“But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
—1 Timothy 5:8 

There has been a big flap lately about Vice President J. D. Vance citing the Christian concept of ordo amoris to defend his statement that charity begins at home. One former British MP went so far as to call it “bizarre” and “pagan tribal.” 

The idea that our loves have a proper ordering, and that we owe our love first to God, then to our family, then to our neighbors, then to those in our region, then to our fellow countrymen, and then to all humanity certainly fits with common sense. It also conforms with how most people actually do behave in their lives (at least in terms of the worldly ordering), if not necessarily in their theorizing. I would guess that not a single one of the people hyperventilating over Vance’s comment actually worries about the welfare of a child halfway around the world just as much as they do their own child. 

But what about the practical effects of such a doctrine? Wouldn’t we all be better off if we dropped this “parochialism” and concerned ourselves with the welfare of all other humans equally? 

We can turn to the work of the Nobel Prize–winning economist F. A. Hayek to see why this is not so. In his famous essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” Hayek wrote: 

A little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active cooperation. . . . To know of and put to use a machine not fully employed, or somebody’s skill which could be better utilized, or to be aware of a surplus stock which can be drawn upon during an interruption of supplies, is socially quite as useful as the knowledge of better alternative techniques. 

While Hayek was focused on business decisions, his principle applies, perhaps even more strongly, when we are making charitable decisions. If my own son or daughter is struggling with a personal or social problem, I am in a privileged position to help. I know their entire life history. I know what other struggles they have undergone, and what traumas they may have faced. I understand their character about as well as any human being can understand anyone else’s character. I know who their friends are, who their teachers are, who their coaches are, and I know their cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. 

When we move outward from the immediate family, obviously our level of knowledge decreases. While I am familiar with my neighbor’s child, I may not know that his parents are fighting at home. I may not know that he has taken to hanging out with a group of kids who are using drugs. (Of course, I may not know that about my own children, either, but I am more likely to know it.) I may not know about some physical condition he has or some mishap he suffered in the past. 

But while my knowledge of my neighbor’s child is less than my knowledge of my own, it is still greater than my knowledge of some child I have never seen, who lives a couple of towns away from me. But in this case, I still at least have a common language with the child, some knowledge of the region in which he resides and the customs that are followed there, the laws that apply, and the character of the government under which he lives. My local news covers the events in his town, and I have driven through it many times myself. 

And if some disaster occurs in a region far from where I live, I am still more likely to understand the circumstances surrounding it and the means available to help those suffering when the disaster occurs in my own country, rather than one with which I am unfamiliar. 

Even when charitably donating to some far-away cause, knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place is valuable. For instance, I regularly send money to Nigeria—to a particular priest I know well, whom I trust, and who is from that country and can understand how the money can best be used, since he knows “the particular circumstances of time and place” in his locale. My wife will send money back to her home country of the Philippines to help victims of a typhoon or earthquake there, but she always tries to send it to a charity known to her family or to close Filipino friends to maximize the chance that it is being spent well. 

Ignoring the particular circumstances of time and place can lead to “charitable” efforts that actually make things worse for the recipients. For example, the billions of dollars of food that the U.S. sends overseas to “help” countries facing food shortages often bankrupt local farmers and many times is culturally and nutritionally inappropriate for the recipient country, as described, for example, here

Many people complaining about J. D. Vance’s invocation of ordo amoris have brought up the parable of the Good Samaritan to argue that Vance’s position is not very Christian. They ignore the fact that the Samaritan was being charitable to someone he discovered lying beaten on the very road he was traveling. The story in fact illustrates Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of understanding the particular circumstances of time and place: the Samaritan could see with his own eyes that right in front of him was a man who could desperately use his assistance. He was not shipping money thousands of miles away to the “Aid for Beaten Travelers in Baluchistan Fund,” without any idea if such money might simply be grabbed by kleptocrats in that far-off land and used to bolster their control over the local population. 

The principle of ordo amoris does not mean that we should never care about the problems of anybody except those closest to us. There are many circumstances in which this normal ordering of our loves can and should be modified. For instance, my nation may face such a dire threat that it is morally obligatory for me to leave my home and wife and children behind and travel overseas to fight for my country. Some foreign nation may be facing a famine so severe that it is morally right that I should sacrifice some resources I had intended to devote to my children in order to help the starving people of that land. Ordo amoris offers us what we today might call a “default” ordering, one which can be “overridden” when events demand it. 

In short, if we really want “effective altruism,” we should recognize that J. D. Vance is correct in noting that charity begins at home, not only because our natural affections direct it there first, but also because that is where our charity is most likely to be effective.