it is your beliefs that must change.

Ordo Amoris seems to stem from a base belief that people have a limited amount of love to give. This is reasonable because we have a limited amount of time and resources to give to others. Yet love is not bound by time or resources. It is, instead, a feeling of goodwill that can manifest in many ways, be it through kind speech, thoughtful actions or charity.

A person who follows Ordo Amoris might consider love to be some sort of “token” with a finite supply. He might not spend three of these “love tokens” on complimenting a passerby, because that will be three less “love tokens” that can be spent on his wife. Yet in my own life, it has seemed to me that every act of love that I perform actually increases the total love I have for others. It seems that, rather than a limited resource with a finite supply, love is like a muscle that may grow stronger with effort.

If love is a muscle, as I suspect, a person that miserly rations out his love is like a person who never graduates to heavy weights while weight training. To be strong, and to be the sort of person that the preservation of our society requires, we must cultivate an attitude of strong and vigorous goodwill.

One might object that I have been discussing this idea in an unfair way, because even the originators of this idea didn't think of it as an absolute rule as I have been treating it. This is true, but my intention was to critique a particular popular (and dangerous) form of the idea. The intent behind the idea, I think, can still be rescued.

We might say that we have different responsibilities to different groups of people. None of these responsibilities are above or below the others, they are just different types of responsibilities. The bad news is that since there isn't a hierarchy of what responsibilities take precedence we can't formalize a cohesive moral system that tells us what to do in all circumstances. The good news, however, is that most of us have been doing this anyways without thinking about it. Thomas Aquinas himself, one of the original proponents of Ordo Amoris, emphasized the importance of wisdom in the face of conflicting responsibilities.

For instance, a man's responsibility to his children is much different than to, say, his society. It is his duty to provide for them and to raise them to be capable adults. His responsibility to society is to uphold the social order. These two responsibilities actually form a synthesis, as a functioning society is better for children.

These responsibilities might come into conflict when it's voting day. Does the man spend time with his children, or does he go vote? At this point, there is no algorithm for deciding what the best thing to do is, but we might consider the context. If the man has been spending a decent amount of time with his children, spending thirty minutes at the polls won't have much of an impact. However, if he hasn't (for whatever reason) then maybe it is better to spend whatever time he can with his children. There are even creative ways to reconcile conflicts, for instance, my parents brought me with them to vote.

The important thing for the wise man, then, is to be mindful of the different forms of these responsibilities, and to ensure a healthy balance for all things, have a general sense of goodwill, and be motivated by a desire that all things should be in their proper forms.