Why the Hell would I want to practice the virtue of charity? If anything, I want to help people. And hating people from a foreign country could be an excellent way to do damage!
I’m sorry, my original post was not quite precise. I meant charity in the sense of the Principle of Charity, not charitable contributions. If you prefer, substitute “kind” for “charitable”; it’s not quite the same but illustrates the point just as well.
And hating people from a foreign country could be an excellent way to do damage!
Keep in mind, we’re talking about the damage you do to yourself. Hating people you’ve never met is not a very efficient way to damage yourself. Much better is to hate people you know intimately and see every day. That way you can practice your vices efficiently, and will have as many opportunities as possible to act them out.
Applying the principle of charity to people you know but not to foreigners is a well-known failure mode that produced Soviet atrocities against Germans, to use Lewis’ own example. And again, here is Lewis applying the principle of charity to a transformation-happy Sith Lord with a mind-altering book after writing these allegedly helpful quotes. He seems to genuinely not see the parallels between borderline-self-insert Coriakin and his most famous villain.
Lewis is explicitly writing religious propaganda. It’s not coincidence that his advice would have his mostly-Christian readers focus on charity to Christian authority figures before Soviets, or even Church critics they don’t personally know.
To the women in the Magdalen laundries, that would be their employer. But if you genuinely insist that because Lewis said “every day” rather than every week, he couldn’t have meant a priest or vicar (or one of those supervising nuns) except in the case of those readers who actually do see one every day, then I’m going to insist he didn’t want to help women because he said “he”. Or do you want to argue this quote has nothing to say about people who fall in between the most “immediate” and the “remote circumference”?
Also, we just had another quote from the same source in which Lewis used the narrow form of this principle to attack atheists—or anyone who doubts that “his” neighbors belong to the body of an otherworldly entity, for what Lewis implies are poor reasons. (I agree they aren’t the best reasons—those would start with the absurdly low prior.)
Are you going to respond to my argument that this habit of trusting the familiar hurt Lewis’ rationality?
Are you going to respond to my argument that this habit of trusting the familiar hurt Lewis’ rationality?
No, of course not. It has nothing to do with the quote I posted.
You’re clearly suffering and I don’t want to just blow you off, but in this thread you’ve almost exclusively responded to things I didn’t write. I am not the proper object for your anger with Lewis and Christianity, and I’m done engaging with you.
Why the Hell would I want to practice the virtue of charity? If anything, I want to help people.
Except, with that attitude you won’t. You’ll sit around telling yourself how virtuous you are for liking people you’ve never met, while being a misanthrope to everyone you personally know. Furthermore, if (or when) you mean one of the foreign people you supposedly love, you’ll wind up being a misanthrope to them as well.
And hating people from a foreign country could be an excellent way to do damage!
Really? How does you, personally, hating people from a foreign country do damage?
I think it’s implicit from when he said “if anything, I want to help people”, and when he described donations that are efficient at helping anonymous strangers as “produc[ing] a giant net benefit”.
The people of the soviet union were a resource that Stalin had a great amount of control over, and so even if he was perfectly selfish and uncaring towards his people, he would prefer to preserve that resource. The selfish benefit to be gained from saving a life in Africa is negligible, and is vastly outweighed by the cost.
I suppose I should clarify that I’m taking “love” in this context to basically mean the same thing as “like”—in many contexts it’s not just a mere difference of degree, but in the context of “loving humanity” and such phrases I think it probably is.
Why the Hell would I want to practice the virtue of charity? If anything, I want to help people. And hating people from a foreign country could be an excellent way to do damage!
I’m sorry, my original post was not quite precise. I meant charity in the sense of the Principle of Charity, not charitable contributions. If you prefer, substitute “kind” for “charitable”; it’s not quite the same but illustrates the point just as well.
Keep in mind, we’re talking about the damage you do to yourself. Hating people you’ve never met is not a very efficient way to damage yourself. Much better is to hate people you know intimately and see every day. That way you can practice your vices efficiently, and will have as many opportunities as possible to act them out.
Applying the principle of charity to people you know but not to foreigners is a well-known failure mode that produced Soviet atrocities against Germans, to use Lewis’ own example. And again, here is Lewis applying the principle of charity to a transformation-happy Sith Lord with a mind-altering book after writing these allegedly helpful quotes. He seems to genuinely not see the parallels between borderline-self-insert Coriakin and his most famous villain.
Lewis is explicitly writing religious propaganda. It’s not coincidence that his advice would have his mostly-Christian readers focus on charity to Christian authority figures before Soviets, or even Church critics they don’t personally know.
The three examples given in the quote are:
Which of those are Christian authority figures?
To the women in the Magdalen laundries, that would be their employer. But if you genuinely insist that because Lewis said “every day” rather than every week, he couldn’t have meant a priest or vicar (or one of those supervising nuns) except in the case of those readers who actually do see one every day, then I’m going to insist he didn’t want to help women because he said “he”. Or do you want to argue this quote has nothing to say about people who fall in between the most “immediate” and the “remote circumference”?
Also, we just had another quote from the same source in which Lewis used the narrow form of this principle to attack atheists—or anyone who doubts that “his” neighbors belong to the body of an otherworldly entity, for what Lewis implies are poor reasons. (I agree they aren’t the best reasons—those would start with the absurdly low prior.)
Are you going to respond to my argument that this habit of trusting the familiar hurt Lewis’ rationality?
No, of course not. It has nothing to do with the quote I posted.
You’re clearly suffering and I don’t want to just blow you off, but in this thread you’ve almost exclusively responded to things I didn’t write. I am not the proper object for your anger with Lewis and Christianity, and I’m done engaging with you.
To self-modify, perhaps?
Except, with that attitude you won’t. You’ll sit around telling yourself how virtuous you are for liking people you’ve never met, while being a misanthrope to everyone you personally know. Furthermore, if (or when) you mean one of the foreign people you supposedly love, you’ll wind up being a misanthrope to them as well.
Really? How does you, personally, hating people from a foreign country do damage?
And why would I care about that if my donations produce a giant net benefit? When did I even claim to love anyone?
If you don’t love people, why would your utility function include a term for their wellbeing?
Where did he claim that his utility function included a term for the stranger’s well-being?
I think it’s implicit from when he said “if anything, I want to help people”, and when he described donations that are efficient at helping anonymous strangers as “produc[ing] a giant net benefit”.
If Stalin didn’t love his own people, why would he mildly prefer not to throw them at Hitler?
The people of the soviet union were a resource that Stalin had a great amount of control over, and so even if he was perfectly selfish and uncaring towards his people, he would prefer to preserve that resource. The selfish benefit to be gained from saving a life in Africa is negligible, and is vastly outweighed by the cost.
I suppose I should clarify that I’m taking “love” in this context to basically mean the same thing as “like”—in many contexts it’s not just a mere difference of degree, but in the context of “loving humanity” and such phrases I think it probably is.