ABSTRACT
After the invasion and occupation of Rome in 410 CE, the remaining pagan nobles in Rome turn to the age’s foremost public intellectual, St. Augustine, demanding that he defend Christianity in the face of this outrage. Augustine eventually takes up the challenge and writes The City of God. This chapter focuses on two philosophical themes derived from that effort. The first is the importance of love and care, and the way these affective states must be turned away from the self in order to encompass the whole. The second is the degree to which this outward-turned love is always in competition with love of self. We close the chapter by showing how this fundamental conflict in the things we care most about is at the heart of the climate crisis too. Augustine shows us both why we should care about the whole and how this care must compete with greed.
