Mercy

Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French merci, from Medieval Latin merced-, merces, from Latin, "price paid, wages", from merc-, merxi "merchandise") can refer both to compassionate behaviour on the part of those in power (e.g. mercy shown by a judge toward a convict), on the part of a humanitarian third party (e.g. a mission of mercy aiming to treat war victims) or divine mercy shown to the penitent. Mercy is a word used to describe compassion shown by one person to another, or a request from one person to another to be shown such leniency or unwarranted compassion for a crime or wrongdoing. Some of the earliest recorded expressions of divine mercy are found in Ancient Egyptian literature. One of the basic virtues of chivalry, Christian ethics, Islam, and Judaism, it is also related to concepts of justice and morality in behaviour between people.

In a legal sense, a defendant having been found guilty of a capital crime may ask for clemency from being executed.

To be "mercy", the behavior generally can not be compelled by outside forces. (A famous literary example is from The Merchant of Venice when Portia asks Shylock to show mercy. He asks, On what compulsion, must I? She responds:


 * The quality of mercy is not strained.
 * It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
 * Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
 * It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
 * Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
 * The throned monarch better than his crown.
 * His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
 * The attribute to awe and majesty,
 * Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
 * But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
 * It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
 * It is an attribute of God himself;
 * And earthly power doth then show like God's
 * When mercy seasons justice.

A number of organizations (e.g. Mercy Corps, the Sisters of Mercy, Mercyful Fate and the Temple of Mercy and Charity) use the word "mercy" in their name to describe their work.

Ethicist Jacob Appel has noted a decline of mercy, and a concomitant increase in retribution, in American public life. Appel has written: "One of the glaring -- yet too often overlooked -- failings of contemporary America is that we have become a nation obsessed with justice and retribution. We claim to be The Land of the Free, yet we have lost sight of what it means to be imprisoned: denied liberty and access to one's family, subjected to isolation and violence and unspeakable boredom. We have come to believe, in the most pernicious way, that people should get what they deserve. What a sea change it might be in our public discourse and our civic life if we focused instead upon mercy and forgiveness. A merciful and forgiving culture might find itself with less anger, less social disruption, and even less crime."