This is an ambitious book. Steve Bein aims to develop an ethic(s) of compassion: not merely ethic(s) about compassion, that is, but an ethical system based on compassion. (It seems that the author does not intend to make a clear distinction between “ethic” and “ethics,” as he seems to use the two terms interchangeably; although “ethic” is more frequently used in the book, it seems that he uses it in the sense of ethics, an ethical system.) In addition to a short introduction, the book consists of five chapters; the first two are more historical and the last three more constructive.

In the first chapter, entitled “What Is Compassion and What Is It Not?,” Bein examines some ideas related to compassion, such as pity, love, and sympathy, among others, in such historical figures as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Rousseau, Scheler, and Nietzsche (although not in this order), as well as such contemporary philosophers as Robert Solomon and Martha Nussbaum. Bein argues that all these philosophers fail to provide an adequate account of compassion, but that their failures reveal the conditions that an adequate one has to meet.

In the second chapter, entitled “What Is the Com- of Compassion?,” Bein turns his attention to the idea of compassion in the Eastern traditions: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. In contrast to the philosophers examined in the first chapter, all these traditions, in one way or another, emphasize the relational nature of human existence, which is essential to the very conception of compassion, since the com- of compassion means “with-ness.”

The third chapter, entitled “Defining Compassion,” opens and is the focal chapter of the constructive part of the book. Compassion here is defined as “an attentiveness to suffering and satisfaction, coupled with the will to bring about the alleviation or cessation of suffering and the continuation and multiplication of satisfaction” (p. 88). One of the salient features of this definition is its emphasis on both suffering and satisfaction: we ought to have compassion not only for people who are suffering but also for those who are joyful. This is related to Bein's main complaint about the conception of compassion developed by the philosophers he examined in the first chapter and his insistence that compassion is different from pity, commiseration, sympathy, and empathy, as all these are (in Bein's view) merely for people who are suffering.

In chapter 4, “Objections to an Ethic of Compassion,” Bein responds to a number of objections to his ethics of compassion, of which the first two are from opposing directions: one directed at its partialist nature and the other at its potential consequence of self-abusive behavior in promoting the interests of others.

The last chapter, “Compassion in Action,” applies the ethics of compassion to two contemporary moral issues: capital punishment and euthanasia.

The book overall succeeds in meeting its set goal. In developing his ethics of compassion, Bein admirably travels, with a great ease, across different philosophical traditions, Eastern and Western, as well as different approaches to moral issues, including deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, ethics of care, and moral psychology. In the process, Bein offers a number of insights I found particularly attractive. Here I just mention two. In his explanation of his definition of compassion, the first element he emphasizes is attentiveness. While compassion is clearly an emotion, it is not blind. The element of attentiveness tells us when our compassion is called for and how such compassion should be expressed, although attentiveness itself, an epistemic component, does not incline us to act compassionately, as Kantian philosophers would claim. As partiality is built into compassion, Bein also develops a number of arguments defending partialism (against impartialism). While not all of them are equally successful, one seems to me especially important: a compassionate person does not do things uniformly to everyone but does things appropriate to each of his or her patients. Thus clearly one is best able to extend one's compassion to those he or she understands and knows best (p. 137).

I am not sure whether I agree with the author that compassion stands out among other related concepts, or that the ethics of compassion stands out among its peers, by its ability to relate to both suffering and joy. After all, as Bein himself acknowledges, compassion “is almost invariably [taken] to mean ‘commiseration’” (p. xi), and therefore his use of the term, in this sense, is somewhat idiosyncratic. On the other hand, what Bein wants to highlight by his use of compassion is actually best exemplified by a virtuous person, as traditionally understood, who feels joy when he or she sees others joyful, particularly if it is he or she that brought them joy, and feels sorrow when he or she sees others sorrowful, even if he or she has nothing to do with their sorrows. However, in virtuous ethics, such an emotion of feeling is more frequently called empathy and not compassion. So I tend to think “empathy” is at least as a good term as, if not a better one than, “compassion” to refer to such an emotion. In any case, since Bein wants to highlight this double feature of the ethics of compassion, I would have expected him to examine one example for each, instead of taking on capital punishment and euthanasia, which are both related to suffering, when he applies compassion to real-life moral issues in the last chapter.