Pity is a sympathetic

sorrow Sorrow may refer to: * Sorrow (emotion) * ''Sorrow'' (Van Gogh), an 1882 drawing by Vincent van Gogh * "Sorrow" (Bad Religion song), 2001 * "Sorrow" (The McCoys song), also covered by The Merseys and David Bowie * "Sorrow" (Pink Floyd song), ...

evoked by the

suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...

of others, and is used in a comparable sense to ''

compassion Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as being sensitive to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on n ...

'', '' condolence'' or '' empathy'' – the word deriving from the Latin '' pietas'' (etymon also of ''

piety Piety is a virtue which may include religious devotion or spirituality. A common element in most conceptions of piety is a duty of respect. In a religious context piety may be expressed through pious activities or devotions, which may vary among ...

'').

Self-pity Self-pity is an emotion in which one feels self-centered sorrow and pity toward the self in regards to one's own internal and external experiences of suffering. Self-pity has also been defined as an emotion "directed towards others with the goal ...

is pity directed towards oneself. Two different kinds of pity can be distinguished, "benevolent pity" and "contemptuous pity" (see Kimball), where, through insincere, pejorative usage, pity is used to connote feelings of superiority, condescension, or contempt.Stuff Pity!
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Psychological opinions

Psychologists see pity arising in early childhood out of the infant's ability to identify with others. Psychoanalysis sees a more convoluted route to (at least some forms of) adult pity by way of the sublimation of

aggression Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...

– pity serving as a kind of magic gesture intended to show how leniently one should oneself be treated by one's own conscience. Den Leichnam des Darius

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy L, 1795 (Yale Center for British Art) The Human Abstract

Religious views

*In the West, the religious concept of pity was reinforced after acceptance of

Judeo Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the M ...

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

concepts of God pitying all humanity, as found initially in the Jewish tradition: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him". The Hebrew word "Hesed" translated in the LXX by "Eleos" carries the meaning roughly equivalent to pity in the sense of compassion, mercy and loving-kindness. (See The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 698a.) *In Mahayana Buddhism, Bodhisattvas are described by the Lotus Sutra as those who "hope to win final Nirvana for all beings – for the sake of the many, for their weal and happiness, out of pity for the world".

Philosophical assessments

* Aristotle in his ''Rhetoric'' argued (Rhetoric 2.8) that before a person can feel pity for another human, the person must first have experienced

of a similar type, and the person must also be somewhat distanced or removed from the sufferer. He defines pity as follows: "Let pity, then, be a kind of pain in the case of an apparent destructive or painful harm of one not deserving to encounter it, which one might expect oneself, or one of one's own, to suffer, and this when it seems near". Aristotle also pointed out that "people pity their acquaintances, provided that they are not exceedingly close in kinship; for concerning these they are disposed as they are concerning themselves", arguing further that in order to feel pity, a person must believe that the person who is suffering does not deserve their fate. Developing a traditional Greek view in his work on poetry, Aristotle also defines tragedy as a kind of imitative poetry that provokes pity and fear. * David Hume in his ''Treatise of Human Nature'' (Sect. VII Of Compassion), argued that "pity is concern for ... the misery of others without any friendship...to occasion this concern." He continues that pity "is derived from the imagination." When one observes a person in misfortune, the observer initially imagines his sorrow, even though they may not feel the same. While "we blush for the conduct of those, who behave themselves foolishly before us; and that though they show no sense of shame, nor seem in the least conscious of their folly," Hume argues "that he is the more worthy of compassion the less sensible he is of his miserable condition." * Jean-Jacques Rousseau had the following opinion of pity as opposed to love for others: "It is therefore certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is this pity which hurries us without reflection to the assistance of those we see in distress; it is this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and difficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself by any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of argumentative justice, Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful, Consult your own happiness with as little prejudice as you can to that of others." * Nietzsche pointed out that since all people to some degree value

self-esteem Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) d ...

and self-worth, pity can negatively affect any situation. Nietzsche considered his own sensitivity to pity a lifelong weakness; and condemned what he called " Schopenhauer's morality of pity...pity negates life".

Medieval conceptions

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

wrote "pite renneth soone in gentil herte" at least 10 times in his works, across the '' Canterbury Tales'' and the '' Legend of Good Women''. The word "pite" had entered Middle English from Latin " pietas" in seven spellings: "piete", "pietie", "pietye", "pite", "pitie", "pyte", and "pytie". Early Middle English writers did not yet have words such as "sympathy" and "empathy"; and even the word "compassion" is not attested in English until the 14th century. The Mediaeval writer's notion of "pite" was thus somewhat different to the divided ideas of pity and

in Modern English, which has also since gained connotations of disengagement (the pitier an observer to and separate from the pitied) and condescension from a superior position. The many senses of the compound notion are exemplified by how Erasmus' '' Enchiridion'' was translated in the 16th century. In the original Latin, talking about the ways of the spirit versus the ways of the flesh, Erasmus says "spiritus pios, caro impios". In translation, the single words in Latin became several phrases in English to encompass the entire range of the original concept that was by that time bifurcating as the words were bifurcating: " e spiryte maketh us relygyous, obedyent to god, kynde and mercyfull. The flesshe maketh us dispysers of god, disobedyent to god, unkynde and cruell." Chaucer's line, described by

Walter Skeat Walter William Skeat, (21 November 18356 October 1912) was a British philologist and Anglican deacon. The pre-eminent British philologist of his time, he was instrumental in developing the English language as a higher education subject in t ...

as being Chaucer's favourite, was understood by Edgar Finley Shannon to be a translation of Ovid's '' Tristia'' volume 3, verses 31–32, Shannon describing it as "an admirable translation and adaptation of the passage". A noble mind ("mens generosa" in Ovid, "gentil herte" in Chaucer) is easily moved ("faciles motus capit" in Ovid, "renneth soone" in Chaucer) to kindness ("plababilis irae" in Ovid "pite" in Chaucer). In the ''Legend'', Chaucer describes women in general as "pyëtous". It wasn't until the 16th century that there was a fully-fledged split between pity and piety. In the 14th century, John Gower was, in contrast, using "pite" in his '' Confessio Amantis'' to encompass both concepts, as his Latin glosses to the text reveal, stating that "pite is the foundement of every kinges regiment". Cognates of the word include the

Provençal Provençal may refer to: *Of Provence, a region of France * Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France *''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language *Franco-Provençal language, a distinct Roman ...

" pietat" and the Spanish " piedad". Like Middle English, Old French took the word from the Latin and gradually split it into " pité" (later " piété") and " pitié". Italian in contrast retained the one word: " pietà", borrowed into English (through French, in the 19th century replacing its older "Vierge de pitié") as a technical concept in the arts: pietà.

Literary examples

* Juvenal considered pity the noblest aspect of human nature. * Mystic poet William Blake was ambivalent about Pity, initially casting it in a negative role, before viewing Pity as an emotion that can draw beings together. In The Book of Urizen Pity begins when Los looks on the body of Urizen bound in chains (Urizen 13.50–51). However, Pity furthers the fall, "For pity divides the soul" (13.53), dividing Los and Enitharmon (Enitharmon is named Pity at her birth). Blake maintained that Pity disarmed righteous indignation leading to action; and, railing further against Pity in '' The Human Abstract'', Blake exclaims: "Pity would be no more, / If we did not make somebody Poor" (1–2). * J. R. R. Tolkien made pity – that of the hobbits for Gollum – pivotal to the action of '' The Lord of the Rings'': "It was Pity that stayed his hand...the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many". * Wilfred Owen prefaced his collection of war poetry with the claim that "My subject is War and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity" – something

C. H. Sisson Charles Hubert Sisson, CH (22 April 1914 – 5 September 2003), usually cited as C. H. Sisson, was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator. Life Born in Bristol in 1914, C. H. Sisson was noted as a poet, novelist, essayist and an ...

considered to verge on sentimentality.C. H. Sisson ''English Poetry 1900-1950'' (Manchester 1981) p. 83

Psychological opinions

Religious views

Philosophical assessments

Medieval conceptions

Literary examples

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links