boyd, richard - pity's pathologies portrayed
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
1/29
http://ptx.sagepub.com/
Political Theory
http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/32/4/519Theonline version of this article can be foundat:
DOI: 10.1177/0090591703258118
2004 32: 519Political TheoryRichard Boyd
Pity's Pathologies Portrayed : Rousseau and the Limits of Democratic Compassion
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:Political TheoryAdditional services and information for
http://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/32/4/519http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/32/4/519http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/32/4/519http://www.sagepublications.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://www.sagepublications.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/32/4/519http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
2/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
3/29
by affluence, technology, and a highly refined social conscience? Liberal
democracy rightly puts cruelty first, in the words of Judith Shklar, when it
sides with compassion against a pitiless disregard for humanity.1
And yet, ironically, this idea that democracy equals compassion has been
advanced more often by democracys critics than by its defenders. In the
midst of his criticisms, Alexis de Tocqueville admitted that
in democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general
compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and
they aregladto relievethe sorrows ofothers when they cando so without much troubleto
themselves.2
Treating this general compassion as a vice, rather than a redeeming virtue
of moderndemocracy, FriedrichNietzschediagnosedpity as a kind of demo-cratic sickness or nausea.3 Carl Schmitt similarly complained that the
excessive humanity of modern democracies sapped them of the will to
uphold the friend-and-enemy distinction even to the point of obliterating
the concept of the political altogether.4
Notwithstanding these and othernoteworthy criticisms of democracies as
indiscriminately compassionate,paralyzed by their sensitivity to the pointof
being kind when they should be cruel, and consequently cruel when they
should be kind, remarkably few contemporary democratic theorists have
actually appealed to compassion.5 As Nancy Hirschmann has observed, the
concept of sympathy is not a major player in the world of political theory,
which is generallymore concernedwith justice, freedom or rights.6 Influen-
tial democratic theorists like Jrgen Habermas, Amy Gutmann and Dennis
Thompson,andBenjaminBarber saylittle about theplaceof compassion inademocracy, and indeed seem suspicious of the role of affect or emotion in
political life more generally.7 Among the few who explicitly make compas-
sion central to democratic theory and practice are feminist theorists like
Carol Gilligan or Joan Tronto who envision an ethic of care as an alterna-
tive to an overly rationalistic emphasis on legalism or justice.8 And certain
communitarian critics of liberalism seem to call for a more compassionate
society, if onlyby implication,when theyfault the liberal individuals alleged
indifference to fellow citizens and lack of deeper emotional commitments to
public life.9
This disconnect between our intuitive sense that democracies are, or at
least ought to be, distinguished by their compassion and theapparent neglect
of compassion by democratic theorists proper brings to mind the case of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau is widely hailed for his commitments to both
compassionandpolitical democracy.10 However, like so many other para-
doxes of Rousseaus political theory, we should be wary of assuming that
520 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
4/29
these twovalues areeasilycombined with oneanother. His ambivalent treat-
ment of compassion serves as a starting point for this articles twomain lines
of analysis.Thefirst is todraw attentionto theproblematic, indeedpathologi-
cal status of pity in Rousseaus system. This essay challenges the dominant
scholarlyviewthat pity isa pleasurable sentimentthat inclinesus to theaid of
our fellow man; instead, insofar as pity collapses back into self-preservation,
it leads just as easily to aversion and avoidance. Rather than a pathway to the
rediscoveryof our natural wholeness, pity serves as a dispiriting reminder of
the profounddependency of thehuman condition.11 These ambivalent aspects
of pity make it, in Rousseaus view, unsuitable for grounding the democratic
political theory he develops in theSocial Contract(SC).
The second and broader claim is that, following Rousseaus lead, we too
should be cautious about trying to incorporate compassion more formallyinto contemporarydemocratic theory. If we think of liberal democracy notso
much as a set of political institutions circumscribed by the limits of human
sympathy, but rather, following George Kateb, as premised on an implicit
recognition of moral equality, and in terms of the valorization of will and
individual agency, as Richard Flathman has suggested, then Rousseaus idea
of compassion comes up short on both counts.12 Although it is founded on the
apprehension of the identity of our natures as fellow-creatures (semblables),
even in Rousseaus account pity is inevitably bound up with relational differ-
ences that are thevery antithesis of natural equality. Trying to make compas-
sion central to democratic theory reifies the very distinctions it aims to over-
come,inviting whatWilliam Connollydescribesas thedialecticalproblem of
identity/differencewhereby anyvirtue creates a categoryof otherness or
difference in those who do not possess it.13 Rousseaus treatment of com-passion also deepens the tension between human beings as actorsin the
dual sense of playing a role and of agents engaging in conductand those
who passively experience the emotion of pity only as reluctant spectators.
In all these respects, Rousseaus treatment of pity underscores the moral
discrepancies between compassionconjured up by the sentiments of the
heartand liberal democratic demands for equal treatment and willful
agency.
II. THE NATURAL GROUNDING OF PITY
In the Second Discourse (SD), Rousseau distinguishes two faculties
anterior to reason that arepresent in natural man: self-preservation (amourde soi)andpity(piti), thelatter of whichinspiresin us a natural repugnance
to see any sensitive being suffer, principally our fellow-men (SD, p. 95).14
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 521
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
5/29
These faculties are presocial; they entail no necessity of introducing that
[faculty] of sociability. Important for Rousseaus broader argument is the
fact that these faculties are negative, in the sense that they are insufficient to
incline us toward the society of others. Although they presumably imply
duties toward other sensitive beings, including animals, the sum total of
these issimplyto refrain fromharming or mistreating another(SD,p.96).
This inner impulse of commiseration is dictatedby ourcommonsensi-
tivity, rather than by the belated lessons of reason. We share this sensitivity
with animals, which entitles them to be brought within the province of natu-
ral right.Nonetheless, beingdevoid of intellectand freedom, they [animals]
cannotrecognize this law (SD, p. 96). What begins asan otherwiseflattering
contrast between menand beastsgives wayto a deeperproblem: foralthough
all individuals possess this immanent sensitivity inclining them toward com-passion, they, like beasts, may be incapable of attending to its dictates until
they possess those perfected faculties of intellect and freedom that Rous-
seau denies natural man. In this rendering, pity and compassion toward oth-
erscan bear fruitonly once theprocess of human developmenthas begun.We
mustfirst acquire themoral liberty, self-consciousness, imagination, and rea-
son Rousseau grudgingly acknowledges as necessary for us to rise above the
level of a stupid, limited animal and to become an intelligent being and a
man (SC, I, viii, p. 57).
Being able to accessournatural sensitivitypresumes that we have already
becomemoralbeings, possessing souls, free will, moral agency, andpresum-
ably also some elementary faculty of reason (SD, p. 114). In order to feel
compassion we must already have become moral agents. Yet as we discover
later inRousseaus treatment, it is this very process of developmentitself,andespecially our acquisition of a highly cultivated faculty of abstract ratiocina-
tion, that renders us incapable of any longer attending to this sensible voice
within our nature. With reason come vanity, self-consciousness, and cruelty
(SD, Note O, p. 222). Rousseaus treatment leads us almost immediately to
doubt that modern society and its accomplishments will in any way allow us
to make good on that faculty of pity for other sensible beings.
Rousseauobserves,albeitin theform of a conditional objection, that com-
miseration isobscureandstrong insavageman, developed but feeblein civil
man (SD, p. 132). At least the modern condition allows the potential for, if
not the likelihood of, this more developed social conscience. But under
what conditions might this otherwise feeble voice of pity become accessi-
ble to us? As we see in both the Second Discourse andEmile (E), whether or
not we heed this voice of sympathy hinges on our ability to recognize andidentify with another. Pity hinges on the problem of recognition or what
Rousseau himself calls identification (SD, p. 132). Yet thedifficultyof rec-
522 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
6/29
ognizing something of ones self in another is exacerbated by the growing
inequalities of civil society. Because commiseration will be all the more
energetic as theobserving animalidentifieshimself more intimately with the
suffering animal, it follows that this identification must have been infi-
nitely closer in the state of nature than in the state of reasoning (SD, p. 132).
Natural sensitivity and other common features of natural equality are over-
whelmed by manifold conventional differences, to the point where individu-
als are so different from one another that they can scarcely recognize any
common humanity beneath the layers of acculturation. This is a lamentable
consequence of thegrowth of reason, which engenders vanity andturns
man back upon himself, preventing him from identifying himself with the
man who is being assassinated (SD, p. 132).
Butif reasonbearssome responsibility forrobbing us of themore elemen-talability to identify with another by apprehending thenatural sensibility we
all share, it also supplies us with the surrogate faculty of imagination. As
Rousseau distinguishes, Imagination, which causes so much havoc among
us, does not speak to savage hearts (SD, p. 135). Only once we have gone
some distance along the philosophical anthropology of mankind can we
identifywith another by imaginingourselves inhisposition, soas tocommis-
erate with his pain or rejoice in his happiness. Although the details of this
identification are blurry, Rousseau does suggest an important difference
between theobscure andstrong sentiment of natural pity and that compas-
sion that is developed but feeble in civilized man.15
Presumably, the natural pity of the state of nature depended only on our
ability to hear its gentle voice wholly within ourselves (SD, p. 133). How-
ever, what Rousseau describes as compassion is no longer a sentiment con-tingent on our natural wholeness and self-sufficiency, requiring neither wis-
dom nor self-knowledge. Instead, it is a force that, moderating in each
individual the activity of love of ones self, demands that we look outward
and consciously attempt to see the world through the eyes of another ( SD,
p. 133). Imagination apparently moderates the influence or activity of
self-love neither by conquering or repressing it, nor by restoring our natural
wholeness, aswemight imagine, but bydrawing us further outof ourselves:
To become sensitive and pitying,the childmust know that there are beings like him who
suffer what he has suffered, who feel the pains he has felt . . . how do we let ourselves be
moved by pity if not by transporting ourselves outside of ourselves and identifying with
thesufferinganimal, byleaving. . . ourown beingto take onhisbeing. (E, IV, pp.222-23)
Unlike the natural wholeness and self-sufficiency that Rousseau else-
where recommends as uniquely commensurate to the natural goodness of
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 523
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
7/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
8/29
insists that the compassionate presumably acquire something even more
valuable. For thevery possibilityof tasting thesweetest human sentiments
requires that some should suffer in order for others to experience happiness:
Pity is sweet because, in putting ourselves in the place of the one who suf-
fers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as he does (E, IV,
p. 221).
Maybe thebest evidence of this voyeuristic, pleasurable aspect of com-
passion is Rousseaus stipulation that the sad spectacle of human suffering
ought to be used, but not overused, as an object lesson in Emiles education,
lest he become callous by an early overexposure to human misery. Rousseau
raises as a possibility, and then summarily dismisses, the life of a Mother
Theresa, who rushes from hospital to hospital and from sickroom to sick-
room, as too likely to obscure human sentimentality: The object is not tomake your pupil a male nurse or a brother of charity, not to afflict his sight
with constant objects of pain and suffering. . . . He must be touched and not
hardened by thesightof human miseries (E, IV, p. 231). This isagain tosug-
gest that human suffering should be attended to not so much out of a desire to
relieve those who suffer but instead for the development of Emiles charac-
ter.20 Describing human suffering as an object, sight, scene, impres-
sion, picture, or spectaclerevealsit tobe,likenature, anobjectto bepor-
trayed, instrumentalized, and manipulated in the interest of human conve-
nience (E, IV, pp. 222, 226, 227, 230-32). Suffering is neither simply
inevitable nor lamentable. It exists for the sake of sensitive spectators like
Emile to develop their highest human faculties.21
In fairness,Rousseau does appear to be genuinelymoved by thecondition
of sufferinghumanity. That he shouldbe so intentto definecrueltyas thepre-eminent human vice testifies to his sentimentality and humanism. But in the
end, human suffering becomes a kind of spectacle to be controlled,
showcased, and manipulated for the edification of the few. Let him see, let
him feel the human calamities, Rousseau admonishes (E, IV, p. 224). Like
the syphillitics whose suffering becomes an object lesson for the prodigal
son, sufferinghumanity exists for thesake of Emiles educationandeventual
happiness, and not vice versa (E, IV, p. 231). All this seems bad enough. But
Rousseau goes further still: whatever limited prospects we retain for human
happiness can be attainedonly when, after immersing ones self in anothers
misery, we return to our selves and experience sublime pleasure in the real-
ization that we do not share the others misfortunes. Only this voyeuristic
thrill can possibly make us happy with our lot. The resultant sweet sensa-
tion of pleasure, according to Rousseau, is the negative, paradoxical versionof that frail happiness that consists only in the absence of suffering (E, IV,
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 525
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
9/29
p. 221;SD, p. 132). Yet its very sweetness appears to be parasitical on the
suffering of another, just as the contentment and status of the master rests on
the subordination of the slave.
Tragically, Emile can find the key to happiness only in viewing (but not
actingupon) the sufferings of others. In part, this is theunfortunate corollary
to Rousseaus pessimism: livingin civil society ensures thatwe cannot regard
the good fortune of others without falling prey to the vices of vanity, envy,
and jealousy (E, IV, pp. 228-30). Seeing another happy appeals to the lowest
forms of our imagination. Yet the perversity of Rousseaus alternative is that
while denying the vicarious pleasures of the friend or lover, who experience
pleasure by partaking in the happiness of others, Rousseaus compassionate
soul becomes a kind of moral voyeur. After imagininghimself in theplace of
suffering humanity he achieves the heady rush of sweet relational happi-ness that comes upon returning to his own superior condition.
IV. PITY AND PERFORMANCE:
COMPASSION AND THE RELUCTANT SPECTATOR
Rousseau repeatedly emphasizes the visual aspects of suffering humanity
the salutary effects of witnessing it, if notof actingupon it.One must, he
notes, have seen corpses to feel the agonies of the dying (E, IV, p. 226). At
first glance, the theater promises an alternative to this view of human suffer-
ing as a slaughter bench of history whose ultimate goal is to foster perfection
and happiness in the sentimental few. In the theater, at the very least, the
object lesson of human suffering may stoke the fires of human imaginationwithout requiring real persons to suffer: itis there that they go to forget their
friends, neighbors and relations in order to concern themselves with fables in
order to cry for the misfortunes of the dead, or to laugh at the expense of the
living (Politics and theArts: Letterto M. DAlembert on theTheatre [LDT],
p. 17).
But this quote is also suggestive of how the theater may function as an
escape fromeverydaymoralobligations.Rather thanprotecting an otherwise
virtuous society from the corrupting influence of the arts, as Rousseau is
often read, his criticism of the theater may also be taken as a further indict-
ment of the lack of compassion in bourgeois society.22 In bourgeois society,
after all, we are all actors and spectators.23 From the elementary songs and
dances in the Second Discourse that give rise to vanity andaffectationwe are
soon confronted by a world where tobe and to seem to be became two alto-gether different things (SD, pp. 149, 155). Living mediated lives in bour-
geois society means that oursense of self comes only through theeyes of oth-
526 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
10/29
ers. We are constantly engaged in performance and dissimulation. As a
microcosm of this imaginary world of performance, the theater epitomizes
this alien,bourgeoisconditionof seemingrather than being. Thetheater,
in the words of David Marshall, teaches people how to become spectators,
how to act like spectators.24
Despite theseapparentcontinuities between theworldof spectacleand the
politics of the ordinary, the force of Rousseaus criticism rests on stressing
the discrepancy between our moral position as spectators and our status as
political actors in everyday life. Rousseau disparages the false sensitivity of
average theatergoers whoaremoved by pity for those whosufferat thehands
of a fictional tyrant while they themselves would aggravate hisenemys tor-
ments even more if allowed for even a moment to take the tyrants place.
Like bloodthirsty Sulla, so sensitive to evils he had not caused (and hencepresumably indifferent to those he has?) they aremoved by a love of human-
ityin theabstractthat they areincapable of conjuringup in theparticular (SD,
p. 131).
Rousseaus examples of the tyrants Sulla and Alexander of Pherae sug-
gest, optimistically, that even the hardest of heartsliteral tyrantscan still
be moved by human suffering. And yet the very extremity of Rousseaus
examples goes to suggest an even more damning criticism of the quotidian.
Thefact that wesoeasily cryat this imaginaryspectacle implies a criticismof
the sentimentality of modern civilization, where the cultivation of the fine
arts takes the place of the more authentic natural sentiments of pity or com-
passion. In our everyday conduct we are untroubled by our own propensity
for cruelty. This gross disparity between the love of humanity in the abstract
and callousness toward real particular beings in the here-and-now is hardlyconfined to the likes of Sulla and Alexander of Pherae. Modern compassion
mayprove, as Rousseau suggestedit would, simultaneously developed but
feeble. As moral spectators we unavoidably feel pity when we witness suf-
fering, but in everyday life we are unlikely to act upon these feelings.25
Even if we ignore Rousseaus complaints about these sentiments as
effeminate or corrosive of civic virtue, this sentimentalism invites problems
on itsownterms.26 No doubt theeasewith which we identifywith thetortured
character, and readily imagine ourselves in her place, is due in part to the
romance of the theater. When performed in the theater the suffering of
humanity becomes dramatic, romantic, andsympathetic.By wayof contrast,
Rousseau himself admits that the suffering of the mass of humanity is ugly
(E, IV, p. 225). One danger of blurring the line between theperformative and
personal dimensions of suffering is that misery comes to be seen as the stuffof fiction.Sufferinghumanitybecomes an abstract, imaginarycategoryiden-
tified with charismatic actors rather than the particular individuals we know
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 527
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
11/29
in everyday life. Insofar as the suffering of real human beings is never so
glamorous, noble, or epic as its romanticized theatrical counterpart, we may
become less able than ever to sympathize with it. The continual emotion
which is felt in thetheatreexcites us,enervates us,enfeeblesus, andmakes us
less able to resist our passions. And the sterile interest taken in virtue serves
only to satisfy our vanity without obliging us topractice it (LDT, p.57). The
pathologies of this kind of escapism are easy to anticipate. In everyday life
we areactors in the sense that we pretend and dissimulate,but merelypas-
sive spectators when the practice of compassion is actually called for. We
lack agency and will. Worse still: like those animals that are reluctant to pass
near a dead member of their species, real suffering yields a kind of aversion.
We may flock to the theaters to viewthe heady rush of human suffering, trag-
edy, and commiseration, but in our own lives, like Rousseaus animals, weavert our eyes and cross to the other side of the street. Leaving the theater we
ignore the homeless outside the door.
V. PITY AS AVERSION AND AVOIDANCE
Rousseaus point hingeson themoralcontradictionbetween ourdelight in
witnessing sufferingin the theater andour revulsion when confronted by it in
reality. And yet this dissonance itself presupposes two mutually exclusive
accounts of the moral psychology of pity. There is on the one hand Rous-
seaus description of compassion as being thesweetestof sentiments.27 We
feel an undeniable, vicarious pleasure in imaginingour self in theposition of
another who suffers and then returning to our own more enviable position.Andyetthisnotionof compassion as being a pleasurable sensationone that
persons mightselfishly seek outstands in stark contrast with theaccount of
pity to which we have just alluded. Pity, in this other view, is among the most
unpleasant of sentiments insofar as it reminds us that we, too, might sufferor
even perish. Theissue is notwhether we aremore or less capable of attending
to the natural voice of compassion in modern society; rather, it is the sub-
stance of what those sentiments suggest to us that may prove most troubling
of all.28
Rousseau beginshis discussion of natural pity on a curious note by setting
aside oneof themost conspicuous examplesof sympathy, Withoutspeaking
of thetenderness of mothers for their young, andof theperils they must brave
in order to guard them, only to posit the more ambiguous example of the
aversive behavior of feral animals (SD, p. 130). Could his implicit rejectionof the analogy between pity and maternal affection be because to label this
sentiment pity would ask too much of pity, suggesting the very fact that
528 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
12/29
Rousseau aims to deny, namely, the existence of some kind of natural socia-
bility? Or because, in what becomes Rousseaus ironically Hobbesianworld-
view, the care a mother lavishes upon her child is not in fact an act of natural
sympathy at all, but simply thebiological necessityof dispensing milk belat-
edly sentimentalized out of habit or convenience (SD, p. 121, cf. pp. 108-9,
142, 146-48, 191-92n.)?29
Rousseaus subsequent observations about the daily repugnance of
horsesto trample a living body underfoot or theuneasiness of ananimalto
pass near a dead animal of its specieshardly yield a society of simple souls
eagerly rushing to theaidof others. Instead they aresuggestive of themecha-
nisms of aversionor avoidance (SD, p. 130). Connecting pity with the lowing
of animals in the presence of death does more than just highlight the prob-
lems of a modern society where pity has been lost or corrupted. The deeperand more troubling suggestion is that aversion and avoidance may be rooted
in the elemental sentiment of pity itself:
[Emile] willbeginto havegut reactionsat the soundsof complaints andcries, the sightof
bloodflowing will make himavert hiseyes;the convulsions of a dyinganimal will cause
him an ineffable distress before he knows whence come these new movements within
him. (E, IV, p. 222)
This uneasiness when confronted by signs of our own vulnerability is
enough to make us want to shun the suffering altogether. Rousseaus exam-
ples of feral animals and the lowing of cattle entering the stockyards stress
that pity has less to do with a compassionate concern for thewelfare of others
than with the even more elemental sentiment of self-preservation.30 Rather
than pity successfully moderating or regulating the activity of our self-
love, as Rousseau suggests, his examples reinforce the notion that pity only
collapses back into this most elemental Hobbesian faculty of self-preserva-
tion. Moderating the activity of our self-regard is different from extin-
guishing thatself-regard altogether. Whatever pity theseanimals feel is not
for other dead or injured animals, but stems from therecognition of a similar,
and indeed inevitable, mortality in themselves (E, IV, pp. 226-27).31 As
Derrida notes,
We neither cannor shouldfeelthe pain ofothers immediatelyand absolutely, forsuchan
interiorization or identification would be dangerous and destructive. That is why the
imagination, the reflection, and the judgment that arouse pity also limit its power and
hold the suffering of the other at a certain distance.32
Looking more closely at Rousseaus invocation of pity explodes the care-
ful theoretical distance he seeks to maintain between solicitude for others, or
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 529
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
13/29
pity, and self-regard,or amour de soi.33 Incapableof imaginingor fearing
death in theabstract, animals cannonethelesssensetheirmortalitywhen con-
fronted by its immediatepresence (SD, p. 130). Natural man would retreat in
fear at the least prospect of suffering harm rather than risk the dangers of
communingwith other sensiblebeings(SD, pp. 107,129). Far froma primor-
dial dose of natural sociability, theemotion of pity makes Rousseaus natural
beings less inclined toward society than even Hobbess emphasis on mans
desirefor fameandrecognition,which may, after all, prove thestrongest psy-
chological impetus of all for individuals to seek the company of others and
departthe Hobbesianstateof nature.34 Ironically, then, itis by makinghis nat-
ural psychology more purely Hobbesian even than Hobbes that Rousseau
differentiates his natural condition from a state of war.35
Similarly, although pity will dissuade every robust savage from robbinga weak child or an infirmold manof hishard-earnedsubsistence, this is only
if or so long as, he himself hopes to be able to find his own elsewhere
(SD, p. 133). This statement is proscriptive or negative (notice: this is not the
same as the positive disposition which carries us without reflection to the
aid of those we see suffering) as well as conditional. Whatever small mea-
sure of self-restraint is imposed by pity (Do what is good for you with as lit-
tleharm as possible to others) remains hostage to conditions of scarcity and
to subjective judgments about the dangers of this forbearance to ones own
self-preservation.Andyetby depriving natural manof thefacultiesof reason
and judgment that Hobbes and Locke allowed him, Rousseau seems to call
into question just howsubstantialare thekindsof mercythat pity might yield.
Ultimately, pity does not so much moderate self-love as deepen and rein-
force thenatural self-regardthat leads us toavoiddanger,pain,or sufferinginourselves and in others.36 So the very same pity Rousseau depends upon to
dissuade natural man from unnecessarily harming another also discourages
him from willfully intervening on behalf of another suffering being.
This permeable line between natural sensitivity and self-regard is further
blurred in Rousseaus example of the prisoner-spectator. Does Mandevilles
prisoner suffer because of the intrinsic horror of a wild beast tearing a child
from hismothers breast, breaking hisweak limbs in itsmurderous teeth,and
ripping apart thepalpitatingentrailsof this childin thestreet beneath hiscell
(SD, p. 131)? Or rather does his horrible agitation stem from the fact that,
being imprisoned, he has no place to turn and hence cannot avert his gaze? It
is significant that Rousseaus presentation of this pathetic image actually
servesto redirect ourown sympathyawayfrom thesufferingsof thechildand
mother and toward the prisoner-witness. We are asked to consider Whatanguish musthesuffer, when, being confined, this witness is forced to
530 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
14/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
15/29
Therearealso therequisite democratic values of individual will andpoliti-
cal agency to be taken into account. At its best, pity may awaken our natural
repugnance to seeing human misery. But we have seen that this need not
incline us to do anything much about remedying it. Avoidance proves the
unfortunate side effect even of the refined modern compassion grounded in
pity that Rousseau elsewhere praises. In hisReveries(RSW), he tells of his
initial delight in giving alms to a lame, homeless child he regularly passedon
hiswalks. Andyetaftertimethis pleasure,having graduallybecome a habit,
was inextricably transformed into a kind of duty that Rousseau finds oner-
ous and takes special pains toavoid by changing his usual route (RSW, p. 74).
So long as the act of compassion involves only the heart ityields the sweetest
of pleasures. Once transformed into duty by habituation,as Rousseau alleges
it must inevitably be, it quickly loses its charm and becomes burdensome:Constraint, though in harmony with my desire, suffices to annihilate it and
to change it into repugnance, even into aversion, as soon as it functions too
strongly (RSW, p. 77).
Rousseau alludes to the special, permanent relationship that develops
between benefactor and sufferer. Among the natural effects of the rela-
tionship are that a single, heartfelt act of kindness engenders further obli-
gations. Knowing this full well, however, Rousseau admits that he has often
abstained from a good actionI hadthe desireand thepowerto do,frightened
of the subjection I would submit myself to afterward if I yielded to it without
reflection (RSW, p. 78). This suggests allsorts of thingsaboutobligation and
dependency. One of the reasons Rousseau wishes to cultivate pity in Emile is
to make him aware of his dependence on others. Imagination yields the rec-
ognition that no single being is self-sufficient. Against all his best intentionsRousseaus portrayal of this dependency leads ineluctably toward a conclu-
sion he adamantly denies: because all alike experience misery and misfor-
tune, to be human is by definition to be dependent upon others. Looking
beyond themirageof human autonomy suggestedby the liberal fiction of the
rights-bearing individual, or indeed the Rousseauian rhetoric of the nobility
of savage freedom, Rousseaus individual, rightly thinking, arrives at an
almost Christian recognition of his natural indebtedness and the burdens of
the human condition. Pity is, as Rousseau observes, a disposition that is
appropriate to beings as weak and as subject to as many ills as we are (SD,
p. 130).Still, beingaware of ones hypothetical conditionof dependency, like
Emile, is very different than actually living up to the reciprocal obligations
this would apparently impose upon us. Instead, dependency and obligation
are moral duties to be fled simply because they are duties. Our lamentableconditionof natural andconventionaldependency canhardlybe improved
532 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
16/29
andis in fact only deepenedwhen we engender further obligations by help-
ing others.
Rousseaus criticism of the dialectic of compassion and dependency
strikes familiar, contemporary chords. First, in our role as benefactors we
shouldresist thetug of ourheartand withholdcompassion because it subjects
us to additional, unwanted obligations in the future: whether it is jumping in
to stop a crimeor only phoning thepolice,dont getinvolved lest youbecome
further entangled. Andsecond, theaspiration to eliminate dependencyin oth-
ers provides a convenient justification for denying those who seek our help.
Better that we do the hard thing and refuse them now lest we render them
dependent on us in the future.41 The awful paradox is that a life in which we
studiously strive for autonomy and avoid forging dependenciesboth for
ourselvesand in othersseems fully compatiblewithRousseaus account ofpity.
More than just illustrations of his own misanthropy, Rousseaus discus-
sion here underscores an important point about the moral theory of compas-
sion. Inorder forcompassion tohaveany moral significance, itmust beheart-
felt. We must actually feel compassion. Otherwise, one is simply being
forced to perform actions that she experiences as onerous and alien. And yet
if a kind action is done only because it is expected, or in the last resort, com-
pelled by Good Samaritan laws, howcan oneexpect anything other than that
it will be resented? Rousseaus discussion would seem to reveal both thevir-
tues and vices of compassion. Compassion is admirable in that it transcends
our ordinary rationalistic concerns with justice, statistics, or even utilitarian
consequences. Getting to know just one family on welfare may do more to
stir us than volumes full of poverty statistics. This explains why it is oftenhard to swallow the more abstract notion that charity to others around the
worldmayhavemoresalutaryconsequencesthanhelping thoseweknow and
seein ourown nationor community. Andyetif compassion is tobe dispensed
only on a sentimental whim, or worse yet, withheld for fear of engendering
further obligations and dependencies, it loses whatever power it might have
as a source of democratic community.42 If forwhatever reasonourheartdoes-
nt moveus, we may eitherfail toact,like Rousseau, or act onlyout of resent-
ment for being required to play a role or honor an obligation we have not
imposed upon ourselves.
VI. PITYS PLACE IN THE DEMOCRATIC POLITY
Imagining ourselves in the position of another creates challenges for dif-
ferent groups. For the lower classes this imaginary flight of fancy is easier.
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 533
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
17/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
18/29
consideration as fellow sensible beings. Judith Shklar has aptly noted that
once anyrecognitionof theidentityof our natures hasbeen obscured,cruelty
cannot be far behind.44
But thinking about the kinds of differences that usually evoke pity raises
fundamental questions about whether pity canever take place simplyby rec-
ognizing the identity of our common natures. Instead, as Connolly has sug-
gested, doesnt pity (ostensibly grounded inidentit) inevitably entail some
reference to difference?45 Colored by self-consciousness and invidious com-
parisons with the other, modern pity can assume many forms. Compassion
may thinly disguise condescension. These poor suffering souls deserve our
pity because we are stronger, more intelligent, wealthier, or more fortunate
than they. Even at its best, this bond of commiseration rests upon the very
sorts of relational differences Rousseau is concerned to extirpate.As Rousseau wonders, what are generosity, clemency, humanity, if not
pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general
(SD, p. 131)? Here at long last are examples of the modern ages ability to
marshal the sentiment of pity toward concrete, positive ends. Yet it is note-
worthy that Rousseau raises this as a rhetorical, perhaps even purposefully
ironic question that he is reluctant to answer in the affirmative. Are these
accomplishments of modern compassionreally thedeveloped andgeneral-
ized versions of the elemental faculty of pity that remains obscure in sav-
ageman?Andinwhat respect is theirdevelopedstatus incivilsocietycom-
patible with his complaints about their alleged feebleness?
Rousseaus categories apply not to concrete, particular individuals qua
individuals but instead as members of abstract groups. In this formulation,
we pity the weak not as equal, fellow sensible beings but because of theirconditionof weakness,which Rousseau elsewhere insists is an unnaturaldif-
ference. Thestatus of guiltwith itsconventionalnotions of criminality or
moral approbation and disapprobationis what evokes our sympathy. And
even in the case of the universal love for all of humanity, compassion is
awarded based on the recipients membership in the highlyabstract category
of humanity, rather than by her particular, concrete presence as a fellow
sentient being.46 Such abstract and conventional categories as Rousseau
invokes are irrelevant to and beyond the conceptualization of natural man.
Pity may also be colored by vanity and invidious comparisons. The strong
pity the weak because they are beneath them. The guilty deserve clemency
from the guiltless because they are in some respect their moral superiors.
Thinking long and hard about these relational comparisonsand the secret
feelings of self-importance and righteousness they often disguiserevealsjust how much they color and inspire much of what passes for pity in modern
society.47 Pity is either so universal as to be based on membership in abstract
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 535
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
19/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
20/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
21/29
native, sentimental souls like Emile who livewithincivil society butare not a
part of it. Yet this is an individual rather than a political response to the ail-
ments of civil society. Rousseau also holds out the prospects of a more gen-
eral, political solution to modern alienation and dependency in the compen-
satory realm of citizenship. Whatever conventional differences divide us,
there is at least one respect in which all remain equal and free. Citizenship,
such as Rousseau describes in theFirst Discourseand theSocial Contract,
offers a much-needed ground of commonality whereby love of ones fellow
citizens presumably displaces love of self. At first glance, it seems that the
generalization of compassion might be an important part of this enterprise,
forming the constitutive bond of citizenship that is written not in laws but in
the hearts of citizens.56 But reinstating pity as a conventional and publicas
opposed to a natural and privatevirtue raises further difficulties.It is unclear howan ultimately privatevirtuelikepity might begeneralized
into the imaginary realm of the public sphere without surrendering the
intensely personal sensibilities that gave it its original force. As difficult as it
mayseem, theact of imaginingwhat we share with a single, sensible individ-
ual requires considerably less of us than recognizing something of ourselves
in the abstract construct of an entire nation. And even if stretching pity to
encompass the abstract category of citizenship might conceivably yield
something likeHabermass constitutional patriotism, this Kantian concep-
tion of patriotism as somethingrational, abstract, andunemotional seems the
very antithesis of Rousseaus description of pity.57
Thedifficulty of seeingcompassion as a sourceof democratic community
is exacerbated by Rousseaus recurrent linkage between citizenship and mar-
tial virtue. His ultimate expression of citizenship embraces the Spartan idealof a citizen-soldier willing to fight for the political community. But presum-
ably such a citizen in the truest sense of the termone who kills and even
dies for his political communitymust be capable of bracketing the natural
sensitivity to see another suffer harm. Citizenship in its extreme guise of
friends andenemies demands that we repress thenaturalandsensible in favor
of a pitilessness that is profoundly unnatural to human beings. As Shklar has
observed, citizenship in large part rests on a suppression of the natural,
including most notably that natural faculty of pity.58
Furthermore, linking pity to citizenship and the public sphere serves only
to reintroduce the problem of difference at a higher level. Even if we could
stretch our natural sympathy to include all members of the political commu-
nity, thecategory of citizenship is by itsvery natureexclusionary. Inprefer-
ring one part of humanity to the rest, Tzvetan Todorov has observed, thecitizen transgresses a fundamental principle, thatof equality. Withoutexplic-
itly saying it, he accepts the notion that men are not equal.59 Too often, love
538 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
22/29
of all members of our own political community is allied withressentiment
toward those of another. Pitys moral othersemergefull-blown in theform of
nationalism, xenophobia, and exclusion when one attempts to transpose
compassion onto the political sphere.
We should hardly be surprised, then, that Rousseaus political ideal of
democratic citizenship under the socialcontract does not rest on compassion
for others. Instead, as John Scott has argued, Rousseaus political thought
aims to restore the natural wholeness of the state of nature by instituting a
socialcontractwhoseexplicitgoal is toputevery citizen ina position ofper-
fect independence from all the others, while remaining excessively depen-
dent on the political community as a whole (SC, bk. 2, chap. 12, p. 77,
emphasis added).60
The irony is that pity carries within itself virtually all of the vices Rous-seau most criticizes in hismoral andpoliticaltheory: first, thefact that pity is
aversive means that it discourages willful agency; second, it rests inescap-
ably upon the very differences and inequalities that ultimately alienate and
separate us from ourselves andothers; and third, itspractice apparentlyentails
the creation of altogether new dependencies between otherwise autonomous
individuals. In fairness, these problems with compassion are not unforeseen
by those who envision a larger role for compassion in political theory. Joan
Tronto has misgivings about what she calls the otherness, paternalism,
and privileged irresponsibility of an ethic of care. Because
care arisesout of thefact that notall humansor othersor objects in theworld areequally
able,at all times, to take care ofthemselves. . . . The result is that those who receive care
are oftentransformedinto the other, and identifiedby whatevermarksthem as needingcare: their economic plight, their seeming disability, and so forth.61
Tronto further notes that the convenient fiction of human equality is just
thata fictionand thus a moral theory of compassion that takes these fun-
damental dependencies and inequalities into account maybe preferable to a
moral theory, that because it presumes that all people are equal, is unable
even to recognize them.62
The consequences of this last move are, I think, problematic for many of
the reasons Rousseau suggests. Even if the governing principle of political
equality is, as Tronto rightly notes, in some sense fictional, and the justice
of liberal political theoryis toooften sentimentally unaware of private differ-
ences and inequalities among citizens, it is unclear that as a consequence
these underlying differences should be made more morally relevant withrespect to the political sphere.63 The danger is that in trying to make political
theory more attentive to difference, especially by displacing the centrality of
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 539
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
23/29
justice, rights, and equality, the political sphere may be tainted by the other-
ness,privilege, and paternalism that Tronto herself admits sometimesplague
an ethic of care, and which Rousseau earlier foresaw lurking in the emotions
of pity and compassion. Tronto is not interested in debating theproposition
that politics necessarily involves the corruptionof whatever moral principles
enter its arena, and she has a good sense of what these kinds of debates
obscure.64 But the difficulty raised by Rousseau would seem to be precisely
theopposite one: rather than compassion being corruptedby politics, thereal
danger is that the pathologies of pity, as described by Rousseau, might actu-
ally distort theideals of democratic politicallifewhen onetries to make com-
passion more central to democratic theory and practice. Hannah Arendt, for
example, complains that in its extreme political analogue, compassion may
even
shun the drawn-out wearisome processes of persuasion, negotiation and compromise,
which are theprocessesof lawand politics,and lendits voice to thesufferingitself,which
must claim for swift and direct action, that is, for action with the means of violence.65
Inspired instead by theKantian thrustof Rousseaus political theoryin the
social contract, contemporary democratic theorists have sought ways of
securing a kind of compensatorypoliticalequality that supercedes thediffer-
ences and inequalities of civil society and encourages more willful agency
and self-legislation on the part of citizens.66 We have seen why Rousseaus
account of political compassion is of little help on both of these scores.
Despite theallureof a kind of generalized compassion, which might, like the
ideal political citizenship of the social contract, serve as a way of transcend-ing the invidious distinctions of civil society, Rousseaus account of pity
seemingly founders on the problem of difference. What democratic political
life most needs is some groundfor equality or likeness that transcends differ-
ence. And yet we have seen that pity carries within itself thevery differences
it is supposed to transcend. Conversely, at those moments in democratic
political life when we aremost in need of theability to make judgmentsfor
example, in determining when cruelty needs to be met with force, or who
truly deserves our compassionpitys indiscriminacy becomes a stumbling
block.Finally, pitys negativeor aversive characterwould seem to beget only
reluctant spectators and thus does little to encourage the kind of political
agency and willful actors necessary for a truly democratic political life.
540 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
24/29
NOTES
1. Judith Shklar,Ordinary Vices(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
2. Alexis de Tocqueville,Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer (New York: Harper,
1988), vol. 2, pt. 3, 564. This generalized compassion perhaps stems, as Tracy Strong argues,
from the kind of equality and transparency that democracies alone permit. Tracy Strong,Jean-
JacquesRousseau and thePoliticsof theOrdinary(ThousandOaks,CA: Sage,1994),145-46.
3. Nietzsches complaints aboutmoderncompassionarecomplex.Most conspicuous is his
contempt for pity as a sickness or nausea endemic to democratic society. Friedrich Nietz-
sche,Genealogy of Morals, esp. Preface, 5-6; III, 14. But he also alludes to a kind of noble or
aristocraticmercy, borneof thepathosof distanceand theconsciousnessof power, as a fitting
attitude of the powerful toward the weak or parasites beneath them. Nietzsche,Genealogy, II,
10. Cf.Beyond Good and Evil, V, 201-2; VII, 225.
4. Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1976), esp. pp. 28-29, 35-37, 54, 68.
5. On this latter point about how, notwithstanding their veneer of compassion, modern
democracies may still vent their cruelty upon those who are outside or alien, see Nietzsche,
Genealogy of Morals, I, 11, p. 40:
thesamemenwho areheldso sternly incheckinterpares ...andwhoontheotherhandin
their relations with one another show themselves so resourceful in consideration, self-
control,delicacy, loyalty, pride, andfriendshiponcetheygo outside,where thestrange,
thestrangeris found, they are not much better than uncaged beasts of prey.
6. NancyHirschman,Sympathy, EmpathyandObligation, in Feminist Interpretations of
David Hume, ed. Anne Jaap Jacobson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2000), 174.
7. Jrgen Habermas, Citizenship and National Identity, inBetween Facts and Norms
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996); Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson,Democracy and
Disagreement(Cambridge, MA: Belknap,1996);BenjaminBarber, StrongDemocracy: Partici-
patoryPolitics for a New Age (Berkeley: Universityof California Press,1984).Fora treatmentof
the more general problem of affect in democratic theory, which raises questions about thischaracterization of Habermas and problematizes the strict antinomy between reason and affect,
see PatchenMarkell, MakingAffectSafe forDemocracy?PoliticalTheory28(2000):38-63.
8. Notably, Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1982); Joan Tronto,Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (New
York:Routledge,1993). Thiscase has beenrecentlymade in similar termsbut without reference
to Rousseau by Maureen Whitebrook, Compassion as a Political Virtue,Political Studies50
(2002): 529-44.
9. Robert Bellah et al.,Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American
Life(New York: Harper & Row, 1985); Amitai Etzioni,The New Golden Rule: Community and
Morality in a Democratic Society(New York: Basic Books, 1996), esp. chap. 5.
10. Consider, for example, the widely differinginterpretationsthat make Rousseau into the
apostle of compassion: Allan Bloom, Introduction, inEmile, or On Education, ed. and trans.
Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books,1979), 17-20.Or, as LeoStrauss puts it,Compassionis
thepassionfrom whichall social virtuesderive.NaturalRight andHistory(Chicago:University
of ChicagoPress, 1953),270;and those others whoread Rousseauas theharbingerof contempo-rarydemocratic theory, JamesMiller,Rousseau: Dreamerof Democracy (NewHaven,CT: Yale
University Press, 1984).
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 541
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
25/29
11. On naturalfreedom,wholeness,and goodnessas Rousseaus intendedgoals,see Strauss,
NaturalRight and History, 277-83.For a contraryviewof thenaturalness of humandependency,
see Joel Schwartz,The Sexual Politics of Jean-Jacques Rousseau(Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1984).
12. On thinking of liberal democracy as distinguished not by any particular set of political
institutions but in terms of its commitment to these procedures and the intrinsic value of moral
equality, see George Kateb,The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture(Ithaca,
NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1992), esp.chaps. 2 and3; onwillfulness andindividualagencyas
essential to aliberaldemocracy, see Richard Flathman,Willful Liberalism: Voluntarism and
Individualismin Political Theory and Practice(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); as
essential for astrongdemocracy, see Barber,Strong Democracy, chap. 6.
13. William Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), esp. xxiv-xxv, 158-60, 172-73; William
Connolly,Why I Am Not a Secularist(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 144-
45.
14. Unless otherwise noted, citations from Rousseau are toThe First and Second Dis-courses, ed. Roger Masters (New York: St. Martins, 1964);On the Social Contract, ed. Roger
Masters andtrans.JudithR. Masters (New York:St. Martins, 1978);Emile,or OnEducation,ed.
and trans. Allan Bloom (NewYork:Basic Books, 1979); TheReveriesof theSolitaryWalker, ed.,
trans., and withan introductionby Charles Butterworth (NewYork: NewYorkUniversityPress,
1979); andPolitics and the Arts: Letter to M. DAlembert on the Theatre (Glencoe, IL: Free
Press, 1960).
15. Foran excellentdiscussion of hownaturalpity is activated by the imaginationand trans-
formed into compassion, see David Marshall,The Surprising Effects of Sympathy: Marivaux,
Diderot,Rousseau, and Mary Shelley(Chicago:University ofChicagoPress, 1988),148-52.See
also Jacques Derrida,Of Grammatology(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997),
182-87.
16. Compare Arthur Melzer,The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseaus
Thought(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 93.
17. Clifford Orwin, Rousseau and the Discovery of Political Compassion, inThe Legacy
of Rousseau, ed. Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1997), 309.
18. Contrast the reading of Mira Morgenstern, for whom the sweetness of pity derives at
leastin partfrom thediscoveryof individual empowerment and independence.Rousseauand the
Politics of Ambiguity(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 65, 68-69.
19. Rousseaus choice of the term commiseration is noteworthy. Literally, sharing the
misery of anotherthis may be the necessary condition for us to think about acting to relieve
that misery, but it is, as we will see below, far from a sufficient condition for this kind of willful
human agency.
20. Compare Alexis Philonenko, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la Pense du Malheur:
Apothose du Dsespoir(Paris: Librairie Philosophique, 1984), 183: Le malheur devient un
instrument de la pdagogie philosophique.
21. Compare Orwin, Rousseau and the Discovery, 302, 307-8: Within the context of
Emile, the greatest importance of compassion is not to society but to Emile himself. Cf. John
Charvet,The Social Problem in the Philosophy of Rousseau(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1974), who assumes that the purpose of pity is to produce good for others and to
serve as the foundation of a new social order (see esp. pp. 83-93).
542 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
26/29
22. Compare C. N. Dugan andTracy Strong,Music, Politics,Theaterand Representation,
in TheCambridge Companion to Rousseau, ed. PatrickRiley (Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUni-
versity Press, 2001), esp. 333, 339, 343.
23. Morgenstern has developed this point at greater length:Rousseau and the Politics of
Ambiguity, esp. 35-47.
24. Marshall,Surprising Effects of Sympathy, 142.
25. Cf. Elizabeth Wingrove,who interestinglysuggests that the theater representsnot just a
suspension of will, but a willing complicity in the crimes of others,Rousseaus Republican
Romance(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), esp. 175-76; for a more extended
discussionof theperformativeaspectof sympathyin the theater,see Marshall,SurprisingEffects
of Sympathy, esp. 143-48.
26. Christopher Kelly offers a concise account of Rousseaus ambivalence toward the arts.
Rousseau and the Case against (and for) the Arts, inThe Legacy of Rousseau, esp. 20-25.
27. Thereare major scholarlydebatesabout theconsistencyofRousseaus account ofpityas
either an immanent or an active virtue (or both), and my analysis addresses these controversies
implicitly. ButI am mainly concernedhere withthe related butdistinct questionof whether com-miseration is ultimately experienced as sweet or irksome.
28. Cf. Melzer,Natural Goodness of Man, 16-17.
29. Contrastthe readingof MargaretOgrodnick,Instinctand Intimacy:PoliticalPhilosophy
and Autobiography in Rousseau(Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 137. If
my point here is correct, virtually all of what Jacques Derrida has written about the maternal
metaphor for compassion in Rousseau is wrong.There is little textual evidence in Rousseau to
suggest that children have a natural affection for their parents that is written into their hearts by
God. And in the above-cited passages in the Second Discourse, Rousseau makes it clear that
maternal or familial affection, likeromanticlove, arises onlyby habitor custom. Cf. Derrida, Of
Grammatology, 173-75.
30. Althoughher subsequentdiscussionleads ina different direction, thispoint is supported
by the following observationof ElizabethWingrove: Here the intensity of the spectators reac-
tion is rooted in itsinability to differentiate itself from other beings.Rousseaus Republican
Romance, 32.
31. Consider also Rousseaus example of the pongos,who take pains to cover the bodies oftheirdeadwithbranches orleavesso thattheydonthave tobe confrontedby itspresence.Second
Discourse, 205n, 208n.
32. Derrida,Of Grammatology, 190.
33. Compare the similar point made by Wingrove,Rousseaus Republican Romance, 35.
34. Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (New York: Penguin, 1968), chap. 13,
pp. 184-85.
35. Compare Ernst Cassirer,The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans. Peter Gay
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967), 101:
According to Rousseau, Hobbes had quite rightly recognized that in the pure state of
nature there was no bond of sympathy binding the single individuals to each other. . . .
According to Rousseau, the only flaw in Hobbess psychology consisted in putting an
active egoism in the place of the purely passive egoism which prevails in the state of
nature.
See also Jean Starobinski,Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans.Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 298-99.
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 543
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
27/29
-
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
28/29
To accept a gift is to admit ones inferiority; it is to incur an obligation to people whose
kindness is a way of signaling social distance while insincerely glossing it over. The
equality[Rousseau] wantsthe reciprocity of freemindsexcludes dependenceof any
kind, and in the first place the dependence created by the kindness of the benevolent.
48. Connolly,Identity/Difference, xiv.
49. Cf. Montaigne, On Cruelty, whose natural sensitivity extends even to plants! Michel
de Montaigne,The Complete Essays(London: Penguin, 1991), 488.
50. Rousseaus revelation of the self as an ungrounded and perfectible tabula rasa invites
dilemmasof difference andrecognitionunknown toearlier thinkers. Oncethe selfhas become in
Rousseaus hands nothingmore thanthe perfectiblereflectionof conventional differences and
cultural influences, truerecognitioncan takeplace onlyundertwo equallyunlikelysets ofcondi-
tions: either between equals in the pure state of nature or within civil society, when two selves
have been forgedby an identicalset ofsocial influences.Withthe adventof civilsociety, thefirst
possibility vanishesforever,and withthe continuous process of civilization,the likelihoodof the
latter diminishes by the day.51. Rousseau looks to be guilty of pursuing what Joan Tronto has criticized as a morality
first strategy by conceiving of pity as ultimately best confined to private relationshipsbetween
individualsrather thanconstitutiveofthe politicalbondsbetweencitizens.Tronto,MoralBound-
aries, 158.
52. Here,I have inmind certaincommunitariancriticsof liberalism suchas Robert Bellah,
Amitai Etzioni, Michael Sandel, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Even if they do not explicitly or uni-
formlycallfor more compassion (ormoredemocracy!)as a remedyfor these ailmentsof liberal-
ism, they have presented a challenging criticism of the excessive thinness, legalism, neutrality,
and sentimental inertness of liberal political theory.
53. Cf. Orwin, Rousseau and the Discovery, esp. 298-99; Plattner,Rousseaus State of
Nature, 128-32.
54. By readingRousseauhere as a critic ofliberalismand theprimacy of private property,
self-interest,and individual rights, I do notmean tosuggest thathis critiquewasnotalso applica-
ble to aristocratic or courtly society.
55. Rousseaus stipulation that the sum of our obligations to our fellow citizens consists in
refraining from causing them undue suffering is compatible with even the least flattering criti-
cismsof contemporaryliberalsocietyby Bellah,MacIntyre,or Sandel.A market societycharac-
terized by self-interest, anomie, and atomization may prove the quintessential example of a
worldwherewe take nospecialpainsto be cruelto others. Emphasizingboththe thin obligations
of fellowcitizens to oneanother and therelativeunlikelihoodof even theseminimalduties being
recognized makes Rousseau among the most realistic of political theorists.
56. Cf. Melzer,Natural Goodness of Man, who suggests that an immanent human expan-
siveness to identify with others forms the basis of patriotism, political community, and justice
for Rousseau, esp. 170-71n. Compare Ogrodnick,Instinct and Intimacy, 135-38. Below, I raise
questions not just about this possibility for Rousseau, but also and more importantly whether
even this immanent expansiveness can overcome the problem of moral otherness.
57. Cf.JrgenHabermas,Citizenship andNationalIdentity, inTheorizingCitizenship,ed.
Ron Beiner (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). For a characterization of the
particularistic andaffective dimensionsof Rousseaus thoughtson patriotism, see MarcPlattner,
Rousseau and the Origins of Nationalism, inThe Legacy of Rousseau, esp. 187-93.
58. Judith Shklar,Men andCitizens:A Study of RousseausSocial Theory (Cambridge,UK:Cambridge University Press, 1969), 15-17, 21; Ogrodnick,Instinct and Intimacy, 139-45.
Boyd / ROUSSEAU AND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC COMPASSION 545
at CAPES on July 9, 2010ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/http://ptx.sagepub.com/ -
8/10/2019 BOYD, Richard - Pity's Pathologies Portrayed
29/29
59. Tzvetan Todorov,Frail Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau, trans. John T. Scott and
Robert D. Zaretsky (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 29.
60. John T. Scott, The Theodicy of theSecond Discourse: The Pure State of Nature and
Rousseaus Political Thought,American Political Science Review86 (1992): 708.
61. Tronto,Moral Boundaries, 145.
62. Ibid., 147.
63. One problemwithdoingso is compassionstendencyto eclipse civic equality. See espe-
cially Hannah Arendt,On Revolution(New York: Penguin Books, 1977), 90:
Measured against the immense sufferings of the immense majority of the people, the
impartialityof justice andlaw, theapplication ofthe same rules tothosewhosleepin pal-
aces and those who sleep under the bridges of Paris, was like a mockery.
64. Tronto,Moral Boundaries, 93.
65. Arendt,On Revolution. 86-87.
66. Habermas, Citizenship and National Identity, esp. 503-6; Barber,Strong Democracy,
esp. chaps. 6 and 8.
Richard Boyd is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin
Madison. He is the author of various journal articles on seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century political thought and a forthcoming book titledUncivil Society: The Perils of
Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism (2004).
546 POLITICAL THEORY / August 2004