| Compassion is a word we use frequently, but rarely with a precise sense of what it means. We know to describe someone as compassionate is to say something morally praiseworthy of that person, but what is compassion, exactly, and what moral work does it do? Philosophers ranging from Plato to Kant to Rawls will say that compassion ought not be allowed to do any moral work at all, for that is the province of reason. Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Scheler all reject compassion or concepts closely linked to it (pity, empathy, sympathy, and so on) as worthy sources of moral guidance. Yet compassion is the cornerstone of Buddhism, and is vitally important for understanding Confucianism and Daoism. Why should the philosophical traditions of Europe differ so widely from these Asian traditions on the significance of compassion?; I argue that a proper understanding of compassion hinges on the concept of relationally constructed personhood, and that if one is understood to be constituted by one's relationships with one's community and environment, an ethic of compassion can provide constructive moral guidance. An aretaic ethic of compassion founded on this understanding of relational personhood can offer normative guidance, including guidance on such moral issues as capital punishment and physician-assisted suicide, and can, in many cases, do better at treating people impartially than can a professedly impartial ethic like that of Kant or Rawls. Furthermore, an ethic of compassion will extend not only to the classical problems of applied ethics, but also to ordinary relationships like parenthood and friendship. An ethic of compassion is worthy of note, then, as an ethical theory that capably addresses both "private" and "public"---that is, partial and impartial---ethical concerns. |
