My concern with "compassion" is that you can have perfect "compassion" for an adversary you regard as "objectively evil": they may be evil but they're pitiful.

My concern with "compassion" is that you can have perfect "compassion" for an adversary you regard as "objectively evil": they may be evil but they're pitiful. Whereas "empathy", to my mind, calls upon you to strive for understanding, however imperfect — making it harder to dehumanize the adversary. But dehumanization tempered by compassion is still better than its pure, distilled form.