It seems that there is a general tendency [1386a: 28] to feel fear for ourselves and only pity for others although Aristotle is not saying that we cannot fear for others and pity ourselves. However, it seems that Aristotle is claiming that fear has a nature in which the things that cause or evoke fear and the state of mind in which fear is felt is more likely to pertain to ourselves. This can be corroborated by Aristotle’s claim that fear is associated with the expectation that something destructive will happen to us [1382b: 29-30]. It is a believe that something is likely to happen to us at some particular time, form and by some other person [1382b: 33-36]. From this, Aristotle seems to imply that the nature of fear is such that it is caused by something else apart from us, to us. Hence, he emphasizes on how fear is something that has great power of destroying, harming us and causing us great pain [1382a: 27-30] and as a corollary, we tend to fear things apart from us that can cause harm to us. For instance, being at the mercy of others’ who have power to harm us [1382b: 6] or being fearing people stronger than us because they can possibly hurt us [1382b: 16-17]. Hence, I feel that Aristotle is emphasizing that we tend to feel fear for ourselves. Yet, it does not seem that Aristotle is asserting that we cannot fear for others for he also claims that fear is simply defined as “a pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evil in the future” [1382a: 20]. Hence, if we take this sentence as it is supposed to mean, Aristotle does not use particular clauses like “us” or “ourselves” implying that we can fear for someone.
Similarly, for the case of pity, Aristotle does not confine himself to saying that we cannot pity ourselves. This seems axiomatic from his defining of pity as a “feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful, which befalls 1) one who does not deserve it, and 2) we might expect to befall on ourselves or some friend of ours or 3) befall on ourselves soon [1385b:11-16].” So, based on this definition, if evil can befall on ourselves and or in the near future, then we should be able to pity ourselves since pity is a feeling of pain evoked when evil happens to us or our friends [1385b: 17]. Moreover, the things that we pity are things like death, bodily injuries, diseases and friendlessness [1386a: 7-8] which can all befall upon us.
Yet, Aristotle seems to be making the point that in general, when something does not happen to ourselves, but is only near ourselves [1386a: 24] or in which misfortune seems close to ourselves and before our eyes [1386b: 8-9] and not directly related to us, we have the tendency to not fear but pity others because pity is a feeling that entails that evil may happen to us. It reflects the possibility of the event happening to us.
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