Pity

Journal of Philosophical Research

Volumn 29, Issue , 2004, Pages 332-352

  Scott Hestevold, H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 46849092535     PISSN: 10538364     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 217
2. Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. T. Common, The Modern Library (New York: Random House, 1932), 193
3. Spinoza claims that there is "no difference" between pity and compassion given that pity involves particular acts of benevolence and that compassion involves the disposition to perform such acts. See The Ethics III in A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works, ed. and trans. E. Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 191
4. Seneca, "On Mercy." in Moral and Political Essays, ed. and trans. J. M. Cooper and J. F. Procopé (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 162
5. Seneca cautions that his view on the inappropriateness of pity is consistent with the appropriateness of reducing others' suffering. Cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: with Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668, ed. E. Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1994), 184 (xxvi, 28). Having identified pity with compassion (32; vi, 46), Hobbes writes that, to be a good judge, one must be able to "divest himself of all fear, anger, hatred, love, and compassion."
6. See Eamonn Callan, "The Moral Status of Pity," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18 (1988), 2
7. Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, "Why Did Psammenitus Not Pity His Son?" Analysis 50 (1990), 119
8. Felicia Ackerman apparently leaves open the possibility that one can pity misfortunes considered substantial (e.g., having cancer) as well as those considered less substantial (e.g., not liking classical music); see "Pity as a Moral Concept/The Morality of Pity," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 20 (1995), 59-61
9. See Reid's discussion of pity and compassion in Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), 151
10. Cf. Joseph Butler, "A Dissertation Upon the Nature of Virtue," in Five Sermons, The Library of Liberal Arts (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1950), 86
11. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968), 369
12. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, 32 (vi, 46): "Grief for the calamity of another is Pity, and ariseth from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himself: and therefore is called also Compassion."
13. See also Seneca, "On Mercy,"162
14. Nussbaum, "Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion," 35
15. Cf. Lawrence Blum, "Compassion," in The Virtues: Contemporary Essays on Moral Character, ed. R. B. Kruschwitz and R. C. Roberts (Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth, 1987), 232
16. Cf. Callan, "The Moral Status of Pity," 2
17. and Ben-Ze'ev, "Envy and Pity," 6
18. Ackerman, "Pity as a Moral Concept," 60
19. See Hume, Treatise, 371: "[A]ny infant prince, who is captive in the hands of his enemies, . . . is more worthy of compassion the less sensible he is of his miserable condition."
20. Ackerman. "Pity as a Moral Concept." 61
21. See also Ackerman's "Flourish Your Heart in This World: Emotion, Reason, and Action in Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 22 (1998), 196-198
22. See H. Scott Hestevold, "Disjunctive Desert," American Philosophical Quarterly, 20 (1983): 357-363
23. Cf. George Rainbolt, "Mercy: An Independent, Imperfect Virtue," American Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1990): 167-173
24. Andrew Brien, "Mercy and Desert," Philosophical Papers 20 (1991): 193-201
25. Cf. Jeffrie Murphy, "Forgiveness and Resentment," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 7: 503-516
26. see also Norvin Richards, "Forgiveness," Ethics, 9 (1988): 77-97
27. Cf. Blum, "Compassion," 229-236
28. See also Nussbaum, "Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion," 27-58
29. For a discussion of what arrogance involves and why it is a moral flaw, see Norvin Richards, Humility (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 110-122
30. Callan, "The Moral Status of Pity," 1