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Compersion: An Alternative to Jealousy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

LUKE BRUNNING
LUKE BRUNNING*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAMl.brunning@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

Compersion is an important concept for non-monogamous people. Often described as jealousy's opposite, compersion labels positive feelings toward the intimacy of a beloved with other people. Since many people think jealousy is ordinary, intransigent, and even appropriate, compersion can seem psychologically and ethically dubious. I make the case for compersion, arguing it focuses on the flourishing of others and is thus not akin to pride, vicarious enjoyment, or masochistic pleasure. People cultivate compersion by softening their propensity to be jealous and by attending to the flourishing of others, which requires them to tackle entitlement and temper vulnerability. I argue that jealousy is not a valuable emotional disposition; its instrumental benefits are minor, unstable, and have to be traded against the harms of aggression. Arguments that conclude that jealousy is a virtue rest on contentious premises and overlook the practical question as to whether jealousy and compersion could be cultivated together.

Keywords

compersionjealousyemotionsnon-monogamyvirtue
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Summer 2020 , pp. 225 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2020

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Footnotes

I am grateful for the kind and constructive feedback of Meg-John Barker, Laurencia Saenz Benavides, Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, Lucy Campbell, Mary Carmen, Ronald De Sousa, Alexander Greenberg, Edward Harcourt, Joanna Iwanowska, Pilar Lopez, Natasha McKeever, Elke Schmidt, Jennifer Shurville, the two anonymous reviewers for this journal, and Reviewer Two at Ethics. I also benefited from the robust criticism of audiences at the SPSL session at the Pacific APA; EPSSE Madrid; Centre for Ethics, Pardubice; and the Metaphysics of Sex and Love Workshop, Barcelona.

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