The Samaritan, finding by the roadside a man robbed and beaten by outlaws, sees to his care, treating his wounds and paying for his lodging at an inn. The obvious beneficiary of the Samaritan s compassion is the wounded man. Aristotle does not answer this question in the case of compassion, for he does not deal with compassion as a virtue. In the case of friendship he notes that the friend becomes another self, in the sense that one identifies one s friend s concerns with one s own, so that, in benefiting one s friend, one benefits oneself. This seems to be the case with compassion.
Compassion involves an emotional response to the suffering of another.
It does, however, enable one to extend one s concerns beyond the limits of one s own person. Compassion makes identification possible even beyond the boundaries of our own species, since one can clearly feel compassion for non-human animals. This feature of compassion is extremely important morally. It is the ability to identify with others the rights of another in the case of justice, the interests of another in the case of friendship, and the suffering of another in the case of compassion that enables us to understand that we are not isolated individuals but members of a larger community. It is because we are able to identify with others that we can both come to understand that we have moral reasons to act on their behalf, and can be motivated to act as those reasons indicate we should.