Discussions of “justice” in planning are commonplace; discussions of “kindness,” strangely enough, are rare. Perhaps not by accident. Taking “compassion” as an empathetic, intentional orientation toward suffering, we analyze “kindness” as the situated action of compassion that requires—following and extending analysis of Martha Nussbaum—four contingent, contextually sensitive practical judgments: (1) empathetic recognition of another’s vulnerability or suffering; (2) causal/moral gauging of the sources of that vulnerability or suffering; (3) crafting of acts to mitigate that vulnerability/suffering, and (4) forming the motivation to respond practically to that Other’s situation. Diverse planning cases from Cleveland, the Canadian Yukon, and Australia illuminate these practical judgments. We show how these contingent judgments can go wrong and thereby produce not kindness but humiliation, shame and victim blaming, pity and condescension, or dependency not autonomy. In doing so, the article makes a fresh contribution toward analyzing the moral requirements of, and the risks faced in, any planning seeking to respond to others’ vulnerabilities and suffering.

在计划中对“正义”的讨论是司空见惯的。奇怪的是，关于“善良”的讨论很少。也许不是偶然。以“同情”作为对痛苦的同情心，有针对性的取向，我们将“善良”作为同情的情境行为进行分析，这需要-在对玛莎·努斯鲍姆进行分析之后，对四个偶然的，上下文相关的实际判断：（1）对他人的同情心的认可脆弱性或痛苦；（2）因果/道德上衡量该脆弱性或苦难的根源；（3）制定减轻该脆弱性/痛苦的行为，以及（4）形成对他人的情况做出实际反应的动机。克利夫兰，加拿大育空地区和澳大利亚的各种规划案例阐明了这些实际判断。我们展示了这些偶然的判断是如何出错的，从而不会产生友善，而是会产生羞辱，羞辱和受害人的责备，怜悯和屈尊，或者是依赖而不是自主。通过这样做，本文为分析任何试图应对他人的脆弱性和苦难的计划的道德要求和面临的风险做出了新的贡献。