Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 42, No.

1, 2008

Rousseau and the Education of Compassion

RICHARD WHITE

In this paper I examine Rousseau’s strategy for teaching

compassion in Book Four of Emile. In particular, I look at the
three maxims on compassion that help to organise Rousseau’s
discussion, and the precise strategy that Emile’s tutor uses
to instil compassion while avoiding other passions, such as
anger, fear and pride. The very idea of an education in
compassion is an important one: Rousseau’s discussion
remains relevant, and he has correctly understood the
significance of compassion for modern life. But in linking
compassion to self-interest, he creates a tension between
Emile’s natural sentiments, including compassion, as a way of
bringing him into the social order. The Buddhist and Christian
views of compassion help to clarify some of the difficulties
with Rousseau’s account.

Can virtues be taught? In Book IV of Emile, Rousseau describes the

cultivation of compassion as a deliberate strategy that brings Emile into
sympathetic community with his fellow human beings. Up until this point,
Emile has been educated separately so that he may retain something of the
integrity and self-reliance that characterised ‘natural man’. Emile’s desires
have been limited to what he can attain by his own efforts, and he has been
taught to accept whatever he cannot control. But now he is entering
adolescence, and he is about to experience the need for a stronger
connection with others which accompanies the first movement of physical
desire. ‘As soon as man has need of a companion,’ Rousseau comments,
‘he is no longer an isolated being. His heart is no longer alone. All his
relations with his species, all the affections of his soul are born with this
one. His first passion soon makes the others ferment’ (Rousseau, 1979,
p. 214). But these are passions that Emile does not yet understand, and it
is possible to make use of them, in an altruistic way, before they become
fixed on a single object of affection. At this point, then, the tutor begins
the difficult task of integrating Emile into the rest of human society. As we
will see, it is a complex undertaking, for he wants Emile to care about the
wellbeing of others and to cultivate a strong sense of social justice; but at
the same time, he wants to preserve Emile’s independence and self-
sufficiency by averting dangerous passions, such as pride, or fear, that
would undermine his basic equanimity.
In this essay, I analyse the education of compassion that Rousseau
undertakes in Book IV of Emile. I look at the three maxims that help to

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36 R. White

organise his discussion, and the moral psychology that is associated with
it. I also outline the various stratagems the tutor uses to make his pupil
compassionate. Is this teaching or manipulation? What are we to make of
this philosophy of education, and can it illuminate contemporary practice?
Rousseau’s understanding of human character is profound, and he offers a
significant account of compassion. But there are some difficulties with his
discussion which become apparent when compared to other perspectives,
such as Buddhism. As I will show, the basic problem is that Rousseau
attempts to link compassion to self-interest, and this creates a tension
between altruism and self-love that cannot easily be resolved.

I
In his Preface to the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Rousseau
argues that our primitive ancestors must have shared two traits in common
with all other animals: Amour de soi, or the impulse to preserve one’s life,
and pitie´, or compassion for the suffering of others. He goes on to describe
pity as ‘a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient beings especially our
fellow man, perish or suffer’ (Rousseau, 1987, p. 35). If Rousseau is
correct, then compassion is not a form of weakness, or a later refinement
of human morals. The possibility of compassion is lodged deep inside us,
and it is one of the most basic aspects of who we are. We can choose to
ignore this feeling and live unnaturally, or we can cultivate the experience
of compassion to bring us closer to the rest of humankind. In this earlier
work, Rousseau claims that ‘all the rules of natural right appear . . . to
flow’ from the conjunction of these two principles (ibid.). This means that
compassion may provide us with a bridge from what is purely individual
and natural to the social order in general. And so it makes sense that for
Rousseau, the education of compassion would be the first step in the
socialisation of Emile, and the ground on which everything else depends.
In Emile, Rousseau introduces his more detailed account of compassion
with a series of reflections culminating with three maxims that help to
organise the discussion which follows. Since these three maxims represent
the theoretical core of Rousseau’s position, I will evaluate each of them in
turn. The maxims are: (i) ‘It is not in the human heart to put ourselves in
the place of people who are happier than we, but only in that of those who
are more pitiable’ (Rousseau, 1979, p. 223); (ii) ‘One pities in others only
those ills from which one does not feel oneself exempt’ (p. 224); and (iii)
‘The pity one has for another’s misfortune is measured not by the quantity
of that misfortune but by the sentiment that one attributes to those who
suffer it’ (p. 225).
The first maxim dwells upon the limits of our sympathetic involvement
with others. ‘It is not in the human heart to put ourselves in the place of
people who are happier than we, but only in that of those who are more
pitiable.’ Rousseau claims that the success and happiness of others is often
alienating because it brings our own failure into sharp relief; whereas the
misery of others can make us feel better, and more appreciative of our own

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lot. ‘Pity is sweet,’ he writes, ‘because in putting ourselves in the place of

the one who suffers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as
he does. Envy is bitter because the sight of a happy man, far from putting
the envious man in his place, makes the envious man regret not being
there’ (p. 221). Hence, if we are not the ones who are suffering, we can
afford to be generous with our pity, and this makes us feel stronger and
more virtuous. We are happy because we have escaped another’s misery,
and because we can feel our own power whenever we are able to help the
afflicted. But look at what has happened here: compassion is usually
thought to involve self-denial insofar as it entails putting oneself in the
situation of the other person, and it suggests a selfless commiseration
insofar as the suffering of the other person is something that really matters
to us. In some sense, which has been frequently debated, we really are
affected by the other person’s pain. But with the elaboration of Rousseau’s
first maxim, compassion becomes a form of self-affirmation since it
involves the experience of power and strength, which is achieved at the
expense of the afflicted. By promoting this aspect of compassion,
Rousseau is appealing to our own sense of superiority. And the other
person, the one who is suffering, must remain quite separate and distinct,
as an object of pity that we can look down on. According to the first
maxim, compassion presupposes a specific judgment on our part: whether
someone is ‘better off’ or ‘worse off’ than we are. In this respect, it relies
upon our comparative sense of wellbeing, (which Rousseau links to amour
propre and the origin of vanity). As we will see, compassion is not always
conceived in this way; in other traditions—Christianity and Buddhism, for
example—the experience of compassion undermines individualism and
anything that implies self-assertion.
The second maxim holds that: ‘One pities in others only those ills from
which one does not feel oneself exempt.’ To illustrate this claim,
Rousseau describes kings who are without pity for their subjects, and the
rich who are always hard towards the poor. The issue here is a complete
lack of imagination on the part of those who are privileged and successful.
Rousseau’s argument is that if we feel entitled to our superior situation we
will never be able to sympathise with those who are wretched and we will
not admit to having anything in common with them. If our position seems
assured, we can hardly imagine ourselves in the situation of those who are
miserable and oppressed. Such pride is therefore a great obstacle to
compassion; and so the goal must be to destroy pride by making us realise
the precariousness of our own happiness: ‘Let him see, let him feel the
human calamities,’ Rousseau writes, ‘unsettle and frighten his imagination
with the perils by which every man is constantly surrounded. Let him see
around him all these abysses and, hearing you describe them, hold on to
you for fear of falling into them’ (p. 224). Of course, in battling pride, we
want to avoid fear and especially the fear of death that undermines self-
assertion; but because of his earlier education Emile is not usually afflicted
by what he cannot control or change.
The second maxim emphasises the importance of imagination as a
condition for compassion. Of course, it is more difficult to feel

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compassion for those who are different from us; it is harder to put
ourselves in someone else’s shoes if they belong to a different culture or a
different religion, let alone a different species. But it is always possible,
and it requires an effort of imaginative identification. As Martha
Nussbaum and others have shown, this is one of the values of good
literature, which allows us to put ourselves in the place of those whose
lives are completely different from our own.1 And because we can see
things from another’s point of view, we can also experience our
underlying connection with other beings. Compassion is only limited by
whether we can see ourselves in the place of the one who suffers; and if
we cannot then their situation will remain irrelevant to us. This is probably
why it is more difficult to feel compassion for animals, or for those who
have done evil things—we cannot think of ourselves in this way, or
perhaps we just do not want to. But even though we will never be kings,
we can imagine what it would be like to be Oedipus and we can identify
with the sufferings of Antigone though it is unlikely that we will ever be in
her impossible situation. It is much harder to feel compassion for
murderers or for animals, if our imaginative powers are not that powerful.
What follows from this, however, is that we should learn to cultivate the
power of compassion by affirming it, not dismissing it, and by discovering
examples from literature and history that would appeal to our
compassionate sense.
This brings us to the third maxim: ‘The pity one has for another’s
misfortune is measured not by the quantity of that misfortune but by the
sentiment which one attributes to those who suffer it.’ Rousseau uses the
suffering of animals as an example. A horse is beaten and lives a
miserable life, but when he returns to the stable to eat his hay, one can
hardly suppose that he is thinking of the blows that he received that day or
those he is going to receive tomorrow; likewise, he says that a sheep in the
field is not pitiable even though he will be slaughtered tomorrow for he
does not anticipate death. It seems, then, that Rousseau wants to
distinguish between the misfortune itself and the self-conscious awareness
of suffering that may or may not attend it; and he thinks that pity is
directed towards the latter rather than the first. If this is what Rousseau
means, then I think he is wrong on this point, because we routinely feel
pity for those who are ignorant of their misfortunes: Adam Smith points
out that we can feel great compassion for those who have become mad,
even though the latter are unaware of what has happened to them, and we
often pity those who live in blissful ignorance of being deceived; we also
pity those who died young, but this does not mean that we must think of
them as despairing somewhere because of all their missed opportunities
(Smith, 2000, pp. 7–9). In fact, with the third maxim, Rousseau is
describing a psychological failing—a lack of imaginative identification—
which is often driven by our own self-interest: We deny animals feelings
because it suits us to, and the rich refuse to pity the poor because they do
not consider that the poor could be anything like themselves: ‘By analogy,
one is similarly hardened against the fate of men, and the rich are consoled
about the ill they do to the poor, because they assume the latter to be

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 Rousseau and the Education of Compassion 39

stupid enough to feel nothing of it’ (Rousseau, 1979, p. 225). Rousseau

does mention that some people can only be roused by ‘cries and tears,’ for
their lack of moral sensitivity makes it impossible for them to feel
compassion for those whose suffering may be profound, but hidden (even
from themselves). As he writes, ‘The long muted groans of a heart gripped
by anguish have never wrested sighs from them. Never has the sight of a
downcast countenance, of a gaunt gray visage, of a dull eye no longer able
to cry, made them cry themselves’ (p. 227). Once again, these people are
deficient in the moral imagination which is the basis of compassion.
Hence it would follow that if the third maxim is true it is only true as a
psychological generalisation; it is not an essential feature of the nature of
compassion. Indeed, Rousseau writes pointedly about our general
unconcern with the sufferings of animals that ‘the common sensibility
ought to make us identify with them equally’ (p. 225). And at the end of
this discussion he affirms that the tutor must teach his pupil to love all
men, even those who despise or injure others. ‘In a word, teach your pupil
to love all men, even those who despise men . . . Speak before him of
humankind with tenderness, even with pity, but never with contempt.
Man, do not dishonor man!’ (p. 226). I think the implication of all this is
that we should be taught to cultivate compassion both for its own sake and
for the sake of the social good. At this point, there are no reasonable limits
to compassion (only psychological ones), although Rousseau’s position
seems to vary as his discussion continues. Like the other two maxims, the
third maxim highlights Rousseau’s profound understanding of human
psychology; once again, however, he seems to accept that human beings
are basically selfish, and he uses compassion, mediated and conditioned
by this self-love, to bring individuals into human society.

II
Rousseau is unusual in the history of philosophy insofar as he regards
compassion as the basic social virtue that brings us into good relations
with other human beings, even before we can calculate the dictates of
justice. There are some, including Hume and Schopenhauer, who
emphasise the value of sympathy or compassion, but for the most part
Western philosophers tend to look down on compassion since it is held to
be more of a feeling than a determination of the will (and hence we appear
to have less control over it); and because it seems to increase the amount
of misery in the world by making us share in the sufferings of others. As
Kant puts it, ‘when another suffers and, although I cannot help him, I let
myself be infected by his pain (through my imagination), then two of us
suffer, though the evil really (in nature) affects only one. But there cannot
be a duty to increase the evil in the world and so to do good from
compassion. This would also be an insulting kind of beneficence’ (Kant,
1991, p. 250). The interesting thing, however, is that those who defend the
value of compassion—from a Christian or a Buddhist perspective—will
typically emphasise the ways in which compassion helps to overcome the

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separation between human beings. Especially when we suffer, we feel

alienated and isolated from other people; but the compassion of another
person, even if it is only given in a kind look, helps to restore us to the
human community—for we do feel better about ourselves if we know that
someone cares about our wellbeing. Likewise, the one who feels
compassion cannot easily separate her own wellbeing from the wellbeing
of others; for the sufferings of others make her suffer too. In this way,
compassion undermines the fixed boundary between the self and other and
it makes it harder to think of this world as composed of separate
individuals who are all in competition with each other: the experience of
compassion brings out our mutual interdependence. Rousseau’s account of
compassion is different, however: As Allan Bloom comments, though
without any argument: ‘The motive and intention of Rousseauian
compassion give it little in common with Christian compassion.’ And
just as contentiously, ‘Rousseau was perfectly aware that compassion such
as he taught is not a virtue and that it can lead to abuse and hypocrisy’
(Bloom, 1979, p. 18). We can begin to explain this by noting that
Rousseau’s account is based on the interplay between self-love and pity.
Certainly, these two are often in tension with each other, but as far as
Rousseau is concerned, self-love always trumps compassion: as he writes
in the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality: ‘if his preservation were
involved he is obliged to give preference to himself’ (Rousseau, 1987,
p. 35). Hence, the tutor makes sure that the circumstances in which Emile
feels compassion are those which promote the boy’s sense of wellbeing,
and in accordance with the discussion of the first maxim, compassion is
used to affirm his own sense of self: It is in this sense that compassion is
said to be ‘sweet’ (Rousseau, 1979, p. 221).
In his book, A Rousseau Dictionary, Nicholas Dent elaborates a more
sympathetic view of Rousseau’s account of compassion. He emphasises
that compassion allows us to negotiate the pitfalls of amour-propre: the
question is how we can ‘find ourselves’ in the lives and feelings of other
people, and the cultivation of compassion is Rousseau’s response. Dent
writes, ‘So, in Rousseau’s definitive argument, it is not that relations
established through compassion displace those established through amour-
propre: rather, the former provide the only effective way whereby the need
for recognition and honour that amour propre demands can be met . . .
Only in a relationship between equals, where each values and esteems the
other and each feels his own value and power, can real human recognition
be found’ (Dent, 1992, p. 54). Dent’s reading goes beyond Rousseau’s
own explanation, and in this sense it is a philosophical reconstruction of
Rousseau’s view. But it is still problematic, insofar as it bases compassion
on the ‘need for recognition and honour’. Later, I will consider alternative
accounts of compassion which are oriented towards self-overcoming.
We can now look more carefully at the tutor’s strategy, and how he uses
compassion to integrate Emile into human society. Rousseau never
apologises for the tutor’s educational stratagems. As he readily admits, ‘It
is also at this age that the skillful master begins to take on the true function
of the observer and philosopher who knows the art of sounding hearts

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 Rousseau and the Education of Compassion 41

while working to form them. As long as the young man does not think of
dissembling and has not yet learned how to do it, with every object one
presents to him one sees in his manner, his eyes, and his gestures the
impression it makes on him. One reads in his face all the movements of his
soul. By dint of spying them out, one gets to be able to foresee them, and
finally to direct them’ (Rousseau, 1979, p. 226). In the pages which
follow, Rousseau describes the careful education, or some might say, the
manipulation of compassion, by which the tutor brings Emile from the
solitude of childhood and into social life. Rousseau emphasises that this is
a very careful and exact experiment: For example, if we take a young man
after his initial education and simply place him in the world of the rich and
successful, he will quickly become dissatisfied with himself and his own
limitations, which seem obvious when compared to others. Emile, on the
other hand, is confronted first of all with the sufferings of other people. At
first this makes him sad, but in returning to himself he experiences
pleasure because he is exempt from these sufferings. Rousseau cautions,
however, that the young man should not become habituated to the
suffering of others, since this would lead to indifference. ‘He must be
touched and not hardened by the sight of human miseries. Long struck by
the same sights, we no longer feel their impressions. Habit accustoms us to
everything. What we see too much, we no longer imagine; and it is only
imagination which makes us feel the ills of others’ (p. 231). Emile must
come to understand the basic reality of human society, that while
individuals are naturally good they are corrupted by society and tend to
deceive and manipulate each other. To learn this directly, however, as the
victim of others, might lead to self-loathing, or even hatred of one’s fellow
human beings. Hence, he must first be instructed indirectly through the
experience of other people. And Rousseau suggests that this can be done
through the study of history, since history allows the pupil to be a
spectator of human life while his judgment is unaffected by his own
immediate interests.
Now in a typical course of education, particularly in the 18th century,
one might study the lives of great men and women as models of greatness
that we should try to emulate ourselves. When we make comparisons
between our own life, and the life of Caesar, Alexander the Great or
Pompey, we are bound to feel some dissatisfaction because we are not as
accomplished as they are. But it is this very dissatisfaction which is then
used to inspire us towards heroism and glory. Rousseau believed,
however, that if a young man has been educated ‘with a sound judgment
and a healthy heart,’ his first glimpse at the workings of human society
will lead to pity and disdain (p. 241). Emile is safe from the ambitious
schemes of the great conquerors of the past, so he does not respond with
anger or alarm. When he looks at the life of Augustus or Mark Antony, for
example, he is not impressed by their achievements—for in spite of all
their military or political success they were never satisfied with their own
lives, and sought their satisfaction outside of themselves, through
conquest, wealth or glory. Take Augustus, for example: ‘If he had
conquered all his enemies, what use would all his vain triumphs have been

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to him when suffering of every kind was arising constantly around him,
when his dearest friends made attempts on his life, and when the shame or
the death of all those closest to him reduced him to tears. This unfortunate
man wanted to govern the world and did not know how to govern his own
household!’ (pp. 242–3). In this way, Emile is made to feel compassion for
all human beings, for even those who are considered ‘successful’ often
live lives of folly and vain desire. The lessons of history become so many
ways of affirming his own self-reliance; while personal passions such as
ambition, which are based on vanity or amour-propre, are shown to be
foolish and empty. Emile has been brought up to feel satisfied with
himself; he has few needs, and craves nothing that is not readily available;
he is not dependent on others. From this perspective, he is bound to pity
the majority of human beings, but especially the rich who are slaves to
their own wealth, kings who depend upon others to obey them, and all the
‘wise men’ who cling to their vain reputations for learning.
There is still some danger, however, that in disdaining human beings,
Emile will also congratulate himself for being wiser and worthier than
they are. Emile is right to believe that his way of life is preferable to theirs,
but he must never think that he is better than everyone else. Indeed, he
must be made to realise that he too is weak and has his own shortcomings.
This is not something that can be learned intellectually—he must be made
to feel it—and at some point, he must be humbled by his own pretensions.
‘I would let flatterers take every advantage of him.’ Rousseau writes, ‘If
giddy fellows dragged him into some folly, I would let him run the risk. If
swindlers went after him at gambling, I would give him over to them so
that they could make him their dupe . . . And when, having cleaned him
out, they ended by making fun of him, I would further thank them in his
presence for lessons they were so good as to give him’ (pp. 245–6). But
after Emile has made all of these mistakes, he is not to be chastised or
berated, since this would only provoke his defensive anger. Likewise, he
should never be told that countless others have made the same mistakes,
for this would also threaten his sense of personal distinction: ‘for, to him
who believes he is worth more than other men, it is a most mortifying
excuse to be consoled by their example. It is to suggest that the most he
can pretend to is that they be not worth more than he is’ (p. 247).
Teaching by indirection becomes the correct way of proceeding at this
point. And along with the study of history and the use of confidence
tricksters, the education of compassion also makes use of fables. Now
fables are like parables that require activity on the part of the listener for
they only make sense if we can integrate them into the context of our own
lives. Anyone who has been duped by flatterers, for example, will realise
at once the real meaning of Aesop’s story of the fox and the crow. It would
be counter-productive to spell out the meaning of the parable in a
deliberate way for this makes the pupil into a passive recipient of
knowledge when he can easily discover the meaning for himself to make it
his own. At the same time, the tutor knows that theoretical reflection by
itself cannot teach us how to live. Emile is to be encouraged to do good
deeds and to help others for ‘it is in doing good that one becomes good . . .

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Let him assist them not only with his purse but with his care. Let him
serve them, protect them, consecrate his person and his time to them. Let
him be their representative; he will never again in his life fulfill so noble a
function’ (p. 250). This is not to advocate virtue for the sake of virtue; and
it is not at all clear that Rousseau wants Emile to become a moral saint—
as he says, ‘he knows that his first virtue is toward himself’ (p. 250). But
Emile is by now so well-constituted that he seeks to reconcile those who
are in conflict and to end the ills of those who suffer: ‘and with the interest
he takes in all men who are miserable, the means of ending their ills are
never indifferent to him’ (p. 251).
In this way, the tutor uses compassion to make Emile identify with the
rest of humankind, to feel their miseries and disappointments; while at the
same time he preserves Emile’s own sense of self-esteem. Thus we might
well ask whether compassion is the final goal, or whether there is
something that lies beyond compassion, which requires both fellow-
feeling and a strong sense of personal identity in order to exist. I would
argue that Rousseau regards compassion as a stepping-stone to justice, and
the social order in general. For he makes it very clear that if compassion
and justice were ever to come into conflict then we should relinquish
compassion for the sake of justice, which is accordingly the higher virtue.
As he concedes, ‘To prevent pity from degenerating into weakness, it
must, therefore, be generalised and extended to the whole of mankind.
Then one yields to it only insofar as it accords with justice, because of all
the virtues justice is the one that contributes most to the common good of
men. For the sake of reason, for the sake of love of ourselves, we must
have pity for our species still more than for our neighbor, and pity for the
wicked is a very great cruelty to men’ (p. 253). These final comments
show how even though Rousseau values pity—in opposition to many
philosophers in the western tradition—his view of compassion is still quite
traditional. Like Aristotle, for example, he believes that there are proper
limits to compassion: not only is it difficult to feel compassion for those
who are bad, but it would actually be wrong to feel compassion for them.
There is certainly no question here of feeling compassion for those who do
really terrible things. But this limited and conditional compassion divides
the world into separate souls—those who are worthy of compassion and
those who do not deserve it. It separates rather than unifies. By contrast,
the Buddhist or even the Christian view of compassion is unconditional
and unlimited. In Mahayana Buddhism, for example, the experience of
compassion is understood against the illusory nature of the fixed self, and
the interconnectedness of everything that exists. From this perspective it
makes no sense to cling to the view that the world consists of separate self-
contained individuals—the experience of compassion calls this reality into
question. Buddhists also believe that compassion does not have to be
conditional; the feeling of compassion can be developed to such an extent
that it is unconditional, undifferentiated and universal in scope. One of the
goals of Tibetan Buddhism, for example, is to achieve what is sometimes
called ‘the great compassion.’ As the Dalai Lama describes it, this is
another kind of an ‘education in compassion’ which makes us wiser by

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becoming aware of the sufferings of others: ‘When we enhance our

sensitivity toward others’ suffering through deliberately opening ourselves
up to it, it is believed that we can gradually extend our compassion to the
point where the individual feels so moved by even the subtlest suffering of
others that they come to have an overwhelming sense of responsibility
towards those others. This causes the one who is compassionate to
dedicate themselves entirely to helping others overcome both their
suffering and the causes of their suffering. In Tibetan, this ultimate level
of attainment is called nying je chenmo, literally ‘‘great compassion’’’
(Dalai Lama, 1999, p. 124). Of course, sharing in the suffering of another
person does not mean that one approves of his or her actions. It simply
means that one refuses to regard any suffering as a matter of indifference.
The precise nature of Christian compassion is more difficult to describe
since Christian theologians usually emphasise charity as the overarching
virtue of God’s love, which includes compassion as one of its basic
aspects. According to Thomas Aquinas, charity is an infused theological
virtue, which proceeds from the love of God, and this suggests that
compassion must be viewed in a similar way. In the Summa Theologica,
Aquinas discusses misericordia (or mercy), which appears to be identical
with what we would call compassion. Aquinas begins by quoting St.
Augustine who says that, ‘mercy [misericordia] is heartfelt compassion
for another’s misery, a compassion which drives us to do what we can to
help him’ (Aquinas, 1975, p. 209). He also points out that the word
misericordia comes from miserum cor, or one’s heart being miserable at
the sight of another’s distress. Now there are some significant differences
between Aquinas’s account of compassion and that of Buddhism.2 But
once we leave aside the metaphysical context of each perspective, we find
significant similarities in the way that compassion is viewed. First, at least
within the human community, Christian compassion is potentially
unlimited in scope: It is certainly not limited to the righteous, or those
who ‘deserve’ compassion, and in this respect it follows the example of
Christ’s ministry on earth; ‘It is in this sense that we have mercy on
sinners and pity them,’ Aquinas writes, ‘And in Matthew we read that
when Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion on them, because they
were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (p. 211).
Second, Aquinas emphasises the ways in which compassion may be
cultivated and developed through imaginative identification with those
who are unhappy: ‘and so sadness over another’s misfortune is measured
by the extent to which we see another’s misfortune as our own’ (p. 213).
In this respect, Aquinas emphasises that compassion is a virtue—not just a
feeling—that can be regulated by right reason. Finally, Aquinas goes so
far as to say that in one sense, compassion is the greatest virtue since it is
the most Godlike of all the virtues: ‘For it involves the giving from one’s
abundance to others, and, what is more, relieving their needs, a function
especially belonging to a superior. This is why we say that mercy is
something proper to God, and that it is here, above all, that he shows forth
his almighty power’ (p. 221). Hence in regard to other people, compassion
is the greatest virtue; but Aquinas concludes by saying that charity is an

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 Rousseau and the Education of Compassion 45

even greater virtue since it unites us with God. He had argued earlier that
the highest stage of charity involves a kind of self-abandonment: ‘When a
man applies himself chiefly to the work of cleaving to God and enjoying
him, which is characteristic of the perfect who long to depart and to be
with Christ [cupiunt dissolve et esse cum Christe]’ (p. 63). Hence, if we
think of compassion as a manifestation of charity, the end of compassion
would also be self-dissolution.3 These three points: the unlimited scope of
compassion—at least within the human community—which does not
depend upon ‘desert’; the stress on cultivating compassion as a virtue; and
the greatness of compassion, inspiring the desire to lose oneself, are
important aspects of compassion in both the Buddhist and the Christian
traditions. Emile, on the other hand, has only a reduced experience of
compassion as a natural sentiment because he is controlled and
manipulated by his tutor; it is not clear whether he could cultivate
compassion as a virtue. Self-love and compassion remain conflicting
impulses inside him, and this means that his own education of compassion
must always be limited by selfish considerations. Hence, he can never
experience the extension of compassion which may culminate in some
form of self-overcoming.

III
Rousseau understood the importance of what we might call emotional
intelligence, and one of the most distinctive aspects of Emile is his
attention to the life of the passions, including anger, compassion, fear and
pride. Rousseau realised that these passions are amongst our deepest
motivations, and so he gives them an important place. In this regard, he is
quite distinctive, and we have much to learn from his philosophy of
education. How many contemporary educators, for example, would
seriously consider the teaching of compassion as a relevant educational
concern? Just how important is this? Much of recent human history has
been a catalogue of cruelties practiced, or condoned, by those who have
been taught to be ‘hard’ and unflinching in their devotion to their cause. In
cruelty, we exult in another person’s suffering—we even say that it serves
them right! In this respect, cruelty has two aspects: First, it involves
deliberately hardening the self and closing the self off from every appeal
of the other person. But second, it also involves repudiating the other as
another person: he or she is no longer viewed as a human being, but
subhuman, or an object without feelings. In other words, cruelty is made
possible by the cancellation of the basic conditions for compassion.
Cruelty and compassion are in this respect opposites, and the virtue of
compassion must be cultivated if only to avoid the horrendous cruelties
that have characterised human history up to this point.
In fact, the very idea of an education in compassion, which Rousseau
proposes in the Emile, is astonishing, and one that we would do well to
keep in mind. But having accepted this much, I think we must admit that
Rousseau’s account of this education is also quite flawed. As we have

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seen, Rousseau does not regard compassion as an end-in-itself but only as

a means to an end. Rousseau, Hobbes and other political philosophers all
faced the same problem: How to bring individuals into the social order so
that they prefer the good of society to their own immediate desires?
Hobbes uses fear, and especially the fear of violent death, to socialise
individuals by making them keenly aware of their own real interests; while
Rousseau uses compassion to get us to identify with the wellbeing of
others. As Bloom puts it in his introduction to Emile: ‘Rousseau’s teaching
on compassion fostered a revolution in democratic politics, one with
which we live today. Compassion is on the lips of every statesman, and all
boast that their primary qualification for office is their compassion.
Rousseau singlehandedly invented the category of the disadvantaged’
(Bloom, 1979, p. 18). Even so, once the connection with others has been
made, compassion in Emile gives way to justice, religion and personal
love (or the relationship with Sophie which begins in Emile, Book V).4
From this perspective, compassion is just a way of harnessing incipient
passions to the social good. This means that in spite of earlier comments,
Rousseau views compassion as a conditional good and not as a final goal.
All of this is reflected in Rousseau’s view that compassion can be used
to enhance the individual who experiences this emotion by emphasising
his superior standing. And the following passage makes it clear that
Rousseau has remade compassion into a selfish—or at least a ‘self-
regarding’ concern: ‘But when the strength of an expansive soul makes me
identify myself with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it
is in order not to suffer that I do not want him to suffer. I am interested in
him for love of myself, and the reason for the precept is in nature itself,
which inspires in me the desire for my well-being in whatever place I feel
my existence’ (Rousseau, 1979, p. 235). In Buddhism, and in Christian
accounts, the opposite is the case: compassion undermines the absolute
separation between the self and others, for I actually lose a strong sense of
my own separate identity when I come to identify my own wellbeing with
the wellbeing of other people. And this can often be a joyful experience. In
Mahayana Buddhism, for example, the emphasis on compassion has given
rise to the ideal of the Bodhisattva, the Buddhist saint who refuses to enter
Nirvana until all other sentient beings have achieved enlightenment. The
Bodhisattva is not a ‘heroic’ individual, however, for he has lost the sense
of being a separate person whose interests would be in opposition to
others.5 By contrast, Rousseau frequently reminds us that once we enter
society we become relative beings as we start to make comparisons
between ourselves and others, and this leads to vanity or discontent. In
Emile, he shows how this form of self-love (or amour-propre) can be
channeled—or sublimated—through the education of compassion. But it
is still a very peculiar kind of compassion which remains self-involved
even while it claims to be other-directed.
Finally, as we suggested at the start of this essay, all of this involves a
kind of manipulation, which Rousseau admits to. He describes how ‘In
becoming capable of attachment, [Emile] becomes sensitive to that of
others and thereby attentive to the signs of this attachment.’ And he

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comments, ‘Do you see what a new empire you are going to acquire over
him? How many chains have you put around his heart before he notices
them!’ (p. 233). Emile has been controlled and his responses have been
manipulated by situations and scenarios which are deliberately contrived
so that he responds in the desired way. Now it could be argued that none
of this matters if the methods which are used allow us to reach the desired
goal—which in this case would be a mature individual who is self-reliant,
although he remains deeply concerned about the wellbeing of others. At an
earlier point in Emile, Rousseau had argued that the goal of all education
must be freedom: ‘The only one who does his own will is he who, in order
to do it, has no need to put another’s arms at the end of his own; from
which it follows that the first of all goods is not authority but freedom. The
truly free man wants only what he can do and does what he pleases. That
is my fundamental maxim’ (p. 84). But Emile has been manipulated to
such an extent it is unclear that he ever will be able to experience freedom
in any strong sense. True, he lacks vain desires and so he is at one with
himself; he has been sensitised to the needs of others and unlike many
people in the modern world he is capable of compassionate identification
with those who are underprivileged or unlucky. But at the same time, it
remains questionable to what extent he is even capable of acting, or
thinking, in his own name. Rousseau’s understanding of freedom is an
impoverished one: using the image of ‘natural man’ as his model, he tries
to preserve the child’s natural freedom by promoting self-reliance and
allowing natural feelings, like compassion, to be fostered rather than
repressed. This emotional attunement is an important aspect of freedom;
but in addition, it makes sense to think of freedom in terms of personal
autonomy, which involves being capable of thinking for oneself, knowing
all of the options that are relevant to one’s situation, and having the
capability of achieving one’s goals. The problem for Rousseau is that
manipulation tends to preclude this kind of autonomy; and in Emile, the
tutor manipulates the pupil’s natural sentiments, including compassion, for
the sake of other ends. By contrast, the Buddhist teaching on compassion
is much deeper and more direct since it is based on an awareness of the
interdependence of all beings, and this develops compassion as a form of
wisdom, and a way of being in the world, which is more than just the
immediate response to someone else’s pain. The Christian account
of compassion shares a similar perspective. To conclude, the education of
compassion is certainly an important goal; but Rousseau’s account
of compassion remains problematic, and his educational strategy is flawed.

Correspondence: Richard White, Creighton University—Philosophy 2500

California Plaza, Omaha, Nebraska 68131, USA.
E-mail: rwhite@creighton.edu.

NOTES
1. See for example, Martha Nussbaum’s chapter on ‘The Narrative Imagination’ in Nussbaum, 1997.

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2. In Buddhism, compassion is extended to all sentient beings. In Christianity, charity (and hence
compassion) is typically limited to human beings, who alone are capable of fellowship with God.
Also, charity (and hence Christian compassion) is an infused theological virtue whereas Buddhist
compassion does not involve the soul or God. For a helpful discussion of the relationship between
Buddhist and Christian compassion, see Barad, 2007.
3. Alasdair MacIntyre offers another reading of misericordia (MacIntyre, 1999, pp. 123–126). While
admitting that Aquinas views compassion as an effect of charity, he does not think this means that
compassion is not also a secular virtue.
4. For a discussion of the ways in which Rousseau’s account of compassion, natural religion and love
all fit together, see Nichols, 1985.
5. On the Bodhisattva, see Oldmeadow, 1997. For a classic statement on Buddhist compassion, see
Shantideva, 1997.

REFERENCES
Aquinas (1975) Summa Theologica, vol. 34 (London, Blackfriars).
Bloom, A. (1979) Introduction, in: Rousseau, Emile (New York, Basic Books).
Barad, J. (2007) The Understanding and Experience of Compassion: Aquinas and the Dalai Lama,
Buddhist-Christian Studies, 27, pp. 11–29.
Dalai Lama (1999) Ethics for the New Millennium (New York, Riverhead Books).
Dent, N. J. H. (1992) A Rousseau Dictionary (Oxford, Basil Blackwell).
Kant, I. (1991) The Metaphysics of Morals, M. Gregor, trans. (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press).
MacIntyre, A. (1999) Dependent Rational Animals (Chicago, Open Court).
Nichols, M. (1985) Rousseau’s Novel Education in the Emile, Political Theory, 13.4, pp. 535–588.
Nussbaum, M. (1997) Cultivating Humanity (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press).
Oldmeadow, H. (1997) Delivering the Last Blade of Grass: Aspects of the Boddhisattva Ideal in
the Mahayana, Asian Philosophy, 7.3, pp. 181–194.
Rousseau (1979) Emile, A. Bloom, trans. (New York, Basic Books).
Rousseau, (1987) Discourse on the Origins of Inequality in Basic Political Writings of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, D. Cress, trans. (Indianapolis, Hackett).
Shantideva (1997) The Vow of the Boddhisattva, Padmakara Translation Group, trans. (Boston,
MA, Shambhala).
Smith, A. (2000) The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Amherst, MA, Prometheus Books).

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