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--- philosophy:ordoamoris [2025/05/19 13:41] – [A Reasonable Synthesis] Owen Mellema
+++ philosophy:ordoamoris [2025/05/19 13:58] (current) – [The Pragmatic Failure of the Concept] Owen Mellema
@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 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.
+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.
-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. In a way, it is a form of investment. I might invest three "love tokens" on complimenting a passerby, and in return receive five back. I might then use these new tokens to do even more acts of love.
-The question therefore becomes - who is more loving? The man who carefully budgets out his love loves less, yet the man who loves without regard loves more. It seems then that it is better for a man to love widely.
+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.
 ===== A Reasonable Synthesis =====