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Compassion, Reason, and Moral Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Erich H. Loewy
Erich H. Loewy
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria and Associate Professor of Humanities (Ethics) at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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Extract

This paper will discuss the role of compassion in ethics in general and in healthcare ethics in particular. My thesis is that compassion:

1) as Rousseau pointed out, is a natural trait common to all higher animals (human as well as nonhuman);

2) can and does serve as one of the most important motivators and modulators of ethics in both theoretical and applied aspects;

3) must be controlled by, and in turn control, reason if it is to serve its ethical as well as natural purposes; and

4) as a natural trait has survival value and, by virtue of being a natural trait, cannot be an obligation although there may very well be an obligation to do all that is necessary to nurture and not crush this sentiment.

Type
Special Section: Compassion: What Does It Really Mean?
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 466 - 475
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. Rousseau both in his Social Contract (Rousseau, JJ. Du Contrat Social. Grimsley, R, Ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1972Google Scholar) and in his Discourse on Inequality (Rousseau, JJ. Discourse sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes. Paris, France: Gallímard, 1965Google Scholar) emphasizes the role of “pity” or compassion as a natural trait counterbalanced only by the trait for self-preservation. Self-preservation may (by also informing reason one would presume) modify the impulse to act on compassion. Self-preservation is expressed as “amour propre” that together with the quite different “amour de soi même” has been (wrongly, I think) translated as self-love. The meaning that comes closest to amour propre would be self-regard, whereas translating amour de soi même as self-love seems close to the mark. To Rousseau, amour propre is a natural sentiment that counsels one in the sense of self-preservation. As such, it is to be encouraged. Amour de soi même on the other hand, is a pathological sentiment akin to vanity or hedonism. It is created by social circumstance and is to be discouraged. In Emile, Rousseau has quite a bit to say about what today would be called moral education.

2. Rousseau, JJ. A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. In: JJ Rousseau: The Social Contract and the Discourses (Trans Cole, GDH). New York: Everyman's Library, 1933:p. 75.Google Scholar

3. Darwin, C. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981:71–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. In my Freedom and Community: the Ethics of Interdependence. (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993)Google Scholar as well as in the about to be published Moral Strangers, Moral Acquaintances and Moral Friends: Connectedness and Its Conditions (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press)Google Scholar I argue for a homeostatic relationship between the desire of individuals to freely pursue their own interests and live their own lives and the desire of community to modify personal freedom when it needs to do so in order to assure the interests of all its members. In this view community, as the necessary condition for all else, becomes a transcendent goal and has moral value. Because communities can survive, thrive, and develop only if they foster internal solidarity and because true solidarity among individuals depends upon their recognition that their own fate is intimately associated with that of their neighbor, caring for one's neighbor's needs is morally compelling.

5. In Freedom and Community: the Ethics of Interdependence (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993:10–107, 163–4)Google Scholar, I argue that what is called “social Darwinism” not only does not represent what Darwin had to say about compassion and the regard we have to have for the weak and poor, but is in most respects contrary to what he had to say.

6. Loewy, EH. Moral Strangers, Moral Acquaintances and Moral Friends: Connectedness and Its Conditions. Albany, New York: State of New York University Press [In press].Google Scholar

7. Schopenhauer feels that the driving force of Triebfeder for ethics is this sense of compassion. Schopenhauer, A. Preisschrift über die Grundlagen der Moral. In: Arthur Schopenhauer Kleinere Schriften (Band III Arthur Schopenhauer Sämtliche Werke). von Löhneisen, WF, Ed. Frankfurt a/M, Deutsch land: Suhrkamp; 1989:742.Google Scholar I have used this concept and argued that beyond being merely a motivating force it is the force that initiates the moral question to begin with. See note 4. Loewy. 1993; In press.

8. Kant, I. Critique of Practical Reason [Trans Beck, LW]. Indianapolis, Indiana: Library of Liberal Arts (Bobbs-Merrill Educ Publ), 1956:74.Google Scholar I have slightly adapted this translation to reflect some changes: the term Triebfeder, which LW Beck translates as “incentive” I have chosen to translate as “motivating force” a term closer to the German Triebfeder as well as to the Latin synonym (elater animi) also used by Kant.

9. I thank this clarification of Kant's views on inclinations to Dr. Friedrich Heubel. The passage is taken from Kant I. Religion within the limits of reason alone [Trans HH Hudson, TM Greene]. In: The Philosophy of Kant: Immanuel Kant's Moral and Political Writings Friedrich, CJ, Ed. New York: Random House, 1977:394.Google Scholar

10. Kant, I. Critique of Practical Reason [Trans Beck, LW]. Indianapolis, Indiana: Library of Liberal Arts (Bobbs-Merrill Educ Publ), 1956:64.Google Scholar

11. Sullivan, R. Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989:206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. This section was again drawn to my attention by Dr. Friedrich Heubel who, rightly, felt that if the quotation initially given were allowed to stand alone it would give the appearance that Kant might hold the feeling itself unlikely. The quotation is from the same paragraph as the preceding (see note 9): I have changed one word in Beck's translation: in the last part, Beck translates what in German reads “… mithin aus unserem eigentlich selbst entsprungen ist” as “…hence from our proper self” I have taken the liberty of rendering this passage as “… hence from our genuine self.”

13. Hume, D. In: Selby-Bigge, LA, Ed. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford, England: Oxford Univer sity Press, 1968:415.Google Scholar

14. See note 13. Hume, . 1968:414.Google Scholar

15. Among others, the care ethic is espoused by Gilligan and Nodding. Gilligan, C. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univ Press, 1982Google Scholar; Nodding, N. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley, California: University of California Press; 1984.Google Scholar I have written extensively about my objections to this theory and about the way I think that the care ethic could usefully be integrated in: See note 6. In press; Loewy, EH. Care ethics: a concept in search of a framework. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 1995;4(1):56–63CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Loewy EH. Of caring, sentiment and anencephalics: a response to Sytsma. Theoretical Medicine [In press].

16. Dewey, J. Ethics. In: John Dewey: The Later Works, Vol 7. Boydston, JA, Ed. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989:232.Google Scholar

17. See note 6. Loewy. In press. I argue at length for this concept. What is written here is largely a condensation of this work.

18. Kant, I. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals [Trans Beck, LW] New York: The Library of the Liberal Arts, 1986.Google Scholar

19. See note 18. Kant. 1986.

20. Loewy, EH. Physicians, friendship, and moral strangers. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 1994,3(1):52–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed