Moral consequence of Descartes' error

Antonio R. Damasio, in his 1994 book, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, identifies the error of René Descartes [1596-1650] as occurring a few lines after his famous statement, "I think, therefore I am." Says Damasio:

Here Descartes was after a logical foundation for his philosophy...But just a few lines below, Descartes clarifies the statement unequivocally:

From that I knew that I was a substance, the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that for its existence there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this "me," that is to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know than is the latter; and even if body were not, the soul would not cease to be what it is. [p. 249]

We don't need Damasio to tell us that "from [I think, therefore I am]" Descartes can know no such thing. But here's how Damasio puts it:

This is Descarte's error: the abyssal separation between body and mind, between the sizable, dimensioned, mechanically operated, infinitely divisible body stuff, on the one hand, and the unsizable, undimensioned, un-pushpullable, nondivisible mind stuff; the suggestion that reasoning, and moral judgment, and the suffering that comes from physical pain or emotional upheaval might exist separately from the body. Specifically: the separation of the most refined operations of mind from the structure and operation of a biological organism. [pp. 249-250]

None of this should be new to us, but of course to many people it is, and they reject it. They persist in Descartes' error, and perhaps even in a moral failure that derives from it:

Versions of Descartes' error obscure the roots of the human mind in a biologically complex but fragile, finite, and unique organism; they obscure the tragedy implicit in the knowledge of that fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness. And where humans fail to see the inherent tragedy of conscious existence, they feel far less called upon to do something about minimizing it, and may have less respect for the value of life. [p. 251]

I like to think that Jesus Christ's philosophy of compassion was rooted in his appreciation of this inherent tragedy. He came to be known as "The Man of Sorrows," suffering for mankind (if not also for "lesser" animals on the food chain, like my dog Siegfried and the birds whose still bodies he finds in our back yard). I would like to think that Jesus felt sorrowful for them too. My mother did, and I do.
    Alas, "The Man of Sorrows" tradition seems to refer to Jesus's personal suffering because of being required by God to "bear our griefs and carry our sorrows," being "smitten of God, and afflicted," "wounded for our transgressions," "bruised for our iniquities," and having laid on him "the iniquity of us all." And all that. Nothing to do with our actual human tragedy.
    But we know not of the actual human being, Jesus of Nazareth. We know only the fabulous creature whose life and teachings were variously described by a number of people, including quite a few who had no personal acquaintance of him, having been born after he died. As I said, I like to think that his compassion rose out of a sense of the fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness of conscious existence.