The Fifth Encounter, By Joseph Butler

In the fifth sermon, Joseph Butler looks at how it is that we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. He argues that that in order to understand how we are to love our neighbor, we first need to consider the different meanings that “as thy self” could have, such as that we should have a similar affection towards our neighbor as what we have for ourselves.
Butler states that our affections toward others should be similar to the affections we have toward ourselves. This means that, just as self-love means that we strive for and have an interest in achieving happiness, we should also strive for the happiness of our neighbors. Butler continues to say that sharing a connection and having love for our neighbor will ultimately cause us to