STAGE 2. In this stage, Richard tries to show that perfect charity must be directed at another person. Here’s the quotation:
‘no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself. And so it is necessary for love to be directed toward another for it to be charity’.
The idea here seems to be that charity is a disposition to love another (in a particular way, though I don’t know what that particular way is, so I’ll leave it undefined here). However, in order for charity to be perfect, it seems to require two things.
First, it must be manifested or realized in order to be perfect. That is, someone with a charitable disposition is not perfect unless they actually act charitably. So
(T4) For any person x, if x has a charitable disposition P, x is not perfect if x does not exercise P.
Second, a charitable disposition cannot be exercised perfectly unless one directs it to a distinct person. In other words, one cannot exercise charity on themselves and be perfect. So:
(T5) For any person x, if x has a charitable disposition P, x is not perfect if x does not exercise P on some person y, where x is not identical to y.
T4 and T5 identify two necessary conditions for charity to be perfectly realized: it must be exercised, and it must be exercised on another person. But these two conditionts are not sufficient for charity to be perfect. There’s still a third condition that must be satisfied too, but that comes up in the next post.
I mean that ‘caritas’ means love. But the word ‘love’ is ambiguous. So ‘caritas’ means love but only in a certain sense of the word ‘love’. Remember C S Lewis’ four loves: eros, storge, philos, and agape.
I think, as Richard uses the word, it involves love of another person, it may also involve self-love, but we don’t know this from what Richard says.
If you agree that ‘caritas’ means love, then you should also agree that it doesn’t mean a disposition to love. Compare: ‘cogito’ means thinking, not a disposition to think.
I claimed that love is partly dispositional. It involves belief and desire, which are dispositions. And you can love someone even if there is no mental activity going on in you (e.g. in deep dreamless sleep). But it is also a relation. Love of another couldn’t exist without the lover and the other who is beloved. But a disposition to love another could exist without that other. So love is not itself a disposition to love.
Couldn’t a ‘disposition to love’ be satisfied by an act of loving oneself _and_ the act of loving another person? Or, are you just restricting what satisfies caritas, that is, loving-another-person?
By “a certain kind of love” do you mean (1) a disposition to love another person (and not a disposition to love without reference to the object of love being oneself or another person), or (2) the act of loving another person?
There’s a distinction to make between a disposition and its characteristic manifestation. But my point is simpler than that. It’s just that caritas is love of a certain kind, rather than the disposition to love. This point holds even if love is itself a disposition or dispositional.
Joseph wrote:
<I don’t think caritas is a disposition to love <another person, but is rather the love itself of <another person.
Is the distinction here between a disposition and an (episodic) action?
Someone can love herself. Indeed, I think it is important for the good life that one does so.
In the ordinary sense of charity, I don’t see why someone can’t exercise charity towards himself. I suppose this would have to be in some way indirect though. For example, if a pastor gives money to his church and part of that goes towards his own cost of living, perhaps we could say he has exercised charity towards himself.
But if I’m right about the way Richard uses the word ‘caritas’, then, in his sense, no: by definition, it requires love of another person.
Good stuff Joseph.
Do you think someone can be charitable towards themselves?
I’m sorry to take so long to get on this. But here are some belated comments:
1. It seems to me Richard thinks by definition, caritas is love of another person. So that means the question shouldn’t be: why does caritas require love of another person? But rather it should be: why does a divine being, in virtue of being perfect, essentially have caritas?
2. Relatedly, I don’t think caritas is a disposition to love another person, but is rather the love itself of another person. I would agree, though, that at least in us, love is a dispositional relation. Love of another person involves belief that the beloved is good in some way and desire for the well being of the beloved for her own sake not only for the sake of the lover. The belief and desire are dispositional states. You can believe and desire things even when there is no consciously mental activity going on in you. Finally, there is nothing in love itself that requires conscious mental activity. You can love someone even where there is no experience going on in you or no intentional action you are doing (e.g. in deep dreamless sleep). But love does involve a disposition at least to intentional actions of certain kinds.
From this we can see why Richard says no one has charity on the basis of self-love. It’s consistent with this that no one has charity unless he has self-love. Indeed, it’s hard to see how to make sense of the command to love your neighbour as yourself unless you do love yourself.
3. Also, I think Richard wants to speak of caritas being perfect rather than as you have in T4 and T5, the person who has caritas being perfect only if the love is exercised on another.
I agree Palamas. If I still haven’t forgiven myself for missing that last minute jump shot at the state championship in my senior year, surely I’m not perfect yet.
One of the big questions I have for Ricardo St. Vick is this: why wouldn’t self-love satisfy the perfection requirement?
Is there any hint that Richard also believes “self-love” to be a necessary criterion of being perfect? For suppose that some person X is disposed to love Y and that that love manifests itself, but X is not disposed to love X and, of course, that love does not manifest itself.
I think person X would not be perfect. Perfection also seems to necessitate “self-love.” That is, a perfect being cannot love others and not love itself or even hate itself.
And so, perhaps, Richard should have said
“no one is properly said to have charity [ONLY] on the basis of his own private love of himself.”
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