Philoptochias (“Love of the Poor”): The Forgotten Core of Christian Virtue Ethics
D. Brendan Johnson, MTS, Medical Student, University of Minnesota Medical School
“No one gets into heaven without a letter of recommendation from the poor”
- Rev. Dr. James Forbes
Virtue ethics was revived in the twentieth century as a way to sail between the Scylla and Charybdis of utilitarianism and deontology. Drawing upon roots from Aristotle to Aquinas, virtue ethics emphasizes that ethical action is not merely ‘solving the equation’ to moral questions (with the implied focus on finding the right formula); instead, acting ethically in a complex world implies a long habituation of certain dispositions oriented towards certain goods, and promoted by communities of practice oriented around shared narratives. Thus, virtue ethics found applicability in creating new ways of narrating the life and ethics of the Church (Hauerwas) as well as specific paradigmatic practices such as medicine (Pellegrino and Thomasma, The Virtues in Medical Practice, 1993; cf. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981). Despite the many benefits of contemporary virtue ethics and the era of ethical reflection it has spawned, there are risks in generalizing the theory and losing the specific ends towards which adherents are oriented – for example, while his theory of virtue may be helpful, Aristotle’s idea of human flourishing included slaveowning, large landholding, and was by definition available only to the ‘haves’: those with “riches and political power … good birth, good children, and beauty” (Nichomachian Ethics I.viii). Just as ethicists must critically interrogate the narratives and ends their virtues point towards, specific practices such as medicine run a grave risk, therefore, in being too ‘empirical’ and uncritical about the givenness of their practices and practitioners. Thus, just because the American community of medical practitioners trains its young in certain virtues towards certain ends, there is no guarantee that those habits or ends are just; in fact, we have strong reason to be skeptical of such assumptions.
The virtue ethics of the early Church offers a helpful reorientation. Susan Holman’s pioneering work on philoptochia – love of the poor – reorients the virtuistic project around this mostly-forgotten virtue. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Cappadocian father who was involved in theologizing the trinity and fundraising for Basil’s hospital, preached a famous sermon, Oration 14, in which he places love for the poor as the crux of the law of love: “Now if, following Paul and Christ himself, we must regard charity [love] as the first and greatest of the commandments since it is the very sum of the Law and the Prophets, its most vital part I find is the love of the poor.” Christ identifies himself with the poor and marginal in Matthew 25; thus, the Dominical Commands to ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbor’ find their perfection in the love of the poor. Indeed, in the context of historian Peter Brown’s work on the Christian invention of the category of the poor itself, it is no surprise that for the early Church and its watchers, philoptochia is the paradigmatic and unique Christian virtue. A revival of this difficult virtue will help to reorient the project of Christian virtue towards a fuller account of justice and the personal and social dispositions required to live into this historic ecclesial witness.
- Rev. Dr. James Forbes
Virtue ethics was revived in the twentieth century as a way to sail between the Scylla and Charybdis of utilitarianism and deontology. Drawing upon roots from Aristotle to Aquinas, virtue ethics emphasizes that ethical action is not merely ‘solving the equation’ to moral questions (with the implied focus on finding the right formula); instead, acting ethically in a complex world implies a long habituation of certain dispositions oriented towards certain goods, and promoted by communities of practice oriented around shared narratives. Thus, virtue ethics found applicability in creating new ways of narrating the life and ethics of the Church (Hauerwas) as well as specific paradigmatic practices such as medicine (Pellegrino and Thomasma, The Virtues in Medical Practice, 1993; cf. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981). Despite the many benefits of contemporary virtue ethics and the era of ethical reflection it has spawned, there are risks in generalizing the theory and losing the specific ends towards which adherents are oriented – for example, while his theory of virtue may be helpful, Aristotle’s idea of human flourishing included slaveowning, large landholding, and was by definition available only to the ‘haves’: those with “riches and political power … good birth, good children, and beauty” (Nichomachian Ethics I.viii). Just as ethicists must critically interrogate the narratives and ends their virtues point towards, specific practices such as medicine run a grave risk, therefore, in being too ‘empirical’ and uncritical about the givenness of their practices and practitioners. Thus, just because the American community of medical practitioners trains its young in certain virtues towards certain ends, there is no guarantee that those habits or ends are just; in fact, we have strong reason to be skeptical of such assumptions.
The virtue ethics of the early Church offers a helpful reorientation. Susan Holman’s pioneering work on philoptochia – love of the poor – reorients the virtuistic project around this mostly-forgotten virtue. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Cappadocian father who was involved in theologizing the trinity and fundraising for Basil’s hospital, preached a famous sermon, Oration 14, in which he places love for the poor as the crux of the law of love: “Now if, following Paul and Christ himself, we must regard charity [love] as the first and greatest of the commandments since it is the very sum of the Law and the Prophets, its most vital part I find is the love of the poor.” Christ identifies himself with the poor and marginal in Matthew 25; thus, the Dominical Commands to ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbor’ find their perfection in the love of the poor. Indeed, in the context of historian Peter Brown’s work on the Christian invention of the category of the poor itself, it is no surprise that for the early Church and its watchers, philoptochia is the paradigmatic and unique Christian virtue. A revival of this difficult virtue will help to reorient the project of Christian virtue towards a fuller account of justice and the personal and social dispositions required to live into this historic ecclesial witness.