Pitié
In Rousseau, pity is an innate revulsion at seeing one’s fellow suffer—prior to all reflection and shared by man and beast alike. It is not a virtue acquired through reason but a primary impulse of nature, the second of the two principles man receives before thinking. Its function is to temper *<em>self-love</em>*: without it, self-preservation would be blind and unchecked. In the *<em>state of nature</em>*, it serves as law, custom, and virtue, with the advantage that no one dreams of disobeying its “gentle voice.” From it spring, once society has arisen, generosity, clemency, and friendship. It extends *self-love* without merging into *<em>self-regard</em>*, which, for its part, arises from comparison and reflection.
Il est donc certain que la pitié est un sentiment naturel, qui, modérant dans chaque individu l’activité de l’amour de soi-même, concourt à la conservation mutuelle de toute l’espèce.
Rousseau attributes two drives to natural man that precede reason: one impels him toward self-preservation, the other instills in him “an innate repugnance at seeing his fellow suffer.” This second drive is pity. It owes nothing to philosophy—it is “all the more universal and useful to man for preceding in him the use of any reflection,” so natural that even beasts display its signs. A horse recoils from trampling a living body; cattle grow agitated at the slaughterhouse gates. Pity is not a refinement of morality but its very ground.
Its function is regulatory. Left to self-preservation alone, man would be without measure; pity, “moderating in each individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species.” It tempers without extinguishing. In the state of nature, where there is neither law nor magistrate, pity “stands in for laws, mores, and virtue,” and its strength lies in the fact that no one is tempted to disobey “its gentle voice.” It does not command from without; it speaks within, before deliberation begins.
From this single disposition, Rousseau derives all social virtues: “What are generosity, clemency, humanity, if not pity applied to the weak, the guilty, or the human species in general?” Even friendship is merely a steady pity fixed upon a single object. What destroys it is reasoning: “Reason engenders amour-propre,” which folds man back into himself and allows him to say, upon seeing someone suffer: Perish if you will, I am safe.
To be distinguished from self-love: pity draws us out of ourselves toward the suffering, while self-love returns us to ourselves through comparison. The one is a primary impulse, the other a reflective passion born in society. And to be distinguished from Socratic virtue, acquired through reason: pity has nothing to learn—it acts before thought—“the human race would no longer exist,” Rousseau notes, if its preservation had depended on reasoning alone. Finally, it is not opposed to self-interest but its internal corrective: not an opposing force, but the same nature turned toward others.