The US administration has been good at helping us think about first principles of government. In an interview with Fox News, in the context of a discussion of immigration policy, Vance made the following statement: “As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there’s this old-school [concept]—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” JD Vance was articulating the concept of ordo amoris, the right or proper ordering of one’s love, although he did not use that term in the interview. As Jonah McKeown notes in a recent article, St. Augustine equated virtue with this proper ordering of one’s love (“Virtus est ordo amoris”) in his classic work City of God and elaborated upon this idea in his book On Christian Doctrine: Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally. In alignment with Jesus’ statement of the two greatest commandments (i.e., that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, as in Matt. 22:37–40), St. Thomas Aquinas argued that the right ordering of love consists in first loving God, and then ourselves (in a healthy, non-egocentric sort of way, of course), and then our neighbor. The ordo amoris can be conceptualized as a series of concentric circles radiating outward from ourselves, beginning with loving God . The question this raises is whether this concept - or the Vance interpretation it - is a fair and reasnbale way of governing. I think not. But I do applaud Vance for identifying the moral precepts on which he is relying to make difficult decisions. There should be more of it - disclosure of first principles. But I prefer what Warren Buffett said about all this last week - to paraphrase - "a happy and prosperous world is a safe world". That means checking decisions against a wider rationale that just what works for you in the moment, imo. Thoughts?