Abstract

Sympathy, compassion, and pity have fared better than many other emotions within the history of western moral philosophy. While these fellow-feelings have received fairly substantial analysis in comparison to other emotions, this has not resulted in any consensus regarding their ethical significance. When one examines the philosophical literature on these emotions, one is immediately struck by the profound disagreements concerning their moral worth, desirability, and function in our moral lives. ;In addition to the disagreements concerning the ethical significance of the fellow-feelings, there are even greater disagreements concerning their descriptions and characterizations. What is the nature of sympathy, compassion, and pity? How are they to be adequately characterized? Do these various nouns refer to a single emotion, or are they different? Some philosophers do not distinguish between these emotions either because they believe it is not necessary, or because they think that they are synonyms. Others do distinguish between these fellow-feelings, but not very precisely. Even our ordinary conceptions of these emotions are unclear. Sometimes we distinguish between compassion, sympathy, and pity; sometimes we do not. To determine the ethical significance of these emotions, it is important to specify the ways sympathy, compassion, and pity are best described and characterized. Further, if sympathy is different from pity and compassion, and pity is different from compassion, it may be the case that their ethical worth, desirability, and functions are also different. ;In order to map out the ethical significance of these fellow-feelings it is necessary to distinguish between sympathy, compassion, and pity. In doing this, I draw from previous philosophy theories and actual linguistic practice. Having done this I construct models of these emotions and their expressions. Then, I employ these models to evaluate previous statements concerning the moral significance of sympathy, compassion, and pity; in particular, those of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Scheler, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bishop Butler, David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Thomas Hobbes, Henry Sidgwick, H. B. Acton, and Philip Mercer. I take the results of this evaluation and expand upon them in the final chapter. My major conclusions are: Sympathetic understanding is a necessary condition for moral agency. Compassion and sympathy, which includes a disposition to help others, have unconditional moral value and are motives for actions having moral worth. Actions following from such motives are prima facie right and desirable. Pity is morally undesirable because it reflects an agent's lack of moral respect for the recipient