Hedwig Dohm (1831–1919)

Abstract

This chapter investigates the contribution of German feminist philosopher and writer Hedwig Dohm (1831–1919) to the debate on the nature and value of compassion (Mitleid) between Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. I argue that her contribution consists of three main points. First, she highlights the gendered nature of compassion, taking Schopenhauer’s discussion out of the transcendental realm and situating it in a dynamic social context. Second, Dohm illuminates parallels between the norms of the nineteenth-century bourgeois woman’s lifecycle and the increasing degrees of self-lessness in Schopenhauer’s Mitleids-Moral. Thus, she joins Nietzsche in the criticisms of its harmful effects on the self, but Dohm focuses her attention on the half of the human population that is intensively socialized to fall under its sway. Third, she criticizes Nietzsche’s ideal of the Overman or Zarathustra, replacing it with the ideal of “The New Mother,” an ideal that feels timely even today.