‘If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed?’ Reflections on the Diminishing of the Other’s Pain

Esther Cohen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

The article surveys medieval attitudes to the pain of others—the pain of religious martyrdom, of illness, and of torture—in terms of the possibility of empathy with the sufferer on the part of the observer or the person inflicting the pain. It demonstrates that emotional recognition of the pain of the other depended on the status of that other, in social, racial, moral/religious, or gender terms—no sympathy, for example, was to be accorded to the sinners in hell or suspected criminals under torture. Within the medical sphere, a healer’s over-identification with the patient was regarded as conducive to an unscientific bias in the healer’s mind and to distorting his judgment. The dependence of participative emotion on the status of the sufferer is a comment that medieval history makes on modern times: The pain of the other may be intellectually apprehended, but empathy varies according to the manner in which we see the sufferer. Conversely, distancing the sufferer morally or racially from oneself is an apt way of (and a justification for) preempting the interference of sympathetic response with the efficiency of the perpetrator’s or a bystander’s agenda. The key to efficient (albeit emotionally neutral) treatment resided in respect for the patient’s status, not in an emotional response to his/her suffering.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAt the Interface
Subtitle of host publicationProbing the Boundaries
PublisherBrill Academic Publishers
Pages25-41
Number of pages17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012

Publication series

NameAt the Interface: Probing the Boundaries
Volume84
ISSN (Print)1570-7113

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2012 Brill. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • criminals
  • crucifixion
  • empathy
  • hell
  • illness
  • interrogation
  • martyrdom
  • Middle Ages
  • physicians
  • torture

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