The philosophical tradition negatively judged the ethical value o f compassion. Rousseau and Schopenhauer attached the highest ethical importance to it and made it the basis of morality. Nietzsche criticizes the compassion. He sees in it a manifestation of egoism and of degenerated will to power and links it to envy. Yet he gives it a cultural meaning and sees in it the basis o f modern ethical vulnerability. The aim of the article is to present the above thinkers’ views on compassion, to show their difficulties and evolution.
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