ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a detailed look at Kant's evaluation of sympathy and compares it to Hutcheson's account of compassion. It argues that focusing too strongly on Kant's deontology can make us miss his thoughts on particular moral emotions like sympathy. Scholars have argued for a positive role of sympathy in Kant's account correcting the canonical reading, which sees Kant's ethics as leaving no room for moral emotions. Kant, like Hutcheson sees sympathy as a double-edged sword: he stresses that it can play a positive role but he also points out that it poses challenges. Feelings of sympathy can tempt us to narrow mindedness, complacency, and resentment of others. Hutcheson and Kant share a general orientation of their account on the ideal of the stoic sage in that they claim that being too easily moved is morally problematic. The way Kant expresses his caution regarding sympathy suggests that he views it more as a passion than as an affect.
