Abstract
A historical understanding of the virtue of consolation, as contrasted to empathy, compassion, or sympathy, is developed. Recent findings from neuroscience are presented which support and affirm this understanding. These findings are related to palliative care and its current practice in bioethics.
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Notes
Biblical scholars frequently use the term “paraenesis” (or paranesis) for this sort of hortatory text; but the word has “connotations of antiquity and technical precision” and does not have a long-standing, integral relationship with the biblical texts, making it somewhat less than useful today. On this, see [6].
One notes a strong link between consolation and common human need in the work of Maurice Lamm, Professor of Professional Rabbinics at Yeshiva University, who wrote, “Shiva [the Jewish response of consolation to grieving] responds to … rudimentary needs that are common to us all … in moments of profound despair” [7, p. 44; emphasis added].
Gaita has developed these themes in [8].
Glover has employed humanity as a way of countering the human destruction experienced in the last century in [11].
For an explanation of how the virtue of humanity is a presupposition for empathy and sympathy, see [13].
For the scientific literature on mirror neurons, one could begin with a report on investigations on mirror neurons conducted by the University of Parma group reported in the scientific literature in [14]. Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia offer a comprehensive review of the subsequent, complex scientific literature on how the human mirror neurons contribute to our empathic understanding of the actions and emotions of others in [15]. For a popular, yet well informed, explanation of the implications of the mirror neurons for human social interaction, see [16].
See also [17].
References
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Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to the Lilly Endowment for support of the Project for the History of Care, which I established in the Theology Department of Georgetown University—support which made possible my research on this topic; the Centro per le Scienze Religiose at the Università degli Studi di Trento in Italy for sponsoring my research on this topic; the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia, and the Australian Catholic University for supporting my composition of this lecture and for appointing me Honorary Distinguished Research Fellow for purposes of offering a public lecture on this topic; and the Plunkett Centre for Ethics for permission to reprint this lecture from its Bioethics Review, with some modifications.
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Reich, W.T. From ancient consolation and negative care to modern empathy and the neurosciences. Theor Med Bioeth 33, 25–32 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-012-9212-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-012-9212-6