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--- philosophy:ordoamoris [2025/05/18 18:07] – Owen Mellema
+++ philosophy:ordoamoris [2025/05/19 13:58] (current) – [The Pragmatic Failure of the Concept] Owen Mellema
@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 ==== A Note on Moral Principles ====
-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.
+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.
-It is the equivalent of a sculptor sculpting a statue of a man. A passerby notices, with surprise, that the statue has three arms instead of two. The sculptor defends his statue, claiming that men //should// have three arms, and that his sculpture is a rendering of the ideal man.
+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.
 ===== The Pragmatic Failure of the Concept =====
 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.
+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 =====
-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.
+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.
-===== A Reasonable Synthesis =====
+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.
-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. One of the originators of the concept was Thomas Aquinas.
+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.