Concept
Compassion
Overview
Compassion is a social emotion that motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is sensitivity to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on notions such as fairness, justice, and interdependence, it may be considered partially rational in nature.
Compassion involves "feeling for another" and is a precursor to empathy, the "feeling as another" capacity (as opposed to sympathy, the "feeling towards another"). In common parlance, active compassion is the desire to alleviate another's suffering.
Compassion involves allowing oneself to be moved by suffering to help alleviate and prevent it. An act of compassion is one that is intended to be helpful. Other virtues that harmonize with compassion include patience, wisdom, kindness, perseverance, warmth, and resolve. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in altruism. The difference between sympathy and compassion is that the former responds to others' suffering with sorrow and concern whereas the latter responds with warmth and care. An article in Clinical Psychology Review suggests that "compassion consists of three facets: noticing, feeling, and responding".
In Buddhism, compassion is the heartfelt wish to relieve the suffering of all beings, paired with the courage to act. Compassionate actions plant seeds of joy in others—and in ourselves—making them a true source of lasting happiness.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Compassion is discussed.
For Compassion is the true antidote of anger; and by practising on oneself this artifice of the imagination, one awakes beforehand, while there is yet time, _la pitié, dont la voix,_ _Alors qu'on est vengé, fait entendre ses lois_.[5] --(Voltaire, _Sémiramis_, V. 6.) And in general, the hatred we may cherish for others is overcome by nothing so easily as by our taking a point of view whence they can appeal to our…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
And--to include that too--compassion would say; or, among the compassionate ones--for compassion is sociable, and likes to assemble together, and you will find spitefulness and envy keeping company with whining soft-headedness: since, as a heathen philosopher observed long ago, no one is so ready to sympathize as an envious person--among the compassionate ones the verdict would be: it is really too bad that this…
Søren Kierkegaard, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Far better, and more humane, and more consonant with pious sentiments, are the words of Cicero in praise of Cæsar, when he says, "Among your virtues none is more admirable and agreeable than your compassion."[337] And what is compassion but a fellow-feeling for another's misery, which prompts us to help him if we can? And this emotion is obedient to reason, when compassion is shown without violating right, as when…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species. It is this compassion that hurries us without reflection to the relief of those who are in distress: it is this which in a state of nature supplies the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the advantage that none…
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Wherefore Virgil, speaking of Æneas, in his greater praise calls him compassionate, pitiful; and that is not pity such as the common people understand it, which is to lament over the misfortunes of others; nay, this is an especial effect which is called Mercy, Pity, Compassion; and it is a passion. But compassion is not a passion; rather a noble disposition of mind, prepared to receive Love, Mercy, and other…
Dante Alighieri, The Banquet
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Compassion
Related ideas
- Fear
- Jesus
- John Rawls
- Pity
- Hinduism
- Homeostasis
- Hinayana
- Vice
- Immanuel Kant
- Ancient Greek
- Vedas
- Judaism
- Jainism
- Justice
- Ancient Greek philosophy
- Latin
- Positive psychology
- Archaic Greece
- Stoicism
- Thomas Nagel
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Mishnah
- Mahabharata
- Prefrontal cortex
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Agnosticism.