Respect

versus love and compassion

Philosophy is practical. It’s not always obvious how practical any particular piece of philosophy might be. But, in the end, if you follow the yellow brick road, you end up with some ideas about how best to live.

One of the ways people like me try to make philosophy and spirituality practical is to describe how different philosophical ideas lead to different ethical commitments. So I’m always on the lookout for what people’s ethical commitments are.

The ones I hear about most frequently are “love” and “compassion.” It seems that in our contemporary societies we have drunk very deeply from the KoolAid of “love” and “compassion.” Being a rebel at heart, this has a particular effect on me: I set about thinking up ways in which love and compassion are not the most important ethical imperatives for living the good life.

I think there are many ways in which love and compassion fall short as ethical imperatives. I’m not alone: Friedrich Nietzsche is a philosopher who spent an extraordinary amou…