Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introductory
- Part II Virtues of Direct Caring
- Chapter 3 Generosity and Gratitude
- Chapter 4 Compassion
- Chapter 5 Forgivingness
- Chapter 6 Truth and Truthfulness
- Part III The Enkratic Virtues
- Part IV Virtues of Indirect Caring
- Part V A Virtue of Indifference
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 4 - Compassion
from Part II - Virtues of Direct Caring
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I Introductory
- Part II Virtues of Direct Caring
- Chapter 3 Generosity and Gratitude
- Chapter 4 Compassion
- Chapter 5 Forgivingness
- Chapter 6 Truth and Truthfulness
- Part III The Enkratic Virtues
- Part IV Virtues of Indirect Caring
- Part V A Virtue of Indifference
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
To be compassionate is to care about others specifically in opposition to their suffering or deficiency. While the distress of compassion is paradigmatic of the virtue, a wide range of emotion types – gratitude, anger, fear, joy, and so forth – can express it. Aristotle offers an analysis of the emotion of compassion as entailing propositions (1) that the other is suffering, (2) that the other doesn’t deserve the suffering, and (3) that oneself is vulnerable to the kind of suffering one sees in the other. In dialogue with Martha Nussbaum’s exposition and adaptation of Aristotle’s analysis of the emotion of compassion, this chapter compares Aristotelian compassion with the compassion that is commended in the New Testament. Differences between the two turn on differences in the concept of suffering, in the presence of a concept of forgiveness, and in the locus of commonality.
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- Attention to VirtuesAn Affective Grammar, pp. 65 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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