Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism
Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism
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不可抗拒的同情心：十八世纪同情心和人道主义的一个方面
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发表时间：
1976
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通讯作者：
Norman S. Fiering
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作者：
Norman S. Fiering
托马斯·杰斐逊在他晚年写的一封著名的信中重申了他的伦理哲学中的一些基本要素。有一次，他断言：“大自然在我们的胸中植入了对他人的爱，对他们的责任感，一种道德本能，简而言之，这促使我们明智地感受和救助他们的痛苦。. . .至少有四个不同的“自然”伦理心理素质反映在这几个字，虽然杰斐逊无意中合并成一个单一的先天“道德本能”，并担心很少单独的历史生活的部分。在这段话中，有许多有趣的、典型的18世纪假设，最后一个假设是本文的主题：相信人们理所当然地同情他人的痛苦，同样也理所当然地被感动去减轻这种痛苦。我的目的是追溯同情心的现代起源，不仅托马斯·杰斐逊，而且18世纪的许多其他人物都认为同情心是不言而喻的事实。对我们称之为“不可抗拒的同情心”的信念，表达了对人类人格的极大信心，这种信心远远超出了对理性作为道德指南或政治保障的自由行使的信任。在这里，我们看到的是一种自动的社会公益机制，而不仅仅是一种智力选择。对于一个20世纪的人来说，对这种机制的真实性和可靠性的怀疑很快就会产生;历史和分析都削弱了它。“但在18世纪，在某些群体中，正如杰斐逊所见证的那样，对人类情感某些品质的信任是无限的，正如更常见的对理性能力的信任一样令人印象深刻。不可抗拒的同情心在十八世纪有另一个常用的名字，“同情”;它也被称为“人性”。“当理想真正实现时，或者当所谓的机制真正起作用时，我们就有了人道主义的基本要素之一。现代人道主义可以被定义为抗议明显和毫无意义的身体痛苦的普遍倾向。
In a well-known letter written late in life, Thomas Jefferson reiterated some of the essential elements in his ethical philosophy. At one point he asserted, "Nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses. . . ." At least four distinct "natural" ethico-psychological qualities are reflected in these few words, though Jefferson unwittingly conflated them all into a single innate "moral instinct" and worried little about the separate historical life of the parts. Of the variety of interesting and typical eighteenth-century assumptions in the passage, it is the last one that is the subject of this paper: the belief that men irresistibly have compassion for the sufferings of others and are equally irresistibly moved to alleviate that suffering. My purpose is to trace back to its modern origins the assumptions about compassion that not only Thomas Jefferson but numerous other figures in the eighteenth century treated as self-evident fact. The belief in what we shall call "irresistible compassion" expresses great confidence in the human personality, a confidence that goes considerably beyond trust in the free exercise of reason as a moral guide or political safeguard. Here we are presented with an automatic mechanism for social good, not simply an intellectual option. To a twentieth-century mind, doubts about the reality and the reliability of this mechanism arise quickly; history and analysis both undercut it. We know more about the perversions of "nature." But in the eighteenth century, among some groups, as Jefferson is a witness, the trust in certain qualities of human emotion was unbounded, as impressive certainly as the more often noted trust in rational faculties. Irresistible compassion has another name commonly used in the eighteenth-century, "sympathy"; it was also called "humanity." When the ideal was truly practiced, or when the alleged mechanism really worked, we have one of the essentials of humanitarianism. Modern humanitarianism may be defined as the widespread inclination to protest against obvious and pointless physical suffering.2