The significance of compassion in Eastern and Western moral philosophy

In this essay I will write about compassion in both Eastern and Western moral philosophy, finding similarities and differences in its application, as well as looking at its significance. The definition of compassion is a strong feeling of sympathy or sadness for those suffering, resulting in offering help through action. Due to the actuality of aid, compassion is not the same as pity or empathy, that are emotional or cognitive states, and it differs from the Christian idea of love. Firstly, I will look at Buddhism and Confucianism. Then I will turn to the Stoics, Aquinas, Kant, and Hume. Then, the primatologist De Waal, whose study of primates offers an understanding of empathy and altruism, and how morality may have developed. Throughout the essay I will draw comparisons between those I have mentioned, plus Aristotle. I will argue that in the Eastern world as well as with Hume, the greater focus on human emotion may lead to more self-reflection, self-understanding and greater awareness of the interconnectedness of life. In comparison, rationality may not maximise the benefits compassion has to offer humanity, and for some theorists it appears to be a weakness, leading to duality between rationality and human’s animal nature, as opposed to a holistic view.

Compassion is the greatest virtue within Buddhism (c. 5th C BCE) and draws humans towards each other and enables humans to care for all other life, cultivating kindness, benevolence and understanding. For Buddhists, moral consideration is given to all humans, animals and the eco-systems that support life on Earth. In comparison, within the Western world, for the Stoics, Aristotle and Kant, moral concern would only extend to people or rational beings. Siddhārtha Gautama became known as Buddha when he became enlightened. He undertook severe ascetic practices but rejected them, eventually finding meditation to be the vehicle to enlightenment, which led to the establishment of his teachings, including the necessary virtues. Within Mahayana Buddhism the moral ideal is bodhicitta, defined by a spontaneous wish to attain enlightenment, motivated by great compassion for all sentient beings, accompanied by a dissolving of the attachment to the illusion of an inherently existing self. A person with bodhicitta is called a bodhisattva and is found within all forms of Buddhism. A bodhisattva is not at all egoic and transcends worldly matters. Within Northern or East Asian Buddhism, the six perfections or bases for training towards enlightenment are; Generosity, morality (including compassion), patience, courage, meditation and wisdom. Buddhism says compassion begins with empathy or pity, but compassion reflects our awareness of understanding the fundamental reality of the world. For Buddhists this is ultimately emptiness or sunyatta. Much like Aristotelian philosophy, as in the “golden mean” reflecting the mean of all virtues, the Buddha taught the middle way (away from extremes of qualities) otherwise called the Noble Eightfold Path (more associated with Theraveda Buddhism) that includes; right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, mindfulness, and meditative absorption. Meditation (rather than extreme asceticism) and compassion are both the core of the middle way. Buddha said that from a compassionate core, wisdom would naturally arise leading to the right actions. In a similar way, for Aristotle, the good person will do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. In Buddhism another’s problems become our problems and one would not ignore another’s suffering. Within Buddhism we lose our sense of self and realise we are interconnected. For Kant, this would not be correct, as he believed in autonomy. Buddhism propounds that the fundamental reality must be a felt experience and not just rationally understood. Meditation is a commitment to attain the way that gives rise to certain qualities that elevate our mental condition and emotional capacities as well as aiding in spiritual development such as enhanced intuition, and connection with the divine or fundamental truth of reality. One popular meditation practice (dhyana) is called the brahmavihārās. They are also known as the four immeasurables. The Brahmaviharas are: loving-kindness or benevolence (metta), compassion (karuna), empathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha). So, within Buddhism, the ritual of meditation is a necessity and that taking compassionate action towards others to alleviate suffering, is a cornerstone of the philosophy.

Confucianism (551 – 479 BCE) is China’s oldest and most highly regarded philosophy from the pre-Socratic period. Confucius was interested in society, politics and how humans should live. He was alike to Socrates who debated and exchanged reasons for why he believed things, as a wandering philosopher accompanied by his disciples. Unlike Socrates, there are no dialogues to be found in Analects - instead a series of sayings containing his ideas and wisdom. The focus for Confucius (alike to the Epicureans) is upon life as a human without mention of transcendent reality. He was a virtue ethicist who believed the family and community should take presidence over the individual. Filial duty was of the utmost importance in regard to hierarchy of the household and respect to ancestors, and family should come before the state. Aristotle too regarded that certain forms of political life are based on familial relationships such as the father and son relationship, and in addition that citizens should be like brothers. However, Aristotle seems more liberated than Confucius as he describes husband and wife as a partnership of equals. Confucius said we ought to care more for family than those outside and that moral considerability diminishes as you go outwards in to society. Aristotle would say the same. In the Confucian Analects, the concept of ren or humanity is about having empathy or compassion with others and taking action based upon it. A person who practices ren acts in accordance with the rites and rituals including funeral rites, forms of etiquette such as bowing to one’s older brother and offering food and wine to one’s ancestors. Once they were internalised these sacred rites would cause the person to become habituated to always act in the correct way at the right time. Once again, a similarity can be found with Aristotle’s philosophy to be habituating oneself to act in a certain way through the mean of the virtues. However, this was due to using rational activity in accordance with excellence, as opposed to rites and rituals as the foundational basis. Ren or basic goodness is not found within Western philosophy, unless with the moral sentimentalists Smith, Hume or Schopenhauer. The Confucian principle of shu is not doing to others what you yourself do not desire, and is closely linked with compassion or empathy, as one refrains from certain actions through putting oneself in another’s shoes. The virtues were benevolence, filial piety and loyalty:

“A youth, when at home, should be filial, and, abroad, respectful to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good” (Analects 1 : 6).

For Kant, Confucianism is not autonomy but heteronomy, a philosophy based on external rites and not internal reason and he would not agree with this as a philosophical basis.

Mencius or Mengzi (372 – 289 BC) was a Confucian philosopher referred to as the “second sage”, who believed people are inherently good and endowed with virtue, believing “everyone has a heart that can’t bear to see others suffer” (Hinton, 2013 : 430). He is considered to have further developed the inner dimensions of the human heart. He cited the example of “suddenly seeing a baby about to fall into a well, anyone would be heart-stricken with pity” (Hinton, 2013 : 430). He believed in the “four beginnings” of humanity, righteousness, ritual and wisdom which if nurtured would be “like a fire blazing forth or springs flooding free” (Hinton, 2013 : 431) which is reminiscent of Hume’s explanation of how moral sentiments pour forth on to one’s environment. In summary, for Mencius the heart is what is most important, dissimilar to most of the Western thinkers, who praised rationality most highly:

“Without a heart of compassion we aren’t human, without a heart of conscience we aren’t human, without a heart of courtesy we aren’t human, and without a heart of right and wrong we aren’t human. A heart of compassion is the seed of Humanity. A heart of conscience is the seed of Duty. A heart of courtesy is the seed of Ritual. And a heart of right and wrong is the seed of wisdom” (Hinton, 2013 : 430).

In the West, Stoicism began around the 3rd C BCE and their philosophy is centered on the mental virtues of goodness or intellectual virtue of the mind. They held the belief that the Cosmos was rationally ordered and that everything happened for a reason. This type of thinking enabled them to let go of their own concerns more easily as one could learn to distinguish what is in their power with what is not. Aligning one’s will to the will of a whole is comparative to Buddhism and the idea of interconnectedness and also shows awareness that everyone suffers. Stoicism has a series of practices that induced mindfulness such reflections at dawn and dusk, where they reflected on how they could do their best, and that could be compared with Buddhist meditation. Both philosophies have in common the attempt to diminish clinging to a sense of self. For Stoics, the goal is tranquility, a calm and peaceful statement, without worry, and for Buddhists the goal is equanimity, a calm mental state. The approach to achieving this state was different, Stoicism being based on rationality, and controlling the emotions, but both philosophies rate the quality of being calm and peaceful as the highest, so that they could access the virtues.

Christianity then became dominant system to overtake Paganism and Stoicism. At this point Greek philosophy was still greatly respected and so there had to be a synthesis of virtues and happiness with the Christian faith. Thomas Aquinas’ (1225 – 1274) was an Aristotelian and he combined this with Christianity. Aquinas distinguishes two types of happiness. Worldly happiness linked to human nature. You get this kind of happiness by exercising four cardinal virtues, courage, wisdom, justice and moderation. We are born with these certain capacities, which we have to develop ourselves. The second type of happiness is blessedness. To achieve it, we need more than the four cardinal virtues. We also need the three theological virtues of faith, hope, charity or love. The virtues are infused in our nature by God and are therefore of a supernatural virtue given by Grace. If we have faith and hope for the attitude to love God, we can then experience the best kind of eudaimonia or blessedness. The Greeks thought it was human’s responsibility to create happiness but for Aquinas it depended on God’s favour to give human’s these virtues. One minor virtue (an effect of love) is called Misericordia and it refers to sympathising with others and wanting to help them. It is close to compassion in this way. Aquinas’ fundamental principle is “good to be done and evil avoided”. Alike to Greek moralists, his theory is teleological meaning that nature as a whole has a purpose. According to Aquinas, natural law is defined as human participation in the eternal law. He believed that this is discovered by reason. As parts of nature, we have a purpose or set of natural purposes. If we achieve it, and realise these “goods” then our life is good, morally speaking. Any just human law is grounded on natural law. Aquinas is important in political philosophy because the idea of a natural law provides a way of potentially criticising the laws of a given society as “unjust”. One issue with natural law is that it does not leave space for human emotions otherwise you are considered outside of natural law. Plus it only works if you are Christian. After the scientific revolution came the eighteenth century European enlightenment when traditional proof of God’s existence came under attack. Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant and Hume discussed compassion in different ways.

Kant (1724-1804) thought that only the good will could be unconditionally good. He did not agree with Christian view of love as the scripture commanded, “for love out of inclination cannot be commanded; but kindness done from duty” (Paton, 1948 : 44). He thought that one must always act from reason and not emotion, and that this was morality proper.

“It is practical, and not pathological, love, residing in the will and not in the propensions of feeling, in principles of action and not of melting compassion; and it is this practical love alone which can be an object of command (Paton, 1948 : 44).

With regards to compassion he thought that “souls..attuned to compassion” were doing so not out of duty but out of self-interest, such as gaining inner gratification, and that it “has no true moral worth”. He found it to be an inclination of honour, lacking in moral content, as it is not done from duty. He suggests that if the compassionate persons mind was overcome by grief, they would no longer be motivated towards alleviating suffering in others. For Kant, controlling the emotions is a constant battleground, dissimilar to the Stoics, who thought the emotions could be controlled (G 4:398).

In comparison, Hume (1711 - 1776) says that humans make moral judgements based upon what is perceived as praiseworthy or blameworthy or, moral sentiments. Hume says humans easily see oneself in the other and so if we have an idea of what someone is feeling, it forms an impression in one’s mind and creates an experience. This is then called sympathy, but is closer to what is called empathy. The natural virtues are those humans approve of such as benevolence, charity, generosity, eloquence and serenity. Benevolence was most important because along with sympathy, they make for a civilised society of order and justice. Artificial virtues arise from human society, such as keeping promises, justice and allegiance. Although less instinctive, they are valued so that one looks after their own interests within society. He opposed Kant’s view that rational thought ought to control our emotions, stating instead that humans are fundamentally emotional. Similarly, Eastern philosophers emphasised the emotions over rationality. Kant, being a moral realist, would be concerned that Hume’s anti-realist account is subjective and that there is no stability in human nature, leading to a lack of a sense of right and wrong. Furthermore, Kant would argue that there is a contingency in Hume’s philosophy that human nature might have been different. Kant’s practical law does not change, irrespective of human nature, and due to this he believed morality should be based upon the unconditional good will.

I will now turn to De Waal and his research of primate theory, and how morality evolved from a Darwinian perspective. He believes humans have much to learn about their own behaviour from primates. He understands there are two schools of thought: The first, that humans created morality through rationally, as in Kant, and the second, sees “morality as a direct outgrowth of the social instincts that we share with other animals”, as in Hume (De Waal, 2006 : 21). He found examples of empathy and reciprocal altruism with chimpanzees, apes and bonobos. The first example is when chimpanzees, who were third parties to a fight, offered consolation to the loser – but not for self interest, as in trying to initiate reconciliation between the feuding pair. We can infer this is an example of simply comforting another. The next example is called targeted helping, that reflects cognitive empathy and is defined as altruistic behaviour, which De Waal has found with apes and bonobos. Another example is a bonobo helping a bird to escape an enclosure. Also, De Waal reports how personal distress in one could stimulate sympathy in another, showing awareness of another’s internal states, as in the example of Ladygina-Kohts who would pretend to cry to make her young chimpanzee Joni move. Joni’s actions reflect perspective taking and an attempt to understand.

“He tenderly takes my chin in his palm, lightly touches my face with his finger, as though trying to understand what is happening” (De Waal, 2006 : 40)

De Waal says that although in society one has to be empathetic to assist our own cause, it also becomes natural to carry out compassionate actions, as we habituate ourselves to them and grow in empathetic capacities. Alike to Aristotle, De Waal says we are social animals. Mencius (who De Waal mentions) used his thought experiment of a baby falling in the well to demonstrate human’s innate good nature and desire to help others. Evidence of altruism is in humans and animals who want to help their offspring. De Waal finds reciprocal altruism and empathy are the two pillars of primate theory and how humans might have developed morality. Once bonds of trust have been built to a point where no one is keeping score but are bound to each other through constant repetition of empathy, there is the foundation of a moral society with empathy and compassion proper, where one can understand another’s mental and emotional states and act accordingly. De Waal is focused on exposing human’s nature, similar to Hume, or in Eastern philosophy, and sees that being moral is a natural capacity. De Waal would see Kant as dualist where humans are partly rational and partly animal, yet De Waal wants to see humans as integrated beings. Although highly developed rationality is within humans and not primates, humans are still animals.

In conclusion, for the majority of the Western world’s philosophers including the Stoics, Aquinas and Kant, morality is based upon reason and the emotions should be controlled. Comparatively, in Eastern Philosophy including Buddhism, Confucius, Mencius and Hume, morality is based on emotion, namely compassion, ren or benevolence. These virtues are said to be reflective of the inner nature of humans and should be developed in order to grow as a human and be able to connect with others at a deep level. De Waal’s study of primates shows reciprocal altruism and empathy as fundamental to relationships and argues this is the start of morality. Therefore, it appears that by seeing emotions as a weakness or something to be tightly controlled, humans may lose the essence of the self. Certainly, humans have highly developed rational capacities, but are still human animals after all.  Therefore, integrating both elements of one’s nature appears to be the more natural response. Whilst the certainty of reason Kant describes attempts to control the animal nature by application of his practical law, Hume’s philosophy allows space for development and change, in a way that could be described as more natural to humans, and in touch with the roots of evolutionary morality.

Bibliography

De Waal, F., Edited And Introduced By Stephen Macedo And Josiah Ober,     Primates and Philosophers, 2006Oxfordshire, Princeton University Press

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Hinton, David. The Four Chinese Classics : Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius, Counterpoint, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anglia/detail.action?docID=1319513.
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