Electronic Resource
Springer
The journal of ethics
3 (1999), S. 73-87
ISSN:
1572-8609
Keywords:
compassion
;
Hume
;
primitive responses
;
Schopenhauer
;
sympathy
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Philosophy
Notes:
Abstract In this article I examine an example of sympathy -- the actions of one woman who rescued Jews during their persecution in Nazi Europe. I argue that this woman's account of her actions here suggests that sympathy is a primitive response to the suffering of another. By “primitive” here I mean: first, that these responses are immediate and unthinking; and second, that these responses are explanatorily basic, that they cannot be explained in terms of some more fundamental feature of human nature -- such as some particular desire or sentiment that we possess. My conclusion is then that our sympathetic responses are themselves partially constitutive of our conception of what is to be a human being.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009719902691
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