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Pity as Self-Reflection
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Maxims

Pity is characterized as a self-interested emotion where we assist others primarily to secure future help for ourselves, viewing their misfortunes as a preview of our own potential troubles.

Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall. We help others that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves, and these services which we render, are in reality benefits we confer on ourselves by anticipation.
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Maxims

Self-Love's Usury

This excerpt extends the parent's idea that helping others is ultimately self-serving by explaining how self-love disguises itself as goodness to win others over, directly reinforcing the concept of 'benefits we confer on ourselves by anticipation.'

It would seem that even self-love may be the dupe of goodness and forget itself when we work for others. And yet it is but taking the shortest way to arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of giving, in fact winning everybody in a subtle and delicate manner.

Augustine of Hippo

Confessions

Pity's Paradox

This excerpt challenges the parent's cynical view by asserting the existence of true, sincere compassion where one wishes for no misery to commiserate, positing pity as a genuine virtue rather than a reflection of self-interest.

...away? by no means. Be griefs then sometimes loved. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the guardianship of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased to pity; but then in the theatres I rejoiced with lovers when they wickedly enjoyed one another, although this was imaginary only in the play. And when they lost one another, as if very compassionate, I sorrowed with them, yet had my delight in both.
But now I much more pity him that rejoiceth in his wickedness, than him who is thought to suffer hardship, by missing some pernicious pleasure, and the loss of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer mercy, but in it grief delights not. For though he that grieves for the miserable, be commended for his office of charity; yet had he, who is genuinely compassionate, rather there were nothing for him to grieve for. For if good will be ill willed (which can never be), then may he, who truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there might be some miserable, that he might commiserate. Some...
For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more purely than we, and hast more incorruptibly pity on them, yet are wounded with no sorrowfulness. And who is sufficient for these things? But I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at, when in another's and that feigned and personated misery, that acting best pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently, which drew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying from Thy flock, and impatient of T...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Maxims

Grief's Hidden Pride

This excerpt provides a psychological mechanism for pity, suggesting that it often stems from pride and a desire to demonstrate superiority, which aligns with and elaborates on the parent's claim that pity reflects our own evils.

There is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them, that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spake Zarathustra

Pity's Offense

This excerpt reframes the discussion by evaluating pity not in terms of self-interest but in terms of modesty and nobility, arguing that pity can be offensive and that refusing help may be more noble.

...u blushedst—I saw it well: thereby did I know thee as Zarathustra. Every one else would have thrown to me his alms, his pity, in look and speech. But for that—I am not beggar enough: that didst thou divine. For that I am too RICH, rich in what is great, frightful, ugliest, most unutterable! Thy shame, O Zarathustra, HONOURED me! With difficulty did I get out of the crowd of the pitiful,—that I might find the only one who at present teacheth that ‘pity is obtrusive’— thyself, O Zarathustra! —
Whether it be the pity of a God, or whether it be human pity, it is offensive to modesty. And unwillingness to help may be nobler than the virtue that rusheth to do so. THAT however—namely, pity—is called virtue itself at present by all petty people:—they have no reverence for great misfortune, great ugliness, great failure.
Beyond all these do I look, as a dog looketh over the backs of thronging flocks of sheep. They are petty, good-wooled, good-willed, grey people. As the heron looketh contemptuously at shallow pools, with backward-bent head, so do I look at the throng of grey little waves and wills and souls. Too long have we acknowledged them to be right, those petty people: SO we have at last given them power as well;—and now do they teach that ‘good is only what petty people call good.’ And ‘truth’ is at...

Søren Kierkegaard

Fear and Trembling

The Indignity of Pity

This excerpt introduces a paradoxical dialectic in pity, questioning whether we can ever settle on a consistent understanding of its nature and requirements, thus casting doubt on our ability to definitively characterize pity as the parent does.

...elf be healed when from the beginning one has been thus bungled without one's fault, from the beginning has been an abortive specimen of humanity! What ethical maturity was required for assuming the responsibility of allowing the loved one to do such a daring deed! What humility before the face of another personl What faith in God to believe that the next instant she would not hate the husband to whom she owed everything! Let Sarah be a man, and with that the demoniacal is close at hand.
The proud and noble nature can endure everything, but one thing it cannot endure, it cannot endure pity. In that there is implied an indignity which can only be inflicted upon one by a higher power, for by oneself one can never become an object of pity. If a man has sinned, he can bear the punishment for it without despairing; but without blame to be singled out from his mother's womb as a sacrifice to pity, as a sweet-smelling savor in its nostrils, that he cannot put up with. Pity has a strange dialectic, at one moment it requires guilt, the next moment it will not have it, and so it is that...
But Sarah had no blame attaching to her, she is cast forth as a prey to every suffering and in addition to this has to endure the torture of pity–for even I who admire her more than Tobias loved her, even I cannot mention her name without saying, "Poor girl." Put a man in Sarah's place, let him know that in case he were to love a girl a spirit of hell would come and murder his loved one–it might well be possible that he would choose the demoniacal part, that he would shut himself up with...

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

Error's Gentle Correction

This excerpt offers practical guidance on how to cultivate pity by understanding the perspective of those who wrong us, advising a specific mental practice to replace anger with pity.

...ee, the comfort of a good conscience, that thou doest all things according to reason: what shouldest thou live any longer for? All things that now thou seest, are but for a moment. That nature, by which all things in the world are administered, will soon bring change and alteration upon them, and then of their substances make other things like unto them: and then soon after others again of the matter and substance of these: that so by these means, the world may still appear fresh and new. XIX.
Whensoever any man doth trespass against other, presently consider with thyself what it was that he did suppose to be good, what to be evil, when he did trespass. For this when thou knowest, thou wilt pity him thou wilt have no occasion either to wonder, or to be angry. For either thou thyself dust yet live in that error and ignorance, as that thou dust suppose either that very thing that he doth, or some other like worldly thing, to be good; and so thou art bound to pardon him if he have done that which thou in the like case wouldst have done thyself. Or if so be that thou dost not any more s...
XX. Fancy not to thyself things future, as though they were present but of those that are present, take some aside, that thou takest most benefit of, and consider of them particularly, how wonderfully thou wouldst want them, if they were not present. But take heed withal, lest that whilst thou dust settle thy contentment in things present, thou grow in time so to overprize them, as that the want of them (whensoever it shall so fall out) should be a trouble and a vexation unto thee. Wind up thy...