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Fleur Uittenbogaard

Prof. Wiggins

PHIL 301 B: Sympathy for the Devil

21 February 2020

Week 5 Discussion Report

Part One: Discussion Report

This week’s discussion was structured as a debate on whether Kant or Schopenhauer has

the better view on the role of sympathy and compassion. Each member of the group was

randomly assigned to either argue for Kant or Schopenhauer. The debate started with the

Schopenhauer group asserting that Kant had a much more negative view on sympathy, leading to

a seemingly “colder” persona, while Schopenhauer’s positive view made him appear as more

humane. The Kant group pushed back on this with Kant’s description of the Kingdom of Ends:

“Act in accordance with the maxims of a member legislating universal laws for a merely possible

kingdom of ends, remains in full force, since it commands categorically” (43). They argued that

this displays Kant’s “softer” side, as he argues that we should treat each individual not just as a

means to our personal “end”/goal, but as another human being. One person mentioned that just

because Kant has a more analytical way of writing than Schopenhauer does not mean that it is

any lesser or colder.

The Schopenhauer group then shifted the discussion to Schopenhauer’s critique of Kant’s

description of duty. They started out by stating that because Kant’s description of sympathy

relies on “duty” and “universal laws,” that Schopenhauer’s statement, “where-ever we suppose a

law, suppose also some reward or punishment annexed to that law,” applies, and then layed out

his objection to basing a moral system on such a premise, mentioning the assertion that
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“everything that happens with the eye towards reward and punishment is necessarily an egoistic

deed and as such without purely moral worth” (129). They argued that essentially, because

Kant’s moral system is based upon “unconditioned duty,” and therefore must be held

accountable by something, for instance a higher being, following those duties are actually an act

of selfishness, because we either want to be rewarded for following our duty, or fear some sort of

punishment or reprimanding for not following that duty. They also mentioned Schopenhauer’s

assertion that this fact also implies that Kant’s moral system is grounded in theology, despite

Kant’s own attempt to avoid this. They argued that this is what makes Schopenhauer’s system

more universally applicable, as theological moral systems only apply to those who subscribe to

that specific religion.

In response to this, the Kant group stressed that Kant’s theological grounding was

unintentional, which even Schopenhauer admits, and argued that Schopenhauer was being overly

pedantic by completely deconstructing “absolute ought,” and “unconditioned duty,” as those

don’t necessarily imply reward or punishment. They argued that duty can be separated from

theology, as you can feel morally compelled to behave a certain way without that feeling

stemming from a belief in a higher power, or any religion at all.

After these main arguments, we ended the debate format and began to discuss which

view on sympathy we personally agreed with the most. The majority of the group preferred

Schopenhauer’s view on sympathy, because they liked the way he described compassion being

totally selfless.
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Part Two: Explication of Sympathy

Kant’s view of sympathy cannot be considered outside of his worldview. For Kant, the

basis of morality is his idea of the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative consists of

three principles that act as a guide to whether a maxim can become “universal law”. The first of

these three is the principal of consistency: “Act always according to that maxim whose

universality as a law you can at the same time will” (42). This principal essentially suggests that

any maxim you wish to follow cannot be self-contradictory. For instance, one of the classic

examples, that we also covered in class, is the idea of telling a white lie to benefit the other

person. According to Kant, this is self-contradictory, because if this maxim were made into

“law,” then it would be impossible to ever know whether anybody is being truthful.

The second principal is the principal of respect: “Act so as to treat humanity in oneself

and others only as an end in itself, and never as a means” (42). This principal explains that

everyone should always treat everyone else never as a means to an end, but always as an

individual “end”. Essentially, we should always consider everyone as their own person, and not

take advantage of them by using them to get to where we wish to go.

The third principal is that of the ideal community/ kingdom of ends: “every rational being

must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal

kingdom of ends” (43). This principal is somewhat less straightforward than the first two, but

suggests a form of “open” society, in which every person is self-governing to these universal

laws. For Kant, this idea of one’s autonomy over their own morality is hugely important.

After establishing this moral structure, Kant goes on to heavily critique sympathy. He

does this by first sharply objecting to moral philosophy systems based on “feeling,”: “the appeal

to the principal of moral feeling is superficial, since men who cannot think believe that they will
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be helped out by feeling” (46). Here Kant criticizes moral systems that are based on emotion, by

asserting that it takes no thought to feel, demoting those systems to far below that of a rational

one, such as his categorical imperative.

Kant then draws a distinction between sympathy and co-passion/commiseration. He

states that is the “capacity and will to share other’s feelings,” while co-passion is rooted “merely

in the susceptibility for mutual feelings of enjoyment or pain” (121). He then elaborates, arguing

that the former is free, and based on practical reasoning, while the latter is not free, “and can be

called communicable (like a susceptibility to heat or to contagious diseases)” (121). Here, he is

comparing co-passion to a contagious disease, asserting that it spreads from person to person,

‘infecting’ them with co-passion— “if another person suffers and I let myself become infected

by his pain, which I still cannot remedy, then two people suffer, although the evil really affects

only the one” (122). Here Kant argues that taking another person’s pain onto oneself will not do

any good, as it will only increase the suffering in the world, without any new remedy. In order to

ground this view of co-passion in his moral system, he then asserts that “it cannot possibly be a

duty to increase the evils of the world” (122). This ties his stance back to his idea of moral duty

that is heavily present in his worldview, as well as violating his principal of the idea community,

as if co-passion is not free, then succumbing to feeling it is not autonomous.

Finally, Kant elaborates on which parts of sympathy his does consider to be a moral duty,

stating that “it is a duty not to avoid places where the poor, who lack the most necessary things,

are to be found… It is a duty not to shun sickrooms or prisons and so on in order to avoid the

pain of compassion, which one may not be able to resist. For this feeling, though painful,

nevertheless is one of the impulses placed in us by nature for effecting what the representation of

duty might not accomplish by itself” (122). This passage is notable, as here Kant gives his only
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positive view on sympathy, yet still expresses it in such a negative way— the duties are to not

avoid the poor, or the sick. Also remarkable, is the fact that Kant admits that by going to those

places, we may be forced to feel compassion, despite it not being a rational or free feeling. He

asserts that it is a duty to let oneself loose that autonomy in order to ‘succumb’ to compassion in

those places, which is of great significance, considering Kant grounds everything in rational duty

and the categorical imperative.

Part Three: My Assessment

I personally have mixed feelings on Kant’s assessment on sympathy. If I were to make an

objection to Kant’s view on sympathy, it would be that the distinction he draws between co-

passion and sympathy does not truly hold. Despite his argument of sympathy being free while

co-passion is not, Kant does not really go into detail on why this is the case. He uses one

sentence to justify this stance for sympathy: “the first kind [sympathy], is free and therefore

called sympathetic, and is based upon practical reasoning” (121). He does not truly elaborate on

why sharing another’s feelings is rational, only why “susceptibility for mutual feelings,” is not,

as described in Part Two. As for co-passion, it seems like a large jump to suggest that mutual

feelings will lead to increased unnecessary suffering and by extension, increase the evil in the

world. While this could hold logically, it does not take into consideration that the person who is

originally suffering may experience a decrease in suffering if their burden is shared with another,

something that happens very often. At least in my personal life, it always seems as if going

through difficult times is much easier when I have friends or family to go through it with me.

While this could just be considered supportive, it still doesn’t explain why it relieves stress and

suffering in general to share experiences with loved ones, even if just through a conversation.
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Furthermore, to avoid the sharing of emotions merely to avoid extra suffering for oneself, even if

theoretically to prevent “greater evil” through extra suffering seems to me a somewhat selfish

notion, especially if the above is true— that the original person’s suffering can be lessened by a

sharing of suffering. While this idea may not directly conflict with any of Kant’s three principals

(other than somewhat aligning with the duty to treat people only as ends in themselves and not as

a means to an end), it still seems to be morally incorrect to behave in this way.

Additionally, because of the way Kant describes sympathy and co-passion, it is clear that

for Kant, sympathy is empathy; yet, it is somewhat unclear if co-passion is compassion, as he

still describes “mutual feelings,” which is more in line with empathy than with compassion, as it

does not really imply any “feeling for” occurring. This makes it harder to draw a distinction

between the two types of sympathy that Kant describes, which seems to weaken that argument.

However, this does avoid the ‘hierarchal’ critique of compassion, as the sharing of emotions in

both of his definitions prevents that ‘looking down upon’ aspect that compassion can seemingly

create.

On the other hand, what I found to be one of the more moving views Kant holds on

sympathy is his description of what our sympathetic duty should be, as described towards the end

of Part Two— “it is a duty not to avoid places where the poor, who lack the most necessary

things, are to be found… It is a duty not to shun sickrooms or prisons and so on in order to avoid

the pain of compassion, which one may not be able to resist. For this feeling, though painful,

nevertheless is one of the impulses placed in us by nature for effecting what the representation of

duty might not accomplish by itself” (122). While the notion that Kant avoids, in writing, the

very people that make up the sickrooms, or the prisons, by failing to describe them, or what our

interactions with them should look like has merit, as it is somewhat hypocritical, to me it was
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very moving that Kant admits that despite the feeling of co-passion being painful, we should not

avoid that pain, even though it is not rational. In fact, he says that we should allow ourselves to

succumb to this irrational, involuntary feeling as to avoid doing so would be a greater evil than to

feel the extra suffering. This appears to be one of the only times that Kant admits his ‘duties’

cannot accomplish everything, which I found to be very powerful. To me, this really humanizes

Kant and his view on sympathy, as it seems to be a moment where he loosens his strict

guidelines and pushes people again to consider the people around us, similarly to his notion of

treating everyone as an end.

Overall, I find the weakest part of Kant’s argument to be the distinction he draws

between sympathy and co-passion, as the aspect of sharing feelings/emotions are present in both,

there appears to be little explanation for why sympathy is rational, and it does not account for a

lessening of suffering through empathy. On the other hand, Kant’s willingness to defy his own

moral system serves as a powerful mechanism of humanity and kindness.

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Work Cited

1. “Second Section.” Ethical Philosophy: the Complete Texts of Grounding for the Metaphysics
of Morals, and Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, Part II of The Metaphysics of Morals, by
Immanuel Kant and James W. Ellington, Hackett Pub. Co., 1994, pp. 42–123.