Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities§368 Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite which is injurious to the health, “it cannot possibly be our duty to increase the evil in the world”. If one does good merely out of pity, it is one’s self and not one’s neighbour that one is helping. Pity does not depend upon maxims but upon emotions, it is pathological. The suffering of others infects us, pity is an infection.