The good only you can do

According to one version of cosmopolitanism, special devotion to people near and dear is legitimate, not because they have more worth than others, but rather because this is the best way for us to do good. For example, to be a good parent is to care especially for one’s own children, but this doesn’t mean that one’s children have more worth than the children of other people. Rather, all children have equal worth, but caring especially for one’s own children is the best way to do good as a parent. More generally, you should give what’s close to you more concern than what’s farther away, not because it’s better in itself, but because doing so is a more effective way to be good.

Evan Thompson, Why I Am Not a Buddhist (pp. 172-173).

Contrast this perspective with the idea that the most good we can do is what scales. Anyone can write a check, but showing up for your loved ones with openness, attunement and compassion is actually something only you can do. Indeed, cultivating intimate relationships is a process by which we come to learn the unique ways we can do good. Of course, by arguing in terms of “what’s a more effective way of doing good” we are ceding ground to consequentialism, which at its worst can be a kind of arrogance, assuming that we can easily determine the consequences of our actions. In reality, we are all interconnected in complex chains of causality that our minds can scarcely comprehend, and the n-th order impact of our actions are almost entirely unknowable. However, we can’t abandon the universal entirely. We have to acknowledge the dangers of a purely parochial mindset, where 100% of our energy is funneled toward those around us. This perspective can foster tribalism and nepotism, favoring those we love as an extension of our own egos. Better would be to humbly chart a middle way, acknowledging the limitations of our own rational analysis — neither neglecting our own unique duties to those closest to us nor our universal duty to all sentient beings.