Into the Wardrobe

Hey Allan!

You wrote:

"'Love your neighbour' is good so far as it goes, but which neighbour? If, in order for my family to live, I have to attack the man next door, whom do I love first and foremost? My family or the man next door?"

The way I read it, particularly "whom do I love first and foremost," led me to believe it was a matter of either him or my family and me starving (I had an image of a twilight zone episode where the towns people were beating down the door of a prepared family which was hold up in their bomb shelter during an emergency). If, however, the man next door is feasting and my loved ones are starving, and I have no other means to eat and feed my family, and begging and pleading and offering my services for anything moral doesn't work, and I then attack my neighbor and take what I need to feed my family -- leaving my neighbor plenty of food for himself -- it is really not a matter of either loving my neighbor or my family. Justice assmues the neighbor will give you and your family some food if you truly are not at fault for starving, or help you acquire the means to provide you food, so that he is morally obligated to you in this case -- meaning you have the right to demand justice and to act in the name of justice if necessary, which is not "not loving your neighbor", and therefore not either/or as far as "whom do I love?"

That's how I see it anyway,

Jesse