"Compassion and its Pitfalls" (with Trudy Govier) in J. Caouette and C. Price, The Moral Psychology of Compassion, Rowman and Littlefield, pp 61-75, 2018.
We understand compassion as an emotion of sorrow in response to the understood suffering of another person; acknowledgement of that suffering and a motivation to assist the suffering person are central elements of a compassionate response. In connection with moral considerations concerning compassion, we examine a number of concerns about compassion and its object. As to the latter, we describe recent accounts of the phenomenon known as ‘poverty porn.’ ‘Poverty porn’ is a pejorative label for portrayals that vividly emphasize the sorrowful condition of needy persons. It has been criticized as disrespectful of the persons depicted and counterproductive as a means of contributing to meaningful change in their conditions. We outline several pitfalls of compassion and connect our account with a recent account of the fallacy of appealing to pity. We relate our account to three pathologies of compassion: (a) the exploitation by some of the compassionate feelings of others; (b) indulgence in commiseration at the cost of action; and (c) compassion fatigue. Shifting to the theme of persons experiencing compassion, we argue that here, as in other contexts, emotional appeals are relevant to the rationality of actions to be undertaken but insufficient to provide good reasons for those actions. Our treatment bears intriguing similarities to that of Sophie Condorcet in her late eighteenth century work, Letters on Sympathy, appended to her 1798 translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments into French.
"Perception of Addiction and Its Effects on One's Moral Responsibility" (with Justin Caouette) American Journal of Bioethics - Neuroscience, 2018.
We understand compassion as an emotion of sorrow in response to the understood suffering of another person; acknowledgement of that suffering and a motivation to assist the suffering person are central elements of a compassionate response. In connection with moral considerations concerning compassion, we examine a number of concerns about compassion and its object. As to the latter, we describe recent accounts of the phenomenon known as ‘poverty porn.’ ‘Poverty porn’ is a pejorative label for portrayals that vividly emphasize the sorrowful condition of needy persons. It has been criticized as disrespectful of the persons depicted and counterproductive as a means of contributing to meaningful change in their conditions. We outline several pitfalls of compassion and connect our account with a recent account of the fallacy of appealing to pity. We relate our account to three pathologies of compassion: (a) the exploitation by some of the compassionate feelings of others; (b) indulgence in commiseration at the cost of action; and (c) compassion fatigue. Shifting to the theme of persons experiencing compassion, we argue that here, as in other contexts, emotional appeals are relevant to the rationality of actions to be undertaken but insufficient to provide good reasons for those actions. Our treatment bears intriguing similarities to that of Sophie Condorcet in her late eighteenth century work, Letters on Sympathy, appended to her 1798 translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments into French.
"Perception of Addiction and Its Effects on One's Moral Responsibility" (with Justin Caouette) American Journal of Bioethics - Neuroscience, 2018.