Comments on: Compassion

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:54:54 +0000

Micha Ghertner and Iain Murray have already made the two main points I would have made (respectively ‘coercive compassion isn’t really compassion’, and ‘there is a distinction between “tempering justice with mercy” and compassion as an organising principle’) – which is my excuse for the bitty nature of the points that follow. 1) Compassion as a motive for action is a great and good thing. But it cannot of itself tell you what to do for the best, and the pretence it can is dangerous for the reasons already covered. Let me use the analogy of love. Love is good yet people who love each other can still do each other harm. I would even go so far as to say that there are certain sorts of harm that specifically happen when people think love absolves one of having to act sensibly or fairly. “I’m only doing this because I love you” can be said legitimately but is frequently abused. There’s a whiff of power there, too, that also comes into compassion interactions if you aren’t careful. 2) …which brings me to my next point. If I’m an ordinary person dealing with government it is much more dignified for me to claim my rights rather than ask for compassion . Note that this point could be made by people with very different ideas of where rights end. 3) Modern welfare states try to have it both ways. They want to be admired for being compassionate yet also want the recipients to feel that they are only claiming their rights. This makes for oleaginous “givers” and graceless recipients. 4) When it comes to welfare, compassion is one of my main reasons for opposing it. I think in the long term it gives people horrible, violent, futile lives. So I see no contradiction between that and my view that compassion for the Iraqi people was a legitimate motive for going to war. Of course in both areas, war and welfare, policy decisions must also take into account factors of prudence and justice.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 03:46:29 +0000

I have a response up on Catallarchy.net: Negative and Positive Compassion?

By: Stoffel

Stoffel — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 20:15:01 +0000

In America at least, charitable giving is the first thing to disappear when financial times are rough—at exactly the time when such giving is needed most. Relying on private compassion over a strong social safety net only works when times are good.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 16:44:06 +0000

Iain, isn’t clemency more akin to mercy? But you raise a good point about terminology and I don’t think that it is particularly stable in the literature. So, for instance, Elizabeth Anderson in her paper “What’s the point of equality?” (Ethics 109 (1999): 287-337) distinguished between “pity” and “compassion”. When we pity someone, according to her, we respond to their relative suffering (which she thinks is demeaning to them), whereas when we are compassionate we respond to their suffering as an absolute. I think that’s a good distinction, but not one that corresponds to an natural use of language. The point you make about even-handedness is well-taken, though. So justice still has a role to play. But it certainly isn’t the whole story a good judge, or a good manager for that matter, has got to be able respond to the human particularity of the individual and cases they encounter and that does require the capacity to imagine the suffering of others. Just imagining it isn’t enough, though, because sadists can do that too. A repugnance at suffering and desire to alleviate it has to enter the picture also.

By: Jeremy Osner`

Jeremy Osner` — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 16:11:27 +0000

I think there’s a distinction to be made somehow between compassion on the part of government (i.e. written into statute) and compassion (or as Mr. Murray notes clemency) on the part of the officials of government.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 15:22:20 +0000

I do think it’s an interesting question, though; if (as appears to be the current line) the reason for going round the world to fight a war is that we simply had to release those poor people from their suffering, then why doesn’t the same reasoning work for asylum-seekers, single mothers, etc? I’d guess that liberal hawks like Norman Geras don’t have this problem, but it seems like a glaring inconsistency for the starboard half.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 15:17:58 +0000

And why should virtues be seen as as fungibles, to be bundled back and forth between the public and private sectors?

By: Iain Murray

Iain Murray — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 15:12:23 +0000

Chris, I have a feeling that what you’re talking about (at least historically) in the behavior of public officials isn’t compassion (fellow-feeling) but clemency (the gentle touch). Clemency has political advantages – as Caesar himself recognized. In particular, I think, it has the advantage over compassion of allowing for gentle treatment of people you’re not particularly sympathetic towards. So one can exhibit clemency towards one’s political enemies, something that would often not be done if compassion were the motive. Indeed, one might argue that a compassionate person would be a bad dispenser of authority because they will tend to bias their decisions towards those to whom they feel the most compassion. Clemency, on the other hand, is even-handed. I’m going from the Latin definitions of these terms, by the way, so please feel free to correct me if modern moral philosophy views compassion more broadly than I’ve defined it.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 15:08:02 +0000

Particularly objectionable coming from Pollard, since his other line is that we were morally obliged to fight a f’kng war in the name of compassion.