Daybreak
Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21613989 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Friedrich Nietzsche (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 1382-1382 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Academic Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1040-2446 • E-ISSN: 1938-808X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1097/acm.0000000000003293 |
| PMID | 32195688 |
| OpenAlex | W3011391247 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
In this passage, Nietzsche engages with a long philosophical tradition of regarding compassion and similar virtues with skepticism. Where other writers (e.g., Spinoza and Kant) tend to question the use or morality of these virtues, Nietzsche’s focus is more introspective, an attempt to understand the very experience of compassion. A note on translation: The word given as pity—a word that becomes central to Nietzsche’s argument—is the German Mitleid, which is etymologically more similar to our English compassion or sympathy (all of which are composed of the roots with + suffering). Pity is a somewhat unfortunate choice in an otherwise good translation, as this word tends to have a distinct and negative connotation in English. One is therefore advised to substitute compassion wherever pity is written or, better yet, following Nietzsche’s argument, to reflect on the difficulties of signifying the phenomena in question with a single word. “No longer to think of oneself”.—Let us reflect seriously upon this question: why do we leap after someone who has fallen into the water in front of us, even though we feel no kind of affection for him? Out of pity [Mitleid]: at that moment we are thinking only of the other person—thus says thoughtlessness. Why do we feel pain and discomfort in common with someone spitting blood, though we may even be ill-disposed towards him? Out of pity: at that moment we are not thinking of ourself—thus says the same thoughtlessness. The truth is: in the feeling of pity—I mean that which is usually and misleadingly called pity—we are, to be sure, not consciously thinking of ourself but are doing so very strongly unconsciously; as when, if our foot slips—an act of which we are not immediately conscious—we perform the most purposive counter-motions and in doing so plainly employ our whole reasoning faculty. An accident which happens to another offends us; it would make us aware of our impotence, and perhaps of our cowardice, if we did not go to assist him. Or it brings with it in itself a diminution of our honour in the eyes of others or in our own eyes. Or an accident and suffering incurred by another constitutes a signpost to some danger to us; and it can have a painful effect upon us simply as a token of human vulnerability and fragility in general. We repel this kind of pain and offence and requite it through an act of pity; it may contain a subtle self-defence or even a piece of revenge. That at bottom we are thinking very strongly of ourselves can be divined from the decision we arrive at in every case in which we can avoid the sight of the person suffering, perishing or complaining: we decide not to do so if we can present ourselves as the more powerful and a helper, if we are certain of applause, if we want to feel how fortunate we are in contrast, or hope that the sight will relieve our boredom. It is misleading to call the Leid (suffering) we may experience at such a sight, and which can be of very varying kinds, Mit-Leid (pity), for it is under all circumstances a suffering which he who is suffering in our presence is free of: it is our own, as the suffering he feels is his own. But it is only this suffering of our own which we get rid of when we perform deeds of pity. But we never do anything of this kind out of one motive; as surely as we want to free ourselves of suffering by this act, just as surely do we give way to an impulse to pleasure with the same act—pleasure arises at the sight of a contrast to the condition we ourselves are in; at the notion that we can help if only we want to; at the thought of the praise and recognition we shall receive if we do help; at the activity of helping itself, insofar as the act is successful and as something achieved step by step in itself gives delight to the performer; especially, however, at the feeling that our action sets a limit to an injustice which arouses our indignation (the discharge of one’s indignation is itself refreshing). All this, and other, much more subtle things in addition, constitute “pity”: how coarsely does language assault with its one word so polyphonous a being
Argument (complex analysis) · Compassion · Epistemology · Feeling · Morality · Pity · Psychoanalysis · Skepticism · Sympathy · Theology · Medicine · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.27 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2024 (32) |
| Highly cited | No |