Compassion and the Self

Abstract

To this point in this book, compassion has been presented as being largely other-regarding. When we come into relation with the suffering of others, we are moved to care for them, seek to understand them through empathic responses central to perspective sharing and follow some course of action appropriate to and guided by the situation of the other. For these reasons compassion relates primarily and in important ways to notions of beneficence, altruism, solidarity and care. Yet, at various times in the preceding chapters, notions of the self have been raised. It was argued in Chap. 2, for example, that a condition of compassion is the need to share similar possibilities with those whose suffering we come into contact with.