Impartiality, Compassion, and Modal Imagination

By using the term "modal imagination," I want to call attention to a specific feature of imagination as we ordinarily conceive it. This is that we can imagine not only what actually exists, such as the computer screen now in front of me, but also what might have existed in the present or past, or might someday exist in the future, such as a vintage restored 1950 Remington Rand typewriter. The term modal imagination is intended to remind us of our capacity to envision what is possible in addition to what is actual. We need modal imagination in order to extend our conception of reality-and, in particular, of human beings-beyond our immediate experience in the indexical present; and we need to do this in order to preserve the significance of human interaction. To make this leap of imagination successfully is to achieve not only insight but also an impartial perspective on our own and others' inner states. This perspective is a necessary condition of experiencing compassion for others. This is the primary thesis I will try to defend in this discussion. My strategy for defending this thesis will be to offer a conceptual analysis of compassion. Therefore, although compassion is itself a substantive moral concept, nothing I say here carries any particular normative commitment to the relatively central or peripheral role I think compassion should play in a substantive moral theory. So, for example, the analysis that follows is consistent with a substantive moral theory that advocates the motivational priority of moral duty (or, for that matter, personal loyalty) over compassion when the two conflict. I try to develop metaethical