Compassion And Moral Guidance

Compassion is a word we use frequently but rarely precisely. One reason we lack a philosophically precise understanding of compassion is that moral philosophers today give it virtually no attention. Indeed, in the predominant ethical traditions of the West (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics), compassion tends to be either passed over without remark or explicitly dismissed as irrelevant. And yet in the predominant ethical traditions of Asia, compassion is centrally important: All else revolves around it. This is clearly the case in Buddhist ethics, and compassion plays a similarly indispensable role in Confucian and Daoist ethics. In Compassion and Moral Guidance, Steve Bein seeks to explain why compassion plays such a substantial role in the moral philosophies of East Asia and an insignificant one in those of Europe and the West. The book opens with detailed surveys of compassion’s position in the philosophical works of both traditions. The surveys culminate in an analysis of the conceptions of self and why the differences between these conceptions serve either to celebrate or marginalize the importance of compassion. Bein moves on to develop a model for the ethics of compassion, including a chapter on applied ethics seen from the perspective of the ethics of compassion. The result is a new approach to ethics, one that addresses the Rawlsian and Kantian concern for fairness, the utilitarian concern for satisfactory consequences, and the concern in care ethics for the proper treatment of marginalized groups. Bein argues that compassion’s capacity to address all of these makes it a primary tool for ethical decision-making.

New York Post Best Book of 2016 We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EMPATHY, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society. Far from helping us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and, ironically, often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it, but to draw instead upon a more distanced compassion. Basing his argument on groundbreaking scientific findings, Bloom makes the case that some of the worst decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy distorts our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage. Without empathy, Bloom insists, our decisions would be clearer, fairer, and—yes—ultimately more moral. Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make.

Ethics of Compassion places central themes from Buddhist (primarily) and Christian moral teachings within the conceptual framework of Western normative ethics. What results is a viable alternative ethical theory to those offered by utilitarians, Kantian formalists, proponents of the natural law tradition, and advocates of virtue ethics. Ethics of Compassion bridges Eastern and Western cultures, philosophical ethics and religious moral discourse, and notions of acting rightly and of being virtuous. This book will be of interest to anyone who has been introduced to the discipline of ethics. It will be useful for undergraduate courses in philosophical and religious ethics.

Compassion is widely regarded as an important moral emotion – a fitting response to various cases of suffering and misfortune. Yet contemporary theorists have rarely given it sustained attention. This volume aims to fill this gap by offering answers to a number of questions surrounding this emotion. These questions include: What is the nature of compassion? How does compassion differ from other emotions, such as empathy, pity, or gratitude? Is compassion a virtue? Can we have too much compassion? How does compassion influence other mental states (desires, motivations, beliefs, and intentions) and behaviour? How is compassion influenced by the environment? Must compassion be deserved? Can one be moral while lacking the capacity for compassion? Compassion, like other emotions, has many facets – biological, social, psychological and neural, among others. The contributors to this volume will draw on a variety of disciplines and methods in order to develop a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of this often-neglected moral emotion.

Colin Marshall offers a ground-up defense of objective morality, drawing inspiration from a wide range of philosophers, including John Locke, Arthur Schopenhauer, Iris Murdoch, Nel Noddings, and David Lewis. Marshall's core claim is compassion is our capacity to perceive other creatures' pains, pleasures, and desires. Non-compassionate people are therefore perceptually lacking, regardless of how much factual knowledge they might have. Marshall argues that people who do have this form of compassion thereby fit a familiar paradigm of moral goodness. His argument involves the identification of an epistemic good which Marshall dubs "being in touch". To be in touch with some property of a thing requires experiencing it in a way that reveals that property - that is, experiencing it as it is in itself. Only compassion, Marshall argues, lets us be in touch with others' motivational mental properties. This conclusion about compassion has two important metaethical consequences. First, it generates an answer to the question "Why be moral?", which has been a central philosophical concern since Plato. Second, it provides the keystone for a novel form of moral realism. This form of moral realism has a distinctive set of virtues: it is anti-relativist, naturalist, and able to identify a necessary connection between moral representation and motivation. The view also implies that there is an epistemic asymmetry between virtuous and vicious agents, according to which only morally good people can fully face reality.

Although not always unswervingly, from antiquity until today, Christians have engaged in charity. As settings changed, compassion evolved, laying in place an ongoing mosaic of Christian ideas and institutions surrounding care. From the antique and medieval to the modern and contemporary, each age offers unique actors and insights into how compassion is viewed and achieved. We consider repeating motifs and novel appearances in the arc of Christian compassion which enlighten and inspire. Encountered on the journey are the formation and sacrifice of ancient Christians; an emphasis on virtues taught through sparing and sharing; the nascent social welfare of the Byzantine church; the sacralization and mobilization of a medieval church; innovative ideas from reformers who advance the role of the state; and modern movements in justice, peace, humanitarianism, mutual aid, and community development.

In light of the numerous challenges posed by globalization, living together as humanity on one planet needs to be reinvented in the twenty-first century. To create a new, peaceful, just, and sustainable world order is vital to the survival of us all. In this regard, humankind will have to expand the limited scope of its moral imagination beyond the borders of family, tribe, class, religion, nation, and culture. Will the cultivation of compassion, as scholars like Martha Nussbaum and Karen Armstrong, and religious leaders like the Dalai Lama maintain, contribute to a more just world? A global movement to cultivate and extend compassion beyond the immediate circle of concern may indeed find inspiration from many different religious traditions. The question at the heart of this book is whether the Christian legacy provides us with sources of moral imagination needed to guide us into the global era. Can the Christian practice of faith contribute to a more compassionate world? If so, how? And is it true that compassion is what we need, or do we need something else (justice, for example)? In Considering Compassion, colleagues from different theological disciplines at Stellenbosch, South Africa, and Groningen, Netherlands, take up these challenging questions from a variety of interdisciplinary angles.

This book offers a moral rather than instrumental notion of university education whilst locating the university within society. It reflects a balancing of the instrumentalization of higher education as a mode of employment training and enhances the notion of the students’ well-being being at the core of the university mission. Compassion is examined in this volume as a weaving of diverse cultures and beliefs into a way of recognizing that diversity through a common good offers a way of preparing students and staff for a complex and anxious world. This book provides theoretical and practical discussions of compassion in higher education, it draws contributors from around the world and offers illustrations of compassion in action through a number of international cases studies..