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Pity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pity means feeling for others, particularly feelings of sadness or sorrow, and is used in a
comparable sense to the more modern words "sympathy" and "empathy". Through insincere usage,
it can also have a more unsympathetic connotation of feelings of superiority or condescension.[1]

Contents
1 History
2 Neurological perspectives
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links

History
The word "pity" comes from the Latin word "Pietas".

The word is often used in the translations from ancient Greek

into English of Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric. Aristotle
argued (Rhetoric 2.8) that before a person can feel pity for
another human, the person must first have experienced suffering
of a similar type, and the person must also be somewhat
distanced or removed from the sufferer.[3] In Aristotle's
Rhetoric he defines pity as follows: "Let pity, then, be a kind of Alexander sees with a look of
pain in the case of an apparent destructive or painful harm of pity that Darius has died from his
one not deserving to encounter it, which one might expect wounds.
oneself, or one of one's own, to suffer, and this when it seems
near".[3] 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...For what is terrible is different from what is
pitiable, and is expulsive of pity".[3] Thus, from Aristotle's perspective, in order to feel pity, a
person must believe that the person who is suffering does not deserve their fate.[3] 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.[4]

The religious concept of pity was reinforced in the West after the acceptance of Judeo-Christian

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concepts of God by the proposition of a deity which felt pity for all
humanity. Consistent references to the concept of God's pity can be
found in the older Jewish tradition. 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.) By the nineteenth century, two different kinds of pity had come
to be distinguished, which we might call "benevolent pity" and
"contemptuous pity" (see Kimball). David Hume observed that pity
which has in it a strong mixture of good-will, is nearly allied to
contempt, which is a species of dislike, with a mixture of pride. It is an
emotion that almost always results from an encounter with a real or
perceived unfortunate, injured, or pathetic creature.

A person experiencing pity will experience a combination of intense The Human Abstract, a
sorrow and mercy for the person or creature, often giving the pitied poem in William Blake's
some kind of aid, physical help, and/or financial assistance. Although collection Songs of
pity may be confused with compassion, empathy, commiseration,
Innocence and of
condolence or sympathy, pity is different from all of these. Nietzsche
Experience, in which he
pointed out that since all people to some degree value self-esteem and
proclaims "Pity would be
self-worth, pity can negatively affect any situation. Additionally, pity
no more, / If we did not
may actually be psychologically harmful to the pitied: Self-pity and
make somebody Poor"
depression can sometimes be the result of the power imbalance
(1-2). This version is
fostered by pity, sometimes with extremely negative psychological and
copy L created in 1795
psycho-social consequences for the pitied party.
and currently held by the
Though in his later works he reverses his position and sees Pity as an Yale Center for British
emotion that can draw beings together, Mystic poet William Blake is Art.[2]
known to have been ambivalent about the emotion Pity. In The Book
of Urizen Pity begins when Los looks on the body of Urizen bound in chains (Urizen 13.5051).
However, Pity furthers the fall, "For pity divides the soul" (13.53), dividing Los and Enitharmon
(Enitharmon is named Pity at her birth). Analyzers of this work assert that Blake shows that "Pity
defuses the power of righteous indignation and proper prophetic wrath that lead to action. Pity is a
distraction; the soul is divided between it and the action a 'pitiable' state demands. This is seen as
Los's division into active male and tearful female, the latter deluding the former." Again railing
against Pity in The Human Abstract, Blake exclaims: "Pity would be no more, / If we did not make
somebody Poor" (12).

Neurological perspectives
Modern neurology asserts that pity consists of an initial aversion to the plight of the sufferer, after
which the higher parts of the brain make a more nuanced assessment of the situation (e.g.,
considering the context and invoking empathy, etc.).

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See also
Compassion
Empathy
Self-pity
Sympathy

References
1. Stuff Pity! (http://www.newint.org/features/2005/11/01/keynote/)
2. Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi (eds.). "Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
copy L, object 47 (Bentley 47, Erdman 47, Keynes 47) "The Human Abstract" ". William Blake
Archive. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
3. David Konstan (2001). Pity Transformed. London: Duckworth. p. 181. ISBN 0-7156-2904-2.
4. Aristotle. Poetics, section 6.1449b24-28.

Further reading
Kimball, Robert H. (2004). "A Plea for Pity". Philosophy & Rhetoric. 37 (4): 301316.
David Konstan, Pity Transformed. London: Duckworth, 2001. pp. 181. ISBN 0-7156-2904-2.
David Hume, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, in his Enquires concerning
Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals. ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed.
P.H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 [1st]) Sec. VI Part II, p. 248, n.1. pub.
1751.
Stephen Tudor, Compassion and Remorse: Acknowledging the Suffering Other.
Lauren Wisp. The Psychology of Sympathy. Springer, 1991. ISBN 0-306-43798-8, ISBN
978-0-306-43798-4.

External links
The dictionary definition of pity at Wiktionary

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