Benevolence

What Benevolence means in a networked world

In a discussion about a community walking map, someone argues against adding location labels. You have assembled an excellent reply proving how helpful labels are. Before sending it, you ask what worries them. They are concerned about identifying private homes. You still favor location information, but now discuss which level of detail belongs in public view. Your winning speech has discovered a question it could not answer.

Benevolence brings a wish for understanding into disagreement. Wanting another person to lose encourages you to exploit a clumsy phrase; wanting an exchange to go well encourages you to identify their real concern and make your own reasons accessible. Ask a question you are willing to hear answered. Goodwill can support a firm objection, a workable compromise or a recognition that the disagreement remains. It does not guarantee agreement or oblige you to continue a hostile exchange.

Benevolence gives…

People can develop an idea together when learning something is welcome on either side. Goodwill makes room for an answer that improves the shared work, even if it deprives your prepared reply of its grand finale.

Finding the balance

In ordinary life

A correction

Explain the mistaken point so the recipient can understand and use the correction. An audience’s applause is a different outcome.

A remaining disagreement

Name the issue you still see differently and end the exchange plainly if further discussion is unhelpful. Goodwill need not manufacture consensus.

Nearby virtues, different work

Fairness

Fairness gives reasons and interests their due. Benevolence concerns the good you hope will come to the people involved.

Compassion

Compassion responds to suffering. Benevolence also supports understanding and cooperation when nobody is in distress.

Recognizing a counterfeit

Pleasant surrender counterfeits Benevolence when avoiding disagreement replaces concern for a sound outcome. Goodwill can require saying why you think a proposal is wrong.

How to cultivate Benevolence

• Name what you hope the other person will gain from the exchange.
• Ask one question whose answer could change your next reply.
• Notice whether you welcome a better result when it gives someone else the credit.

Try it today

In a disagreement you choose to continue, ask one sincere question about the other person’s concern. Let the answer shape your response while keeping your own relevant reasons clear.

Questions worth returning to

• Would I welcome an answer that improved their argument?
• What would understanding change in my response?

Choose your practice

These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.

Quotations and further reading

Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.

1. Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination.

   Francis Bacon, Bacon’s Essays
   Essay XIII, Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature, opening distinction

   Bacon distinguishes an inclination from a cultivated habit. Goodwill in disagreement becomes a disposition when the wish for understanding repeatedly shapes the questions you ask.

2. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory;

   Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
   Autobiography, the Junto

   Franklin describes discussion organized around inquiry rather than victory. Your wish for the exchange can shape the question you choose to ask.

3. But between us personally no enmity arose; we were often together; he was a man of letters, had seen much of the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation.

   Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
   Autobiography, political differences with Governor Denny

   Franklin reports keeping personal enjoyment alongside political disagreement. Goodwill can leave a relationship more room than the disputed point alone.

4. Another may be more expert in casting his opponent; but he is not more social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbors.

   Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
   Book VII, section 52

   Skill at defeating an opponent does not settle how considerate a person is. Entering a disagreement with goodwill changes what counts as success.

5. If, however, the two persons find themselves at cross-purposes, it is necessary to dig up and compare the presuppositions, the implied context, on the basis of which each is speaking. The implicit is made explicit; what was unconsciously assumed is exposed to the light of conscious day.

   John Dewey, How We Think
   Chapter XVI, comparison of assumptions

   When an exchange works at cross-purposes, understanding may begin by exposing different assumptions. A question can find the disagreement beneath the argument.

6. The superior man seeks to perfect the admirable qualities of men, and does not seek to perfect their bad qualities. The mean man does the opposite of this.

   Confucius, The Analects
   Book XII, chapter 16

   Wanting another person’s good affects which qualities you encourage. A disagreement need not become an opportunity to bring out their worst.

7. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy.

   Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
   Part II, section II, chapter III

   Smith describes the good made possible by mutual regard. Even a small disagreement can be approached as part of a shared undertaking.

Continue through the catalog