How does compassion differ from pity?

Simply put, compassion is more intimate. Compassion is a lowering of the conceptual barrier between oneself and another, experiencing their suffering as one’s own to some degree. The impulse to relieve that suffering is all the more compelling because it isn’t seen as being someone else’s problem.

Pity is a more remote sentiment. The suffering of the other is viewed from a safe distance. One feels insulated from, and uninvolved with the sufferer. If one is moved to action at all, it’s only so as to feel magnanimous.

They differ in the same way empathy and sympathy differ. As @Harp says, you can feel pity for someone without feeling their pain — as in sympathy. But when you feel their pain as your own, that’s empathy, and it inspires compassion: “com” as in “with” or “same” passion.

Bringing flowers to a widow and saying, “I’m so sorry for your loss” is pity. Bringing food and a hug and then doing all the dishes, and then just sitting beside the mourner and letting her say anything, or nothing, for a day — that’s compassion.

There’s an absence of judgment in compassion. Feeling pity for someone means feeling sorry for someone. Compassion isn’t feeling sorry for. Look at the word itself: Com = “with,” and passion = “suffering.” By contrast, pity is related to piety and duty.

once again Jeruba has hit the nail on the head…

@Jeruba , I would agree that pity and feeling sorry for someone are tied together. But does feeling sorry necessarily imply judgment? I could be sorry and say, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Pity and being sorry does seem to imply distance. Although we can talk of self-pity, I don’t think that the term can be taken literally. It really makes no sense to say that I feel sorry for myself.

I think that @Harp, as he does with such annoying regularity, has nailed this one.

I don’t believe I said pity implies judgment. I said compassion lacks it.

Also I didn’t discredit any earlier response, just added my thoughts.

I was thinking of the figures who are considered to be the embodiment of compassion, such as Avalokiteshvara (Kuan Yin), and the paired Buddhist virtues of wisdom and compassion, and it seemed to me that nonjudgmentalism is at the heart of compassion but not necessarily of pity. Pity is a one-up/one-down sentiment, and compassion transcends that.

That’s just my view and is not meant to argue against anyone else’s. I didn’t see this as a competition.

@Jeruba,

I have seen other answers you have provided here and have great respect for what you say.

I was just seeking clarity. I would say that compassion precludes judgment and that pity allows for the possibility of it. But I think @Harp‘s description captures this. If we carry someone’s suffering as our own then there can be no judgment. If we view the suffering from a distance then judgment can sneak in.

I hope you have had the good fortune to benefit from @Harp‘s input. I am currently feeling slightly embarrassed for having had another question of mine quite rightfully ripped to shreds by him. I do not take it personally. It is not a matter of personal conflict but that of ideas.

I thought pity was much more harsh.
“Have pity on me!”