The Ordo Amoris has an important exception
Sometimes you should help strangers in dire need more than those closer to you
by Vesa Hautala | 700 words
US Vice President JD Vance and Rory Stewart recently had an exchange on Twitter/X (full thread in this article for those who don’t have Twitter). During it Vance Tweeted (X’d?) ‘Just google “ordo amoris.”’
Ordo amoris or ordo caritatis, “order of love” is a concept discussed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae. You rarely get scholastic theology thrown around in online political debates. Ideas like ordo amoris may lurk in the background and structure our thinking without us realising, but it’s rare to see them referred to explicitly. I’m a theology nerd, so I’m not going to just let this one go. This might be a case where theological pedantry has something to contribute to the discussion!
I’m going to refrain from political commentary or commenting on what JD Vance or Rory Stewart meant with their remarks, but I think it’s important to point out what an exception (though it might not really be that) to the ordo amoris: Aquinas says that extreme need may require us to help those further away from us if the ones close to us are not in such urgent need.
Let’s back up a little. What is the ordo amoris? If you do what Vance suggests and Google it, pages among the top results will feature lists something like this (this one is from a site called “The manly Catholic”):
God
Self
Wife
Children
Neighbors
Community/Church
County/State
Country
Country's Allies
In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas writes that while you should love all people equally in the sense of desiring the flourishing and salvation of all, your love should be partial in the sense of intensity and beneficence. So instead of loving everyone equally, you should love those closely connected to you more, especially your family. Thomas recognises multiple different spheres of life where different people are to be preferred, though:
… friendship among blood relations is based upon their connection by natural origin, the friendship of fellow-citizens on their civic fellowship, and the friendship of those who are fighting side by side on the comradeship of battle. Wherefore in matters pertaining to nature we should love our kindred most, in matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow-citizens, and on the battlefield our fellow-soldiers. (ST II-II, Q.26, A.8, C)
The “exception” I mentioned earlier is discussed under a question on beneficence (by which Thomas means “simply … doing good to someone”):
… we ought in preference to bestow on each one such benefits as pertain to the matter in which, speaking simply, he is most closely connected with us. And yet this may vary according to the various requirements of time, place, or matter in hand: because in certain cases one ought, for instance, to succor a stranger, in extreme necessity, rather than one's own father, if he is not in such urgent need. (ST II-II, Q.31 A.3, C, emphasis mine)
It’s easy to miss this as it is discussed under a different question than the ordo caritatis. So Thomas’s position seems to be that greater need can override the usual order in some cases. Extreme necessity can trump the usual hierarchy of love. This is a very reasonable caveat. Otherwise, we would need to prioritise even a tiny benefit to our families over saving a stranger’s life, and so on. There needs to be some prioritising going on, of course, if we want to talk about an order of love in the first place. But prioritising family, fellow citizens, fellow believers, etc. is not absolute.
When does need override closeness? Stephen J. Pope comments on this: “Cases of conflict are adjudicated through the exercise of the cardinal virtue of prudence, which carefully weighs degrees of need and connection”. (The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love, p. 64) You have to use your reason to figure out the relative weights of the needs of people further or closer to you and balance between them.
Timely article! Jakub Synowiec also has a good discussion of the topic in his chapter here https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783748925361-121/who-is-my-neighbour-effective-altruism-the-good-samaritan-and-the-opportunities-of-the-21st-century?page=1
Yeah, J.D. Vance's ordo amoris argument is very obviously just a bad attempt to justify his policies, rather than the actual way he came to believe in those policies. Helping those in need, including distant strangers, has always been a part of Christianity, but he thinks he can cite this obscure Thomistic principle as a loophole to get out of that. But obviously saying you should love your family more than distant strangers doesn't imply that you should do nothing to help distant strangers, even when you can provide them with immense benefits at minimal cost to your loved ones.