Essays > Ethical Theory: Sympathy and Logic


The western world is replete with examples of morality, good and bad, that have shaped the course of history. When the western world was founded, the individual outlook on reality arguably overshadowed the communal outlook. As such, ethical theory conformed to new standards. In "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn," Jonathan Bennett illustrates three critical examples (Huckleberry Finn, Heinrich Himmler, and Jonathan Edwards) to argue that a problem with ethical theory exists. The problem, he writes, is that a battle between one's sympathy (emotional reserve toward an agent or proposition, often linked with guilt) and one's morality needn't always result in one victor.

In the battle between one's sympathy and one's morality, Bennett argues that banishing either sympathy or morality from one's decisions would be a bad decision because they both cover each other should one go into "abeyance" (Bennett 529). Indeed, Bennett goes on to mention that one's sympathies should be kept as fine-tuned and alive as possible because they have the capacity to affect one's principles. He goes on to cite examples who would have been better moral agents had they properly balanced morality with sympathy.

One person who might benefit from Bennett's assertions, he believes, is Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist from Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Throughout much of the novel, "Huck" is engaged on a journey down the Mississippi River, and indeed, the winding waters of his life. For he encounters the runaway slave Jim and decides, as a rogue, to help Jim get away on his raft. But this is against Huck's morality! Huck believes that slaves are legitimately the private property of white slave-owners and believes that by aiding Jim he is committing a grandiose mistake of morality. By dismissing his morals as he does, because it is convenient, he obeys his sympathy for Jim instead. Huck seems to function exclusively, then, according to sympathy.

Another person who would be aided by Bennett's claims is Jonathan Edwards, who Bennett cites as having the worst morality of his examples. That is because Edwards completely ignores the possibility that sympathies should play any role whatsoever in one's life. Edwards approved, apparently whole-heartedly, the damnation and eternal pain people would be subject to if they didn't conform properly to the Bible. He mentions that the "saints of glory" in Heaven will not "be sorry for [them]" (528). Since Edwards seems to be complicit in these beliefs, he himself must not be sorry at all, and therefore feel no sympathy. This poses a problem, Bennett believes, because the lack of sympathy in this arena especially, so tempered by temporal considerations, mean that Edwards really could not care less about what happens to anyone who doesn't accept Jesus Christ as the savior. His misanthropy leads toward a much colder, singularly selfish outlook on life that cannot be reconciled with an otherwise altruistic set of moral codes prescribed by the Bible.

The author's response to Edwards and Huck Finn exhorts them to furnish a balance between morality and sympathy that doesn't exist as a matter of convenience, but rather, as a matter of strength. If one's feelings are particularly strong, then sympathy should have some role in one's conscience. If the morality of the situation seems to overwhelm versus lighter feelings, the decision should be equally as clear.

What Bennett truly advocates for is a utilitarian compassion. An objective ethical theory can exist, in black and white clarity pertaining to right and wrong, but he argues for the existence of shades of gray. He argues, convincingly, that sympathy plays a role in our lives as humans and that they are there for a reason: they allow one to understand the "human condition" (530) as opposed to immune to it! Bennett's argument probably cause discomfort in many, because it seems to question the validity of an objective code of morality in one's life. What it really does, however, is argue for the role of sympathy as a moderator in one's morality because no person has yet fulfilled ethical theory with an objective, correct right or wrong. Sympathy, he says, could escort one's conscience safely to waters more comfortable and calm.

Work Cited
Bennett, Jonathan. "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn." In Questioning Matters, ed. Daniel Kolak, 523-530. Mountain View, Calif: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000.