It has been quite a long time since the last time I posted on A Philosopher’s Take. In that time, I have finished my PhD and my partner and I had our first child, Oliver. But I figure it is time I start getting back to it, and I guess there is no better place to start than discussing my recent work on compassion. The piece is entitled “Compassion and its Pitfalls,” (penultimate version can be found here) and is part of an amazing collection of works on the topic of compassion, The Moral Psychology of Compassion, edited by Justin Caouette and Carolyn Price. I had the great pleasure of working with a long-time friend and mentor, Trudy Govier. Our article is the product of many discussions on compassion, and I thought it might be fruitful to share a bit of our motivations for the project and provide a bit of insight into our overall view. And, of course, my main purpose for this post is to generate discussion on compassion, the limits thereof, or any other aspect of our article, or the volume more generally.
When thinking of compassion, it is fair to say most of us think of it as an obviously valuable emotion, one necessary for a variety of human experience and interaction. As discussed in the volume, compassion is often thought to be an essential part of a fully moral life. Compassion is seen by many as a virtue and is thought to be necessary for navigating both our private and public lives. And while these positive attributes of compassion can hardly be denied, what Trudy and I wanted to explore were the potential limits, if any, to compassion. We wondered if compassion ever lead individuals astray, or whether compassion could actually interfere with living a good life? When is compassion insufficient or even misplaced? Is it possible to have too much compassion? These were just some of the questions we found interesting and led us to explore the ‘other’ side of compassion.
Rather than summarize the article here, I would like to briefly mention some of the potential pitfalls we associate with compassion. One concern, which impacts a variety of apparently virtuous emotions, is that relying solely on the emotional response of compassion can lead us to act in rash and unwise ways. While this isn’t unique to compassion, we do think compassion may be particularly vulnerable to such a pitfall, as compassion has an inherent call-to-action that may not be present in similar emotional responses. It is because the feeling of compassion brings with it an immediate impulse to act that a thorough deliberation as to how one should respond may be somewhat hurried, increasing the potential of failing to consider all the morally relevant factors of a case, resulting in less effective and even irresponsible responses. As the story of Rob Lawrie indicates, the impetus to act on our feelings of compassion can be so strong that we may actually risk act immorally, be it in our direct response or with regard to ignoring other important moral duties. While compassion surely has the power to provide important moral insight, we argue that compassion is itself insufficient to guide moral action.
Other pitfalls associated with compassion are revealed when we look at the phenomenon of “poverty porn,” understood as representations of those in distress or need meant primarily for the purpose of raising social or financial support for a given cause. The dangers of such representations are multiple. Firstly, such representations are potentially demeaning to those portrayed and risks failing to respect the dignity of those suffering. Among other things, this can lead to a failure of recognize the autonomy and agency of the sufferer, which can lead to problems of paternalism that may in fact exacerbate the suffering.
Further, “poverty porn” is often used in a manipulative manner that can be exploitative and misleading. While an emotional response is often evoked, such a response can be unreflective and may provide little guidance as to what the appropriate actions might be. Unfortunately, there are numerous example of exploitation with regard to the compassion of others, wherein individuals have successfully elicited the compassion of others in a fraudulent way. When the feeling of compassion is elicited and acted upon in such a fraudulent manner, those who have been deceived may react with suspicion and skepticism when encountering the suffering of others moving forward.
While evoking a compassionate emotional response would appear useful in many contexts, a further danger is that the emotional response is seen as sufficient in responding to the suffering of others. Upon seeing the images of the suffering of others, the emotional response of compassion is likely to follow. But there is a risk that those feeling compassion will regard their emotional response as reflecting their own virtuous disposition and mistake their mere feeling of compassion as itself a virtuous action.
Finally, there is the threat of compassion fatigue. This may occur when one is overexposed to a particular kind of suffering, making it more difficult to identify or relate to the sufferer, which may interfere and even stunt the ability to feel and act on compassion. Compassion fatigue implies there are limits to our ability to feel compassion, particularly when faced with a high degree of suffering over a lengthy period of time.
Hopefully I have offered enough detail for those who have not yet read the article (which can be found here). As mentioned, the goal of the post is to generate some discussion and get a bit of feedback on our article. I would love to hear what folks think about the potential pitfalls of compassion we outline in the paper. Are such concerns warranted? Are there any ways to resolve, or at least mitigate, such pitfalls? Are there any other pitfalls associated with compassion?
Dave can be found on twitter @DavidBoutland
A Philosopher's Take 
Justin Caouette
April 21, 2018
Nice to have you blogging again, Dave.
Regarding this piece I was curious about the difference between feeling compassion and directing compassion. For the volume, I was working on a piece with Miriam Mccormick where we argued that it is ALWAYS fitting to feel compassion for others regardless of the context. It’s sad we couldn’t get it finished in time to include it in the volume but regardless I’d be curious to hear if any of Compassion’s pitfalls, as you’ve described them, would press against that thesis we were developing. In other words, are there “pitfalls” to simply feeling compassion for others (even those who do us and others wrong) or, are the issues you raise meant to detail the directing of the emotion itself and not the feeling of the emotion per se?
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David Boutland
April 30, 2018
Thanks for the reply Justin!
Given we define compassion as having an inherent call-to-action, I would say the pitfalls we discuss would impact both the feeling and directing of compassion, though some of the pitfalls mentioned apply more directly to one or the other.
For example, consider the worry we raise about commiseration instead of action. The concern is that individuals may appropriately feel compassion in response to suffering without the impulse to act on this feeling. Instead of acting on compassion, such individuals take the feeling of compassion as itself virtuous and altruistic, putting no effort or thought into how they should respond to such suffering. So, in this case, while the feeling of compassion in response to suffering seems appropriate, there would appear to be a clear failure to direct compassion (or at least attempt to do so). This pitfall helps to demonstrate that, under our view, there is a necessary connection between the feeling of compassion and the impulse to act on or direct this compassion in such a way as to attempt to address or alleviate the suffering. Such a problem wouldn’t arise if one removes the call-to-action quality as an inherent aspect of compassion, but without the impulse to act we would argue such a feeling is more akin to sympathy than compassion.
Or consider compassion fatigue, which can undermine both the feeling of compassion and the directing of compassion (though, again, on our view if you lose the impulse to act on and direct compassion then it seems you are feeling something other than compassion). The nature of compassion fatigue is such that one is seemingly overwhelmed by exposure to the suffering of others, to the point where the capacity even to feel compassion, let alone direct it, becomes stunted in some way. We suggest that there may be a limit for all us as to the amount of suffering one can be exposed to before our capacity to feel and direct compassion is disrupted in some way.
The concerns around misplaced and irrational responses to the feeling of compassion are clearly centered on the directing of compassion. The case of Rob Lawrie is a useful example of how appropriately felt compassion can make us act in irrational and even immoral ways. Lawrie was responding the obvious suffering of a 4-year-old child trapped in a French refugee camp. The feeling of compassion seemed entirely appropriate, but Lawrie’s reactions appeared problematic on a number of levels. In attempting to smuggle the child into Britain, Lawrie broke a number of laws and was later charged and convicted of these crimes (though, interestingly, the court suspended all punishments, citing compassion as the justification for doing so). While it is certainly understandable that Lawrie believed something must be done, indeed that is exactly what feeling compassion should do, Lawrie’s actions were self-admittedly rash and unwise. One might maintain that this is a problem for acting irrational, not compassion, but given the feeling of compassion brings with it an impulse to act, we argue compassion is particularly vulnerable to such a concern
Finally, the worries regarding exploitation would apply both to the feeling and directing of compassion. Given compassion arises in response to the suffering of others, it is easy to see how compassion can be evoked and acted on in response to fraudulent cases of suffering. Again, this isn’t unique to compassion, as many emotions can be evoked in a rather fraudulent way. But there may be reason to think compassion is particularly vulnerable to this concern. Given the impulse to act that comes with compassion, and the sheer difficulty in being confronted with the suffering of others, one may be more susceptible to being fooled into feeling compassion. After all, as demonstrated in the fraudulent terminal cancer example we discuss, if a co-worker tells you she is suffering from terminal cancer, and goes so far as to fake various symptoms, it is doubtful your initial response is to first investigate the matter to determine if the suffering is genuine. Indeed, we might consider it problematic if one were to initially react in this skeptical way, even though such skepticism may be needed to protect oneself from such cases in the first place.
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Justin Caouette
May 2, 2018
Thanks for that, Dave.
Could you say more about compassion “calling one to act”?
I agree that compassion, like nearly all other emotions, can “call us to act” but at the end of the day we must “answer that call” so to speak. For me, and Brad Cokelet discusses this in his chapter in the volume as well, a compassionate person feels the emotion in the right amount given the circumstances. So feeling the right amount of compassion is NEVER a problem on my view, though feeling too little or too much will lead one down the path of acting erroneously, paths you’ve described nicely with your examples. But once compassion is understood as the RIGHT amount of the emotion and the excess of the emotion is what the problem is, it seems that we might say that proper compassion is NEVER a problem. I’m curious to hear if you think this point is problematic for the view you and Trudy put forth or of you think it’s compatible with what you are saying.
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harry1971
April 22, 2018
Wait. So you’re saying compassion is bad?! How does your examples show this? It seems like your examples show that when someone is irrational and compassionate that things get weird. That’s not compassion that’s the problem…
Help me out here.
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David Boutland
April 30, 2018
Thanks for the comment Harry.
As mentioned in the post and in the article, we maintain compassion is most definitely a good thing, and nothing we say would seem to undermine such a position. However, as with many other obvious goods and values, there are a number of potential pitfalls and limitations that can be associated with them. Pleasure and love are two immediate examples that come to mind. These are obviously good, yet there are a number of problems that can arise from relying on these for moral guidance, or to shape one’s life. We are making a similar claim with compassion, that despite the obvious value of compassion, or the intrinsic goodness of it, there appear to be some limitations and potential pitfalls to it.
I think you are correct to suggest that some of the cases we raise seem more of a problem with acting irrationally than with compassion itself. But we suggest that compassion may be uniquely vulnerable to certain problems given the inherent impulse to act that accompanies it. The Rob Lawrie case is a perfect example of this. Lawrie claims that he was acting from compassion, and later admits he did so in a rash and irrational way. I think it would be a bit too quick to simply claim he acted irrational but in a way that was completely disassociated with his feeling of compassion. Indeed, it seems that it was in large part because of his intense feeling of compassion that he acted in such an irrational way (which is why the courts responded the way they did). Our suggestion is that compassion, and the impulse to act, can be so overwhelming that it may actually lead to irrational action in a way that we should be cautious of.
Some other pitfalls we mention have much less connection to acting irrational. Compassion fatigue, for example, isn’t the result of acting irrationally. Rather, compassion fatigue arises from an overexposure to the suffering of others, leading to a kind of stunting of compassion. And this appears to be a perfectly normal reaction to the overexposure of the suffering of others, which suggests there may be a limit to our capacity to feel compassion.
I would love to hear more about your view. I assume, like us, you consider compassion to be good, valuable, and all the rest. But do you think the pitfalls we discuss are properly correlated with compassion? Is it accurate to label such concerns as the pitfalls of compassion, or do you have an alternative way of explaining these issues?
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