Monday, March 28, 2011
Compassion?
One person in the audience at the conference asked what philosophy has to offer in terms of nurturing compassion. Given Eastern philosophies, such as Buddhism, that integrate the concept of compassion, I would narrow that question: What does western philosophy have to offer, if anything, in terms of nurturing compassion? Perhaps feminism has some relationship-based models that can be interpreted as nurturing compassion, but do folks think that western philosophy has something else to contribute here? If so, what?
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I'm so frustrated because I just wrote a longish reply and it was lost when I tried to post it. Oh well, another try, shorter this time.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking there are really two questions: (1) Does philosophy have something to contribute in thinking about the role of compassion and emotion in moral life? And (2) Does philosophy help cultivate or develop compassion in those who do it.
When I was responding to the question in the discussion (note that although I answered quite abruptly "no," it was under time constraint and so wasn't able to explain), I was thinking about (2). I definitely think philosophy has much to offer in answer to (1).
Re (2): After talking about it with others at the reception and dinner, it seems clear that philosophy CAN help develop compassion in ways like this: we learn to listen to others' reasons and become sensitive to their perspective; we learn more about what injustice is; we come to see others as humans deserving of respect. My experience, however, is that this is not something that one can count on. I don't think there is any evidence that moral philosophers are more compassionate or caring than others.
My basic thought is that if we are looking for ways to make people more compassionate, there are a variety of ways to consider; but even if philosophy CAN have this effect, I wouldn't recommend this as the best way to proceed.
The question concerning compassion is a very rich one, and has sparked several thoughts for me. The conceptual structure of the issue that I'm thinking about reminds me of a week that I teach in a course on What is Wisdom? In that week, (which is broadly about whether wisdom is something that can be taught, or whether it is something which we have inside us in some way shape or form, and the question is how to access or release it), we discuss the phenomenon of how a person can read a work of philosophy at one point in her life, and, then, when she returns to it, say 5 or 10 years later, she has perhaps a significantly different orientation to it. she might see all sorts of things in the work that she didn't see before, or perhaps be disturbed by the work in a way she wasn't after the first reading.
ReplyDeleteWhat is fascinating to me about this well-known phenomenon is that when I ask myself whether what has changed in me during the intervening years is due to having read many additional books, or whether it is due to something else, say, spiritual, psychological or existential development that I've gone through, it often seems to be the latter. (Of course, reading philosophical works might be thought to lead to these kinds of developments-- but this is what I want to explore below). It often seems that the truly important developments in my life that enable me to see texts and philosophical issues in a sometimes radically new light are the ones that are most difficult to pin down. It may be the practice of taking long walks, during which I allow myself the space and time to internalize, feel, and sense more fully certain philosophical problems. Or, for others it could be meditation, or the development of a greater receptivity and openness to the world. It could be a significant change in one's life (say, becoming a parent), being older, having lived in different cultures, and the like. Although even in these last eventualities, it is often how and the degree to which we are open to the significant change in our life that enables it to change us at a deeper level-- the kind of change that might enable us to have a radically different orientation to a text.
What I'm wondering is if perhaps compassion works in the same way. Might it be that, important abilities such as the ones that Sally highlighted, to be able to be more sensitive to others' perspectives, to come to see other human beings as deserving of respect, are abilities that develop more often not as a result of philosophical education, but rather make such philosophical education possible. I'm thinking of a situation in which a person doing philosophy is, say, relatively closed off to the possibility that he may be wrong. Does the presentation of convincing alternative views often engender openness and self-awareness and the ability to see others' perspectives on his part? I've often found that, if anything, the pointing out to him of these other views can often just serve to reify his relatively-closed-offedness. If he doesn't already have this ability -- to be significantly sensitive to others perspectives--it is unlikely that a philosophical discussion will give him this ability. Certainly, philosophy can often lead people to see other alternatives, but what I'm wondering is whether these people already have this ability, and perhaps the philosophical discussion brings it out, or helps call up the need for them to use this ability. But if they don't already have such abilities, or aren't working on developing them, then I am finding myself sceptical about whether philosophical discussion and argument will lead them to be more open and sensitive to others.
I'm curious what others think about this. (and sorry for the long post!)
It was a wonderful conference.
take care,
JP Rosensweig
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ReplyDelete[I’m having trouble posting—I need to post in two parts, but when I post the second part, the first one disappears. Could someone please post a blank after this one? Maybe then I can post the second part....thank you]
ReplyDeleteCompassion, along with its partner, empathy, is absolutely necessary to achieve what is perhaps the central ideal of Western philosophy—reasoned discourse in the pursuit of knowledge—yet in my opinion, the conventions of the discipline actively undermine the achievement of this ideal.
I think philosophy as it is practiced in the West has nothing to do with what Sally has labeled (2), and that in cases where philosophers appear to develop something like empathy by listening to each other’s arguments respectfully, those philosophers have in fact already developed it, and are only importing an interdependent mindfulness into what I will argue is a very antagonistic—and as such, self-inhibiting—discipline (JP?).
If I understood this part of her presentation correctly, Sally highlighted the importance of developing philosophy not linearly from an ideal aim straight to a methodology, but as a loop between theory and practice, especially with respect to its engagements with the political and social world (e.g. philosophy can inform feminism, but feminism should in turn inform philosophy so that philosophy can respond more adequately to the conditions encountered by feminists...is this right so far?). I believe a similar theory/practice loop is painfully absent between Western philosophical ideals and its practice. As I see it, the West’s philosophy is still linear in this way: it identifies an ideal aim for itself such as demanding and providing reasons for beliefs, as so many of the speakers at the conference exhorted us to do, and then it proceeds straight to a logocentric methodology without considering psychological conditions that bear upon the achievement of its ideal. More specifically, by bestowing the highest honor on the party with the strongest argument—as opposed to also honoring and actively cultivating a collaborative, compassionate consciousness—the practice of Western philosophy ignores the fact that, whether or not they should, people do tend to identify strongly with their beliefs, such that disagreement is often experienced as a personal affront, even if it is recognized intellectually as mere disagreement (more on this distinction below—and above in JP’s post!). When opposing views are experienced in this way, reasoned discourse can certainly occur, but more often than not it manifests as a cumbersome suit of armor, donned in the interest of self-preservation and not in the pursuit of knowledge! [continued below]
I'm posting a blank for you James, please - continue...
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah!
ReplyDeleteSo again, I believe Western philosophy is deeply in need of a theory/practice loop that reflects not only its epistemic ideals but also the psychological conditions in which it is practiced. The failure of such a loop to develop within traditional Western philosophy may be attributable to its nearly exclusive focus on what I’ll call a third-person descriptive or explanatory approach. This I contrast with the first-person experiential approach incorporated into many Eastern philosophical schools in the form of contemplative practices such as meditation, mindfulness, and the deliberate cultivation of an empathetic consciousness. In the West, the experience of doing philosophy is considered secondary to its intellectual content, and adjusting the discipline’s methodology to respond to that experience is often dismissed not only as irrelevant, but as detrimental to its aims. Think, for example, of the impatience with which many western philosophers would respond to the notion that every rebuttal ought to include a genuine expression of respect for the interlocutor, as well as a sincere and complete acknowledgement of how their arguments could be understood as reasonable, rather than the brief and conventional “I understand what you’re saying, but....” But as explained above, an emphasis on the experience of philosophy is not detrimental to its practice, but essential. More explicitly, I think philosophers should be trained to care as much about the ‘emotional space’ they share with their interlocutors as they do about the ‘logical space’ they share, since the latter is more likely to develop once the former is in place. This is only one example of how I envision a theory/practice loop in philosophy with respect to compassion.
To expand on this a little, I would argue that undergraduate philosophical training should include an experiential (not just descriptive) emphasis on the social/emotional dimensions of philosophical debate. That is, in my ideal philosophy program, undergraduates would be guided through interactive workshops that cultivated both self-awareness and empathy for others. Upon graduation, therefore, concentrators would be adept at identifying and responding to the psychological needs underlying their own impulses to rebut an opposing viewpoint, as well as empathizing with those of others (this would be a focus on philosophy as a first-person experience), rather than merely being able to construct and dismantle arguments (this is the current focus on philosophy as a third-person intellectual practice).
Imagine the progress we could make toward the philosophical ideal of reasoned discourse in the pursuit of knowledge if the experience of compassion were regarded as highly in the discipline as the practice of debate!