All twelve principles
III

First principle

Love has an order

Universal dignity is real; our concrete obligations are particular and unequal in kind.

A parent owes a child what he does not owe a stranger. Citizens bear special duties toward countrymen while remaining bound to treat outsiders justly. Particular loyalty is not a moral defect but one of the ordinary forms through which care becomes real.

Not every moral obligation creates an unlimited enforceable right. A healthy commonwealth cultivates gratitude, generosity, service, and hospitality without converting every virtue into a centralized entitlement.

Specific references

Read alongside the principle.

c. 350 BC · Classical common good

Politics

Aristotle

The household and political community understood in relation to human ends and the common good.

Open source
1835–40 · Civic association

Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville

Local self-government and voluntary association as the practical schooling of free citizens.

Open source