Ethics of Compassion

Ethics of Compassion PDF Author: Richard Reilly
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1461633397
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Ethics of Compassion places central themes from Buddhist (primarily) and Christian moral teachings within the conceptual framework of Western normative ethics. What results is a viable alternative ethical theory to those offered by utilitarians, Kantian formalists, proponents of the natural law tradition, and advocates of virtue ethics. Ethics of Compassion bridges Eastern and Western cultures, philosophical ethics and religious moral discourse, and notions of acting rightly and of being virtuous. This book will be of interest to anyone who has been introduced to the discipline of ethics. It will be useful for undergraduate courses in philosophical and religious ethics.

Ethics of Compassion

Ethics of Compassion PDF Author: Richard Reilly
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1461633397
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book

Book Description
Ethics of Compassion places central themes from Buddhist (primarily) and Christian moral teachings within the conceptual framework of Western normative ethics. What results is a viable alternative ethical theory to those offered by utilitarians, Kantian formalists, proponents of the natural law tradition, and advocates of virtue ethics. Ethics of Compassion bridges Eastern and Western cultures, philosophical ethics and religious moral discourse, and notions of acting rightly and of being virtuous. This book will be of interest to anyone who has been introduced to the discipline of ethics. It will be useful for undergraduate courses in philosophical and religious ethics.

Compassion and Moral Guidance

Compassion and Moral Guidance PDF Author: Steve Bein
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837215
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Compassion is a word we use frequently but rarely precisely. One reason we lack a philosophically precise understanding of compassion is that moral philosophers today give it virtually no attention. Indeed, in the predominant ethical traditions of the West (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics), compassion tends to be either passed over without remark or explicitly dismissed as irrelevant. And yet in the predominant ethical traditions of Asia, compassion is centrally important: All else revolves around it. This is clearly the case in Buddhist ethics, and compassion plays a similarly indispensable role in Confucian and Daoist ethics. In Compassion and Moral Guidance, Steve Bein seeks to explain why compassion plays such a substantial role in the moral philosophies of East Asia and an insignificant one in those of Europe and the West. The book opens with detailed surveys of compassion’s position in the philosophical works of both traditions. The surveys culminate in an analysis of the conceptions of self and why the differences between these conceptions serve either to celebrate or marginalize the importance of compassion. Bein moves on to develop a model for the ethics of compassion, including a chapter on applied ethics seen from the perspective of the ethics of compassion. The result is a new approach to ethics, one that addresses the Rawlsian and Kantian concern for fairness, the utilitarian concern for satisfactory consequences, and the concern in care ethics for the proper treatment of marginalized groups. Bein argues that compassion’s capacity to address all of these makes it a primary tool for ethical decision-making.

Against Empathy

Against Empathy PDF Author: Paul Bloom
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062339354
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
New York Post Best Book of 2016 We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EMPATHY, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society. Far from helping us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and, ironically, often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it, but to draw instead upon a more distanced compassion. Basing his argument on groundbreaking scientific findings, Bloom makes the case that some of the worst decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy distorts our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage. Without empathy, Bloom insists, our decisions would be clearer, fairer, and—yes—ultimately more moral. Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make.

Morality from Compassion

Morality from Compassion PDF Author: Ingmar Persson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192845535
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
According to Arthur Schopenhauer, compassion is the basis of morality. He sees concern for justice as a negative form of compassion, directed at not harming anyone, as opposed to the more far-reaching, positive form of benefiting. He thinks a higher degree of compassion involves realizing that the spatio-temporal separation of individuals is illusory and that in reality they are all identical. Such compassion is impartial and all-encompassing. Compassion is suited to be the centre of morality because its object are negative feelings, and only these are real. Contrary to these Schopenhauerian claims, it is here argued that compassion must be supplemented with attitudes like sympathy and benevolence because positive feelings exist alongside negative feelings; that a concern for justice, though morally essential, is independent of these attitudes which are based on empathy; that these attitudes involve not identifying oneself with others, but taking personal identity as insignificant in empathically imagining how others feel. Schopenhauer is however right that, though these attitudes are spontaneously partial, this can be corrected. His morality is also interesting in raising the question rarely discussed in philosophical ethics of how moral virtue relates to ascetic self-renunciation. Both of these ideals are highly demanding, but the book ends by arguing that this is no objection to their validity.

Consequences of Compassion

Consequences of Compassion PDF Author: Charles Goodman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190205326
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
"In Consequences of Compassion, Charles Goodman illuminates the relationship between Buddhism and Western ethical theories. Buddhist texts offer an interesting approach to the demands of morality and a powerful critique of what we would identify as the concept of free will - a critique which leads to a hard determinist view of human action. But rather than being a threat to morality, this view supports Buddhist values of compassion, nonviolence, and forgiveness, and leads to a more humane approach to the justification of punishment. Drawing on Buddhist religious values, Goodman argues against the death penalty and mandatory minimum sentences." "Every version of Buddhist ethics, says Goodman, takes the welfare of sentient beings to be the only source of moral obligations. Buddhist ethics can thus be said to be based on compassion in the sense of a motivation to pursue the welfare of others. On this interpretation, the fundamental basis of the various forms of Buddhist ethics is the same as that of the welfarist members of the family of ethical theories that analytic philosophers call "consequentialism." Goodman uses this hypothesis to illuminate a variety of questions. He examines the three types of compassion practiced in Buddhism and argues for their implications for important issues in applied ethics. Goodman argues that the Buddhist tradition can and will ultimately make important contributions to contemporary global conversations about ethical issues while placing Buddhist views into the mainstream of current ethical analysis."--Jacket.

Living With the Other

Living With the Other PDF Author: Avi Sagi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319991787
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The book grapples with one of the most difficult questions confronting the contemporary world: the problem of the other, which includes ethical, political, and metaphysical aspects. A widespread approach in the history of the discourse on the other, systematically formulated by Emmanuel Levinas and his followers, has invested this term with an almost mythical quality—the other is everybody else but never a specific person, an abstraction of historical human existence. This book offers an alternative view, turning the other into a real being, through a carefully described process involving two dimensions referred to as the ethic of loyalty to the visible and the ethic of inner retreat. Tracing the course of this process in life and in literature, the book presents a broad and lucid picture intriguing to philosophers and also accessible to readers concerned with questions touching on the meaning of life, ethics, and politics, and particularly relevant to the burning issues surrounding attitudes to immigrants as others and to the relationship with God, the ultimate other.

The Battle for Compassion

The Battle for Compassion PDF Author: Jonathan Leighton
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 087586872X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Six hundred years after Copernicus presented his revolutionary and heretical heliocentric theory, a sunset can still look unexpectedly new. What if the fate of our world depended on a similar shift in perspective?. Synthesizing recent thinking from science, philosophy, psychology and economics with the authorOCOs own reflections on freedom, identity and morality, The Battle for Compassion offers a fresh, sweeping perspective on the human condition and a deep contemplation of the basis for our priorities at this critical moment in our history. The threats to our existence and the persistence of intense suffering are closely intertwined issues with similar underlying causes. Addressing them honestly requires us to reflect detachedly on who we are, probe the boundaries of ethical thinking, and ask some really big questions. What matters? What are the basic forces driving our speciesOCO trajectory, and where are they leading us? And what would it realistically take for us to preserve a future worth living in?. These questions recur as we go through life and experience bliss and pain, the passing of time, the kindness and cruelty of our fellow humans, the monotony of routine and the shock of unanticipated change. This book ponders these pivotal questions and attempts to offer some answers."

Reconstructing Schopenhauer's Ethics

Reconstructing Schopenhauer's Ethics PDF Author: Sandra Shapshay
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190906804
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
"This book articulates and defends an interpretation of Schopenhauer's ethics as an original and credible contribution to the history of ethics. It presents Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion as in direct tension with his resignationism and aims to show surprising continuities with Kant's ethics"--

The Moral Psychology of Compassion

The Moral Psychology of Compassion PDF Author: Justin Caouette
Publisher: Moral Psychology of the Emotions
ISBN: 9781786604194
Category : Compassion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Compassion is widely regarded as an important moral emotion - a fitting response to various cases of suffering and misfortune. Yet contemporary theorists have rarely given it sustained attention. This volume aims to fill this gap by offering answers to a number of questions surrounding this emotion. These questions include: What is the nature of compassion? How does compassion differ from other emotions, such as empathy, pity, or gratitude? Is compassion a virtue? Can we have too much compassion? How does compassion influence other mental states (desires, motivations, beliefs, and intentions) and behaviour? How is compassion influenced by the environment? Must compassion be deserved? Can one be moral while lacking the capacity for compassion? Compassion, like other emotions, has many facets - biological, social, psychological and neural, among others. The contributors to this volume will draw on a variety of disciplines and methods in order to develop a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of this often-neglected moral emotion.

Corporal Compassion

Corporal Compassion PDF Author: Ralph R. Acampora
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 9780822971078
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. Corporal Compassion emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy. Corporal Compassion examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition and challenges practitioners to move past recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach.