Compassion is a sensitivity to suffering which motivates people to try to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pain experienced by others. Compassionate people have a sense of responsibility. They not only notice the suffering of others, they feel compelled to respond to it in ways which are intended to be helpful.
Compassion is more than sympathy. Sympathetic people react to the suffering of others with sorrow and concern, but compassionate people have deeper feelings. They have a positive desire to reduce the amount of suffering in the world and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve this.
Some compassionate people are also empathetic. They are strongly motivated to respond to the suffering of others because they experience that suffering as if it were their own. They become distressed when they see another person suffering and so they have an additional reason for wanting the suffering to end.
Is it right to feel compassion for someone who is responsible for their own suffering? For example, should we try to help someone who has been rightly punished for breaking the law? Some say that it’s in fact immoral to show compassion in such cases, but others have suggested that in the final analysis no one deserves to suffer. So just how compassionate should we be?
