Abstract

In some popular and political discourse, ‘compassion’ is commonly conceived as a simple or ‘given’ aspect of the world. And yet public discussion also focusses on whether ‘compassion' has gone wrong in some way, suggesting that there might be various more or less satisfactory versions of compassion. At the same time, some thinkers doubt whether compassion should any longer be expected of those working in healthcare. This article draws on philosophical and theological resources to argue that the conceptual context which forms compassion is crucial for determining the ethos of healthcare. The discussion explores three themes – politics, suffering and responsibility – which must be addressed in order to understand what is wrong with compassion, to identify lines of future investigation and to develop possible remedies