A few days ago, in my What's New blog, I wrote here that I found my effort to define the term compassion challenging but clarifying.

I wrote:

While considering various definitions, my attention was drawn to conventional ways that people often think about compassion... [ways] that differ radically from mine... [Such differences] could well have played a role in generating misunderstandings between others and myself when I've discussed my ideas about compassion... This in turn led to other, similar insights... all of which I look forward to writing about, soon.

I learned in my research that for some people, showing compassion means, in part, showing mercy. In turn, of course, "mercy" means somewhat different things to different people. Some people, though, imagine that to behave mercifully means to mitigate justice. As an example, a murderer might (according to one set of standards) deserve the punishment of death. Choosing to treat that murderer with compassion and mercy, however, a judge might decide to waive such a punishment.^{1, 2}

Many advocates of victims' rights object to the idea that rights-violators, such as thieves, rapists or murderers, should be treated with mercy. Often, such advocates argue that to treat such violators with mercy is to make a mockery of justice - and to visit a horrible injustice on those perpetrators' victims.

Given that such thoughts about compassion and mercy could have caused real confusion about what I've meant when I've defended compassion in various discussions, I think it's important that I clarify my position.

If by "mercy" we mean the mitigation of justice, then, as paradoxical as it may sound, I favor compassion without mercy. More precisely: I favor compassion with justice. To be clear, none of what I've written lately on the subject of compassion (for example, here in my ongoing dialogue with technomaget) was ever meant to contravene the implementation of justice in any respect.

So, in the sense of the word that I've just spelled out, I don't advocate treating rights-violators with mercy. I advocate treating them with justice.

Even so, this clarification leaves many questions unanswered, not the least of which is: "By Vid Axel's standards, what is justice?" That, too, will take some time for me to clarify - more time than I have right now.

For now, though, I can offer the following clarifications.

Just as I favor moral judgment without moralism, and moral discernment without judgmentalism, so I favor restitution without revenge. Similarly, I favor the defense of rights without punishment.

Some might argue that sometimes, the administration of justice necessitates the infliction of revenge and punishment. I don't agree.

I agree with those who maintain that in a proper society, it's crucial that people be able to defend themselves against the initiation of force. It's also crucial that when their rights have been violated by such force-initiation, that the victims have a means by which to neutralize the threat that their attackers pose. In addition, those victims need to have a way by means of which to seek restitution from their attackers.

All of this is fully consistent, not only with my conception of justice, but also with my conception of compassion.

In the senses in which I'm using these terms, however, revenge and punishment involve neither threat-neutralization, nor restitution. Instead, their underlying purpose is to inflict pain on the attacker.³

I often detect the following pattern when I hear people offer defenses of the infliction of revenge and punishment. Such people often say, in effect, "This attacker caused me (or my loved one, or some other victim) pain and suffering. Therefore, the attacker should be made to experience commensurate pain and suffering."

In justice, the attacker should be restrained in ways that will neutralize his or her threat. Also, the attacker should be held responsible and accountable. To the degree that it's reasonably possible, the attacker should be required to pay restitution to his or her victims.

To me, though, none of this implies that the victims or the legal system should seek revenge against, or punishment of, the attacker.

To be clear, even having said this, to a given attacker, it's still possible that straightforward threat-neutralization and restitution might feel like revenge or punishment. If a murderer were, for instance, imprisoned for life, to the murderer, this might feel like punishment. Even so, by my standards, the purpose of such incarceration wouldn't be to cause the attacker suffering, but to neutralize the threat that the attacker posed to others. Any discomfort that such an attacker might feel in the process would be an accidental, rather than an intentional feature, of the incarceration.

My point isn't to make the attacker's comfort a primary value in the course of defining or implementing justice. My point is simply that by my standards, seeking to inflict pain for the sake of exacting revenge or punishment has nothing to do with my conception of justice.

Given all this, where does my sense of compassion fit in?

I still think it's possible and appropriate to cultivate in oneself universal compassion for human beings - even including those who violate others' rights.

By my standards, though, such compassion has nothing to do with mitigating justice. To my mind, justice needs to be implemented fairly, impartially, and (in the sense that I've highlighted above) without mercy. In the case of those who violate others' rights, however, justice involves exacting neither revenge nor punishment on them, but instead involves neutralizing the threat that they pose and demanding restitution from them.

It should be remembered, too, that my sense of compassion includes the need to cultivate compassion for the victims of any attack. Such compassion demands that justice be done, though, both to prevent the attacker from further hurting the same or more such victims - and, to the extent that's possible, to deliver restitution to those victims.

I don't expect this blog entry to answer all the questions and/or objections that my readers may have about what I mean by compassion, or justice, for that matter - but I do hope that it will help.

And, as usual, I welcome, and I look forward to learning from, your comments.

Notes

¹In this blog entry, I don't evaluate whether the death penalty, prison sentences or the like are, or can be, implemented justly. I would have to write separately to evaluate the wisdom (or lack thereof) of such strategies, whether as methods of neutralizing the threat that rights-violators pose, or in providing restitution to such violators' victims.

²It intrigues me that some people feel that it's necessary to show mercy for the sake of mitigating the implementation of justice. This suggests to me that many conceptions of "justice" have mistakenly incorporated elements of revenge and punishment. In this blog entry, I make an effort to distinguish between justice on the one hand, and revenge or punishment on the other. My point now, though, is that if we appreciate the context in which some people may have felt inclined to show mercy instead of implementing full justice, they may have been dealing with a flawed conception of "justice" that in practice would have been excessive and inappropriate.

³I also deem it inappropriate to attempt to turn the implementation of justice into a process of "making examples" of those who have violated others' rights.

Sometimes such example-making is pursued, reportedly in an effort to deter others from violating people's rights in similar ways. Many people imagine that, in "high profile" cases, it's appropriate to administer a harsher-than-usual penalty, for the sake of sounding a warning to other, potential violators.

By my standards, though, this is unjust. Such example-making isn't focused on neutralizing the threat of the rights-violator, or on securing restitution for the victims. Instead, it focuses on achieving an extraneous end that's separate from both.

In addition, even though I wouldn't consider such example-setting justified even if its effectiveness as a deterrent could be demonstrated, I happen to remain unconvinced that it successfully deters potential rights-violators.