Detrattori e sostenitori della compassione

Philosophers, in general, have been cautious in addressing the question of com¬passion. This holds especially true for the rationalistic side of philosophy, from Socrates to the Stoics to Spinoza to Kant. The therapeutic virtue of knowledge in relation to evil, concei¬ved as ignorance, has been juxtaposed with unbridled sensitivity expressed in that motion of the soul. The most notable transposition of the religious and wisdom theme of compassion into the realm of Western moral philosophy is credited to Schopenhauer, drawing from both Christian and Buddhist sources. The paper reconstructs this position but also critiques its li¬mitations, notably its failure to consider its connection with the instinct for happiness.

Fur¬thermore, in Schopenhauer's proposal, compassion is situated within a metaphysical system that denies the belonging of every being to itself as selfish and therefore immoral, instead oriented toward a fusion of beings. The thesis, supported with Simmel, is that compassion can be genuine only when the distinction between beings is maintained. [Publisher's text].