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Pity: a mitigated defence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kristján Kristjánsson
Kristján Kristjánsson*
Affiliation:
School of Education, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, BirminghamB15 2TT, UK
*
*Email: k.kristjansson@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer a mitigated moral justification of a much maligned emotional trait, pity, in the Aristotelian sense of ‘pain at deserved bad fortune’. I lay out Aristotle’s taxonomic map of pity and its surrounding conceptual terrain and argue – by rehearsing modern accounts – that this map is not anachronistic with respect to contemporary conceptions. I then offer an ‘Aristotelian’ (albeit not Aristotle’s) moral justification of pity, not as a full virtue intrinsically related to eudaimonia but as a positive moral quality that has instrumental value in developing and sustaining a certain intrinsically valuable state of character – namely compassion. The justification offered is mitigated in the sense that it does not elevate pity to a virtuous disposition, constitutive of the good life; yet it does offer a crucial counterweight to Aristotle’s own denunciation of pity.

Keywords

pitycompassionsympathyempathyAristotle
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 3-4 , August 2014 , pp. 343 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

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