Abating Anger

A posting in peasoup by Antti Kauppinen suggests that rage might be a moral emotion. Rage is uncontrollable anger. This posting will, for the most part, be concerned with more moderate anger and whether such anger can be justified and when it can ever serve any useful purpose. I will argue that whilst anger is dangerous that nonetheless controlled anger can sometimes serve some useful purpose. 

To the Stoics anger was a harmful emotion. Seneca describes the mischief anger does as follows,

“no plague has cost the human race more dear: you will see slaughterings and poisonings, accusations and counter-accusations, sacking of cities, ruin of whole peoples, the persons of princes sold into slavery by auction, torches applied to roofs, and fires not merely confined within city-walls but making whole tracts of country glow with hostile flame. See the foundations of the most celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant: they have been desolated.” Sophia-project, Anger book 1.

What sort of anger was Seneca talking about? There is uncontrolled anger and anger that has been tempered or abated some degree. I would suggest that Seneca was talking about uncontrolled anger which I believe could be better characterised as rage. I will consider whether rage might be regarded as a moral emotion as suggested by Kauppinen at the end of this posting. I now want to consider whether tempered or controlled anger can ever be a useful emotion. 

Let us accept that anger has evolutionary roots. It might be argued that because of these roots anger must retain some purpose. However such an argument seems to be unconvincing. Evolution has given us a taste for sweet and fatty things. Such a taste might have been an advantage to a hunter gatherer but is a disadvantage to anyone living in an affluent city. Similarly anger might of advantage to a hunter gatherer but might be a disadvantage to a city dweller. Human progress may now be too rapid for evolution to keep pace with. Let it be accepted that emotions in general are useful to us. Hume argued that reason is slave of the passions. Nonetheless as suggested above the specific emotion of anger might no longer remain useful to us. It might be argued that in practice we cannot simply eliminate a single emotion which has ceased to be useful to us, such as anger, without damaging our capacity to feel the emotions which remain useful to us. If we eliminate all anger then perhaps we will damage our capacity to feel empathy, see anger and empathy. I will now offer two examples which suggest that it might be wrong to eliminate anger in all circumstances. Each example will suggest further reasons as to why we shouldn’t eliminate all anger because our anger can be useful in some circumstances.

My first example concerns anger at Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, his lying together with his underlying racist and misogynist views. Should we simply transmute our anger into useful actions aimed at combatting these evils as suggested by Martha Nussbaum? (1) I would suggest that we shouldn’t because if we do so our actions might be interpreted as a sign of weakness, this is especially true in the case of Trump. Sometimes when faced by wrongdoing we must signal our determination to fight that wrongdoing and perhaps retaining some anger helps in this signalling. A further example might be provide by those who lived under apartheid in South Africa and were unjustly disenfranchised perhaps their anger signalled their determination to oppose the apartheid. However caution is needed as excessive anger can damage rationality and degenerate into hate. In spite of this need for caution I would suggest that when fighting injustice that retaining some controlled anger is useful in this fight by signalling our determination to continue in this fight.

My second example comes from the Vietnam War. In this war Hugh Thompson’s anger helped him, to courageously save others from being massacred at My Lai. Was Thompson’s anger was justified? Was his anger useful in helping stop the massacre? Might not a calm rational moral person also have helped to stop the massacre? Intuitively his anger seems both to have been justifiable and useful.  However our intuitions are not always reliable and I will now attempt to show his anger was useful. Some emotions such as sadness don’t seem to have a clear focus or target. Some might class such emotions as moods and moods are hard to justify. Other emotions such as anger are intentional and are focussed on some target. Let us accept that morality matters. I will now argue intentional emotions can be justified by moral concerns and my argument will focus on anger. Intentional emotions can be seen as sending a signal that something is wrong and needs attending to. If I see someone forcefully pushing into a queue I might feel angry at the perceived injustice. If this person is unjustly trying to displace other members of the queue then my anger is justified because my anger focusses my in attention on the injustice. However if this person is attempting to join her partner in the middle of the queue then no injustice is taking place and my anger is unjustified. Let us accept that anger can be justified by focussing our attention moral concerns. However when anger focusses our attention we must ensure that we focus accurately on those whose wrong actions are the cause of our anger. Hugh Thompson accurately focussed his anger on the wrong actions of the perpetrators of the massacre at My Lai. The perpetrators of the massacre were also angry but their focus on the cause their anger was inaccurate. The villagers massacred were mere bystanders and did nothing wrong, did not cause the situation which lead to the perpetrators anger. The perpetrators anger was inaccurately focussed, resulting in them unjustly targeting innocent women and children. Let us accept anger can be justified by alerting us to some moral wrong. Let us also accept that once anger has alerted us to some wrong that our anger should be translated into actions which alleviate the wrong when this is possible targeting those who cause the wrong. However does translating our anger into action mean our anger should cease completely or continue at some lower level?

I have argued that anger can be justified by alerting us to some moral wrong. At this point I want to compare my position to that of the stoics. Stoics argue that because the cause of someone’s anger is some event in the past and because the past cannot be changed anger is irrational. More generally the stoics argued that emotions are irrational and that we should seek to master them. What do stoics mean by mastering anger? I have argued above that anger isn’t irrational because it alerts us to some wrongdoing. Some stoics might be prepared to accept that anger sometimes alerts us that to the fact that something is wrong. After all if they refuse to accept the above, are they prepared to accept that anger simply occurs at random without any meaningful reference to the context in which it takes place? In response to the above a stoic might suggest that emotions such as anger and rationality occupy completely separate domains and that we should only pay attention to reason and seek eliminate our anger. Plato also believed emotions and reason occupied separate domains and used the example of a charioteer controlling unruly horses as a metaphor for reason controlling the emotions. My stoic might argue whilst hunter gatherers found anger useful in alerting them to wrongdoing in the tribe that nowadays reason alone can alert us to wrongdoing, anger has become a redundant emotion. Stoics believed in cultivating virtue, but if reason alone can detect wrongdoing stoics might also have made good deontologists. A stoic might proceed to argue that reason always alerts us to wrongdoing and does so more reliably than unreliable anger. In the light of the above she might suggest that we should try to eliminate any anger because reason offers a better way to alert us to wrongdoing and anger might interfere with our rationality. To her mastering anger means eliminating anger. One response to the above might to suggest that emotions and reason do not occupy completely distinct domains, I will not pursue this response further here. A second response is to point out that whilst we are no longer hunter gatherers we are human beings and human beings cannot simply eliminate emotions such as anger. My stoic might concede that we cannot simply eliminate anger but argue that when we experience anger we should move on using reason and try to suppress our anger with reason. Mastering our anger now means suppressing it. Such a position is similar to that of Martha Nussbaum who argues we should transmute our anger into useful actions. I have some sympathy for such a position. However it might be better if we sought to control our anger rather than simply suppress it. If we merely suppress our anger rather than control it then our anger might suddenly reappear, indeed it is feasible suppressed anger might fester and grow. When we eliminate or suppress our anger we do not experience anger, the same is not true of controlling anger. To control anger we must retain some anger. However we must stop simply being angry and realise we are angry. Once we stop simply being angry and become aware we are angry we can reflect on and monitor our anger. Is our anger justified? Is our anger excessive? Is it useful? I would argue mastering our anger should mean controlling our anger. It seems that my stoic would argue that we should try not to become angry and if we do become angry we should suppress it, Nussbaum would argue that once we have become angry we should transform our anger into useful actions aimed at correcting the injustice which caused it, whilst I would argue that once we have become angry we should control our anger and use it to enable us to carry out useful actions aimed at correcting the injustice. In the above I have considered eliminating, suppressing and controlling anger from a purely theoretical viewpoint, it is possible that empirical research might mean my views should be amended.  My stoic and Nussbaum believe maintaining anger is both counterproductive and wrong, I believe maintaining some limited form of anger is justified because doing so helps in controlling anger.

I now want to argue that we have a further reason to maintain some anger. What sort of signal is an emotion sending? It is sending a signal that something needs attending to. Emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. According to Michael Brady emotions facilitate understanding. They do so by facilitating,

“reassessment through the capture and consumption of attention; emotions enable us to gain a “true and stable” evaluative judgement. (2)

I accept that anger requires that we should reassess the situation. However I would argue anger not only captures our attention but in some circumstances help us to retain our attention, helps us to retain our focus. Let us assume that someone is angry because she has been bypassed for promotion due to sexism. Perhaps if she attends to the circumstances of her being bypassed for promotion she finds that the person selected really was better qualified for the position than her. In this scenario her anger might be judged to be inappropriate and should cease.  However let us assume her anger was justified but her employer tackles the injustice. A stoic would argue all her anger should be abated. It seems to me that by simply suppressing her anger she deprives herself of a useful tool for focusing on the injustice of more general sexism. At My Lai Hugh Thompson’s anger helped him maintain his focus on stopping the massacre. Perhaps if he hadn’t maintained his anger his attention might have wandered and he would have considered the dangers to himself, his future or the damage making the public aware of the massacre would do to the US army. Blind anger is never useful, but it seems plausible that some form of controlled anger might be useful in maintaining our focus on some injustice.

I have argued that anger is a useful emotion when it is controlled. However there are dangers associated with the use of anger. It has been suggested that emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. Alarms are meant to be attended to and switched off. Anger should be attended to and if unjustified should cease. However I have argued that if anger is justified it should be attended to and controlled rather than simply suppressed. Nonetheless if someone simply remains angry and does not reassess her situation on becoming angry then her anger serves no purpose and is damaging. I would suggest there is some mean to anger in much the same way as Aristotle suggested there was a mean to the virtues. Someone might be excessively prone to anger causing her to focus her attention on trivial matters. She might also be very slow to anger and this slowness might deprive her of a better understanding her situation.

 Lastly I want to return to my starting point and consider Kauppinen’s suggestion that rage might be a moral emotion. Kauppinen suggests rage is a negative feeling that is a cousin of anger and hate. He argues rage motivates you to destroy, to get physical, preferably destroying what you see as the obstacle to justice. I have suggested that rage is simply unabated anger. According to the Cambridge Dictionary rage is a period of extreme or violent anger. According to the Oxford Dictionary rage is violent anger, fury, usually manifested in looks, words, or action. It would seem that rage is not a cousin of anger but an uncontrolled form of anger. I am quite happy to agree with Kauppinen that rage might be justified in some circumstances. Rage against apartheid, Trump’s policies and the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre can be justified. However I am not so happy to believe such rage is a useful emotion. I have argued above that anger needs to be abated and controlled it follows that if rage is a form of uncontrolled anger that rage is unproductive. Anger helps someone reassess her situation and take action. If rage is simply uncontrolled anger then whilst rage may be justified it is not a useful emotion. Indeed rage may be counterproductive because the enraged simply rages and fails to reassess her situation.

1. MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM, 2015, Transitional Anger. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, page 53.
2. Michael Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press, page147.

Disgust, the Emotions and Morality

In this posting I want to use disgust to examine the connection between morality and the emotions. Jesse Prinz argues that our emotions determine our moral reactions all by themselves.

“An action has the property of being morally wrong (right) just in the case there is an observer who has a sentiment of disapprobation (approbation) towards it” (1)

Prinz’s position seems to be supported by Isen and Levin’s classic study which showed someone who had just found a dime was more likely to help a passer by (2). In what follows I will accept our emotions are connected to our moral decisions. Prinz argues our emotions determine our moral response and that cognition plays no part in this determination. I will argue that our emotions initiate a moral response. I will also suggest far from validating a moral response that a lack of emotion does so.

Paul Ekman argued there are six universally recognised emotions, anger, fear disgust, joy, sadness and surprise. Not everyone agrees with Ekman’s list but do agree there are basic emotions. Disgust is a basic emotion which evolution evolved to keep us safe. For instance disgust at bodily fluids or rotting food might have protected us against infection. Such disgust has no moral implications. However disgust at certain sexual practices such as homosexuality and incest seem to have moral implications. Carol Hay wonders whether disgust has any-place in moral reasoning. I will now examine how disgust is connected to moral decisions.

Hay in her article uses the example of a pro-life group who display billboard-sized images of aborted foetuses juxtaposed with gory photos of atrocities such as mass graves and lynchings on her university’s campus in a campaign against abortion. It seems to me someone might use disgust in two ways to affect our moral decisions. Firstly someone might point to one thing we find disgusting and then point to another thing we don’t normally feel disgust about and then suggest the two are analogous. This is the tactic of the pro-life group Hay mentions above. This tactic combines reason and disgust. If we find the analogy reasonable then we should accept the person’s position. In the case of abortion I do not find such an analogy convincing. The photos of atrocities, mass graves and lynchings are photographs of persons whilst I would suggest a foetus is just a clump of cells and not yet a person. In other cases people might find such an analogy more persuasive, perhaps this might be true in the case of capital punishment.

Hume famously argued that reason is the slave of the passions and the second way disgust might be used is in a purely non-cognitive way. Perhaps a pro-life group might only display gory images of aborted foetuses hoping simply to use our disgust to enable us to see the wrongness of abortion. Let us accept that our emotions are connected to our moral reactions. Emotions might be connected in two ways. A non-cognitivist such as Prinz would hold that emotions alone decide the way we should act, decide the outcome. She need not deny reason plays some part in our morality but only after a moral decision has been made in a justificatory roles. Someone else might believe that emotions engage us in the need to decide how to act but that they alone do not decide the outcome. In what follows I want to consider the second type of connection that engages us in the need to decide.

According to Michael Brady emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. If Brady is correct then when we feel an emotion concerning something moral the emotion is sending us a signal that something is wrong. This signal gives us a prima facie reason to act but it also gives us a reason to facilitate our understanding of the situation. Emotions do so by allowing us to assess or reassess the situation through capturing and focussing our attention (4). It follows from Brady’s position that emotions might initiate reasoning to better understand our situation rather than merely justify our already made decision.

Jonathan Haidt would disagree and use the idea of moral dumbfounding to support the case that our emotions are purely non-cognitive (4). Haidt presented participants in a research survey with an imaginary scenario in which a brother and sister, Julie and Mark, were travelling together on holiday from college. One night they decided it would be interesting and fun to make love. Julie was on the pill and Mark used a condom for extra safety. Both enjoyed the experience which they never repeated. Haidt then asked the participants whether Julie and Mark did something wrong. Most participants said they did but couldn’t give a coherent reason for this wrong. They were morally dumbfounded. Haidt’s research seems to suggest that our emotions alone determine how we should act morally without the need for cognition except in a justificatory role. His research seems to suggest that Brady’s position which I have adopted above is unsound.

I now want to defend Brady’s position. Firstly we must be clear what the position involves. Basically Brady holds that our emotions give us a provisional non-cognitive reason to act and focus our attention on how we should act. Sometimes we must act quickly and do not have time to attend to how we should act. If the fire alarm goes off we vacate the building without first checking the fire alarm. It follows in some cases, but not all, that our emotions alone can determine how we should act morally in a non-cognitive way. I now want to consider the problems raised By Haidt’s dumbfounding experiment. I would suggest whether an emotion focuses our attention depends not only on the time the available but also on how important we perceive the decision to be. Perhaps for the participants in Haidt’s survey might have considered the decision as unimportant and as a result decided in a non-cognitive way. However for Julie and Mark the decision was very important and perhaps this importance focussed their attention. It seems to me if we have time when making an important decision and we simply accept our emotional reaction and fail to more fully consider our position that we can be accused of cognitive laziness. Indeed if by deciding we constitute ourselves we might be further accused of being lazy people. Lastly the need for justification for non-cognitive decisions suggests we need reasons for our decisions. If reasons have no bearing on our moral decisions why do we seek justificatory reasons? I fully accept that our search for reasons might be biased by our already made decision but what happens if we can’t find any reasons to support our provisional decision based on our emotions? If we are unable to find reasons to justify our position doesn’t the fact we are searching for reasons mean we must re-examine our position? In the light of the above I would suggest that we make moral decisions based solely on our emotions when we have little time to consider further and when the decision is of little importance. In these situations emotions determine our moral response in a non-cognitive way. However if the decision is an important one or we have time to consider it then we should seek unbiased reasons before deciding. Not to do so would be both intellectually and morally lazy. In situations of this sort our emotions give us a reason to facilitate a better understanding of our situation.

Let us assume we have made a decision and we are content with that decision I will now suggest that a lack of emotion validates our decision. If emotions are indeed analogous to alarms then if we are content with our decision there should be no emotion connected to that decision. This would be the position of Frankfurt who argues that satisfaction with a decision entails an absence of restlessness or resistance to that decision, someone may be willing to change her decision but she has no active interest in bringing about a change (5). Lastly in the light of the above let us reconsider disgust. Disgust of bodily fluids and rotting things is automatic and helped us survive in the past. Disgust at aborted foetuses is such an emotion, such survival disgust is not a moral emotion. Disgust at some sexual practices such as homosexuality or incest might the past may have had evolutionary advantages but once again such disgust is not a moral emotion. In an age of overpopulation and contraception disgust at homosexuality or incest offers few evolutionary advantages. It might be such disgust is a moral alarm but the value of the disgust is instrumental, that of an alarm, and is not of direct moral value.

1. Jesse Prinz, 2007, THE EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF MORALS, Oxford University press, page 92.
2. Isen A and Levin P, 1972, The Effect of Feeling Good on Helping; Cookies and Kindness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21
3. Michael Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press
4. Haidt, J. 2001: The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108.
5. Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 103.

Shame and Character

It is sometimes assumed that shame is an unnecessary emotion. In this posting I want to challenge this assumption. I will argue that shame is central to both our character and behaviour. What do we mean by shame? Oxford dictionaries define shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour”. However if we adopt this definition there seems to be no difference between shame and guilt. If someone does something wrong and feels guilty about his actions he may apologise for these actions. Provided his apology is sincere he ought to be forgiven and allowed back into the moral community. It seems harder to apologise for something one is ashamed of. One of the characteristic reactions to shame is to hide our shame rather than apologise for it. The reason for this is I would suggest is that shame is more directly connected to our character rather than our actions. We find easier to apologise for what we have done than to apologise for what we are. Our character is difficult to change. This difficulty leads to shame being seen as an unnecessary emotion for it appears to follow there is no real point in apologising, for who we are, if we cannot change who we are. Shame serves no real purpose.

Let us accept that shame is connected to our character rather than our acts. Nonetheless acts still matter with regard to shame. When I feel ashamed about some act, the act captures my attention but the focus of my attention is on my character from which the act flows. For instance a drunkard may feel guilty about his actions last night. A drunkard may also feel shame about his actions last night. These actions focus his attention on the fact he is a drunkard. This focus can have two sub focuses, one on how others see the drunkard’s character and secondly how the drunkard sees himself. I have previously argued these different sub focuses give rise to Two Types of Shame. Type one shame is someone’s anxiety about social disqualification because of his character. Type two shame is someone’s anxiety about harming the things he cares about or loves. I will consider each type of shame in turn.

I will consider type two shame first. Before proceeding I will briefly consider the nature and the purpose of the emotions. Michael Brady argues emotions are analogous to alarms (1). Emotions draw our attention to things which are wrong. Emotions capture and focus our attention forcing us to reappraise our situation. For instance if I make a snide remark about someone, my guilt captures and focuses my attention on whether my remark was wrong and perhaps makes me reappraise the situation causing me to apologise. However my shame about the remark captures and focuses my attention on the inadequacies of my character from which my snide remark flowed. My shame may force me to reappraise my character. Unfortunately character is hard to change and even if I don’t hide my character from myself I may seek to hide it from others. A somewhat similar approach is taken by Bennett Helm. Helm holds that someone’s pride and shame are a kind of attention, a kind of vigilance, about himself and his identity and that this attention or vigilance is a form of self-love. Helm argues our values are constitutive of us as persons. With regards to values he argues,

“what is at stake in one’s values are oneself and one’s own wellbeing as this person, and because values involve an implicit understanding of the kind of life it is worth one’s living, the felt evaluations constitutive of this pattern …. are emotions like pride and shame.” (2)

It follows even if our shame is something we may feel we have to hide from others that it is nonetheless constitutive of us as persons. It follows shame is an extremely important emotion.

In order to illustrate the importance of type two shame let us try to imagine someone who feels no type two shame whatsoever. It might be thought that such a person is a happy go lucky person who takes life as it comes and as a result leads a naturally authentic life. Let us accept that someone without type two shame is someone without any anxiety about harming the things he cares about or loves. I would suggest such a person would be a selfish person who wantonly disregards both himself and others. It might be objected that it is possible for someone to care about himself and others without any anxiety about harming the things he loves. He simply has a natural caring nature. I am doubtful whether the above is possible. I will now return to a theme which runs through many posts in this blog. If someone ‘cares about’, loves, something then he must identify himself with what he cares about. He makes himself vulnerable to losses and susceptible to benefits depending on whether what he cares about is diminished or enhanced (3). It seems to me that someone cannot make himself vulnerable, with regard to the things he ‘cares about’, without experiencing some anxiety about harming these things. It follows someone who ‘cares about’ or loves anything must be capable of experiencing some shame. It further follows that someone who cannot experience shame would be a selfish inconsiderate person. Additionally I would suggest such a person is in some ways a deficient person. Helm argues that both pride and shame are constitutive to us as persons. If Helm is correct then someone who can feel no shame is an unbalanced, deficient person whose personality is not truly formed, see my discussion of damaging self-love pride and shame.

It has been assumed that shame is an unimportant emotion because it has no practical consequences. It has no practical consequences because we are unable change our character. Let us assume that we are unable change our character. I will now argue even if this assumption is true that nonetheless shame is important. Someone who is aware of his character, due to shame, might decide not to place himself in situations in which his character is challenged. A drunkard might decide to avoid bars. Moreover someone’s awareness of his character might also guide his career choice. Some who feels shame at his cowardice is unlikely to join the army. I will now argue the assumption that we cannot change our character is false. I accept some of our dispositions have a genetic basis which we cannot alter. But part of our character is determined by what we love or ‘care about’. I accept what we love must have some persistence and cannot be arbitrarily changed by some act of will. However persistence is not the same as permanence. What we love or ‘care about’ can change slowly. It follows some parts of our character can change albeit slowly. Shame might help drive such change.

So far I have dealt with type two shame but type one shame is also important, especially in a social context. I now want to use an example to illustrate how type one shame might work in practice. Recall I defined type one shame as is someone’s anxiety about social disqualification because of his character. Jennifer Saul argues that we should use informal methods to combat sexual harassment when more formal means are inappropriate (4); I agree. One way this might be done is by employing shame. Let us assume someone makes an offensive sexual remark about someone else. Let us also assume such a remark is passed off in a joking manner and as such is the remark should not be dealt with by formal means. Should we just ignore such a remark? Saul believes we should not. She suggests one way of doing this might be to withhold our laughter because by doing so we show don’t approve of the remark. However this lack of approval is not the same as disapproving of the remark. I would suggest one way of disapproving the remark is to employ shame. Perhaps we might ask the harasser to repeat his remark; “did you really say that”. In doing so we are implying such a remark is not the sort of remark which would flow from a good character. If he says he was only joking he is being forced to disassociate his remark from his character, he is being compelled to feel some shame. However care is needed. Sexual harassment is a moral concern and it seems appropriate to me to use shame to address moral concerns. The same might not be true of social concerns. For instance should we employ shame in an attempt to encourage the obese to diet, see Two Types of Shame .

Is it possible to extend the idea of shaming beyond persons to other entities? For instance is it possible to shame governments? Could for instance Israel be shamed for its treatment of Gaza? Could corporations such as Amazon and Starbucks be shamed into paying more tax, see BBC, Tax Shaming . If anxiety about something is an essential part of shame then governments and corporations cannot be shamed. Governments and corporations can’t feel anxiety. However the people who run such organisations might feel anxiety about the nature of their organisation. Recall type one shame means someone feels anxiety about social disqualification because of his character. It seems possible that an executive of some large organisation might feel anxiety about the social disqualification of his organisation due to its nature. Such anxiety might be classed as type three shame. I would be somewhat reluctant to take such a step because if we do so the focus of the shame moves from someone’s character to the nature of an organisation.

1. Michael S. Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press.
2. Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship & the Self, Oxford, page 109.
3. Frankfurt, H. (1988) The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge University Press page 83.
4. Jennifer Saul, 2014, Stop Thinking So Much About ‘Sexual Harassment’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31(3)

Revenge and Justice

Anders Herlitz asks whether revenge is an unjust necessity, see practical ethics . In his posting he suggests we have an innate desire to punish wrongdoers. In the light of this suggestion he further suggests that institutionalised punishment plays two distinct roles in our society. Firstly it is a means of justice. Secondly it rids us of innate urges. In this posting I want to consider these innate urges.

Firstly is there anything wrong with our urges to punish, hurt, humiliate and harass wrongdoers? It seems to me in the presence of wrongdoing these strong urges are not only not wrong but necessary to combat the wrongdoing. For instance Hugh Thompson’s anger at the My Lai massacre was both right and necessary to stop the massacre, see Hugh Thompson . Why then are these strong urges harmful in some situations? I am attracted to Michael Brady’s ideas on emotions (1). Brady argues that emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. Emotions draw our attention to the things that are important to us. They do this in two ways. Firstly emotions capture our attention and secondly point it in a certain direction. Alarms are calls for action. Hugh Thompson’s anger prompted him to act to stop the massacre; prompted him to act justly. Unanswered alarms are annoying and unanswered emotions, emotions that don’t lead to action, are harmful. It follows if we don’t act in response to our natural urges to punish, hurt, humiliate and harass wrongdoers that we are further harmed.

Herlitz suggests one function of punishment is to rid ourselves of these harmful emotions. However it might be objected that we could lose these emotions in a different way, we might forgive wrongdoers. What does it mean to forgive? I would suggest forgiveness is neither simply forgetting nor should we forgive unconditionally. We forget some wrong when we go to sleep but this forgetting is certainly not forgiving. Let us accept society depends on trust and that without trust no sort of meaningful society is possible. I would suggest that if we forgive wrongdoers unconditionally that we pay scant respect to that trust. It follows if we are to forgive a wrongdoer certain conditions must be met.

What are the conditions which must be met if someone is to forgive some wrongdoer for the harm he has inflicted on a victim? I would suggest the wrongdoer must first undertake the following actions based on Charles Griswold (2).

1. He must admit he was responsible for the action
2. He must admit the deed was wrong.
3. He must express regret, feeling regret is inadequate.
4. He must commit to becoming a better person.
5. He must listen to and understand the victim’s point of view.
6. He must be able to offer some sort of narrative as to why he did what he did.

If the wrongdoer undertakes these actions then the victim should respond by,

1. Forswearing revenge.
2. Moderating or eliminating his resentment.
3. Express his forgiveness to the wrongdoer.

Let us assume that some offence takes and the victim forgives the wrongdoer as outlined above. It seems probable that this forgiveness will usually moderate the victim’s urges to hurt, humiliate and harass the wrongdoer. I believe forgiveness can be best achieved by restorative justice, see Restorative Justice Council. I further believe the domain of restorative justice should be expanded.

However forgiveness does not punish the wrongdoer; does not alleviate all our innate desires. The question now arises should we punish those offenders who take part in restorative justice and pose no threat of re-offending?  Punishing such offenders would address our natural urge for revenge, but should we try to move on from this urge? I will now argue, admittedly somewhat tentatively, that we should not. Let us accept that forgiveness without apology is impossible. Apologising for some wrong she committed forces an offender to split from her former self to some degree. Such splitting is harmful in the short term. It might be objected that in the long term such splitting is beneficial. In response I will simply point out that in the long term a prison sentence might benefit an offender but that it is still a form of punishment. It follows that for any wrongdoing for which an apology is justified that some minimal form of punishment must also be justified. In some cases this minimal punishment might prove to be adequate. However in other cases greater punishment might well be justified. If adequate punishment is regarded as a form of revenge then some revenge is not an unjust necessity.

1.      Michael Brady, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press, 2013.

2.      Charles Griswold, Forgiveness, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Gratitude and the Emotions

Recent research has shown that wisdom and gratitude go hand in hand suggesting it makes sense to be grateful, see is it wise to be grateful? Research also shows that gratitude appears to increase someone’s happiness, see for instance how to increase positive emotions . In the light of the above it would appear we have reason to cultivate a disposition to be grateful. Unfortunately cultivating this disposition might not be easy. In previous postings I have argued it is beneficial to us to love. However if someone simply seeks to love, for the benefits love confers on him, then he isn’t really loving at all. A similar state of affairs would seem to pertain to gratitude. If someone attempts to be grateful in order to in order to boost his happiness he isn’t being grateful. For instance if he receives a present and expresses his thanks merely to boost his happiness or intelligence then he is not really being grateful he’s simply attempting to boost his happiness or intelligence. In this posting in the light of the above worry I want to examine if it is even possible in practice to increase our disposition to be grateful and in doing so examine our emotions in general.

Before I commence my examination I must make it clear what I mean by gratitude. Being grateful can have several meanings. Among these meanings it can for instance mean, acting virtuously, experiencing a certain kind of emotion or simply having good manners. Let us consider whether a well mannered person is a grateful person. Such a person is likely to be thankful for things that benefit him. He certainly expresses his gratitude but his expressions of gratitude do not mean he feels gratitude. He may have been taught his good manners from an early age and these have become purely automatic. When expressing his thanks for some benefit he may feel no positive emotion. Christine Korsgaard likens such a person to a good dog whose desires and inclinations have been trained to perfection (1). It seems clear that good manners or mere expressions of gratitude expressed in isolation are only a small part of gratitude; gratitude shorn of its essence. Intuitively to be grateful someone must feel grateful and this feeling must include some positive emotion.

However gratitude is not simply just some positive emotion. After all someone can feel a positive emotion contemplating the supper he’s cooked for himself. Gratitude is a positive emotion framed by a particular set of circumstances. Let us assume X feels grateful to Y and consider the circumstances which validate her positive emotion. Firstly Y must have done or given something to X which seems good to her. This something could be help in solving a problem, giving good advice or perhaps a present. Secondly Y must have sought to benefit X by giving her something. For instance even if Y passes on an unwanted gift as a present when this present benefits X and is intended to benefit X then this present might still possibly provide a reason for X to be grateful. Thirdly Y’s actions must have gone beyond the call of duty and self interest. Giving someone a gift simply because conventions demand it or the giving of a gift in hope of a return of the favour should not be a cause for gratitude. It follows the giving of an unwanted gift as a present when this present benefits X and is intended to benefit X merely to get rid of the gift would not be a reason for X to be grateful. Of course good manners may require the expression of gratitude but as I have suggested above this expression is only a small part of gratitude. Basically I would suggest that gratitude is connected to the recognition of the love of someone else and reaction to this love, provided we regard love as simply ‘caring about’.

Let us accept that an essential element of gratitude has to be the feeling of some positive emotion in the circumstances outlined above. Let us also accept that a grateful person is one who has a disposition to feel this emotion framed by the circumstances outlined above. The answer to the question as to whether someone can increase his disposition for gratitude seems dependent on the nature of emotion. Some philosophers such as Jesse Prinz (2) argue an emotion is simply a bodily sensation reliably caused by a set of circumstances. Fear for instance might be an unpleasant bodily sensation caused by the approach of a mugger. Gratitude might then be seen simply as a pleasant bodily sensation caused by someone benefiting us for beneficent reasons and these reasons go beyond the requirements of duty. If we accept such a definition of the nature of the emotions it is hard to see what someone could do to increase his disposition to feel any particular emotion including gratitude.

However I am attracted to a different concept of an emotion as developed by Michael Brady (2). I will very briefly outline Brady’s concept. Brady argues that emotions are somewhat analogous to fire alarms. Emotions draw our attention to the things that are important to us. This is done in two ways. Firstly emotions capture our attention and point it in a certain direction. This capture means the attention we pay to other things diminishes. For instance, if I hear a noise downstairs in the dark at night when I’m going to sleep this noise will make me anxious and capture my attention making my dreamy contemplation of a pleasant day vanish. Secondly emotions have some persistence or as Brady puts it consume our attention. For instance whilst I lie in bed listening for further noises I start thinking whether my anxiety is justified and what could explain the noise. In this case my anxiety might be increased or diminished by further thought or information. Perhaps my wife calls out she is home and my anxiety vanishes as I remember she was going out tonight. Perhaps I hear a breaking sound and this sound increases my fear and further focuses my attention. How might Brady’s ideas work when I experience a feeling of gratitude? If I feel the emotion of gratitude this emotion consumes my attention making me consider the reasons why I’m grateful. Accepting the above explains why very young children are not truly grateful, they have not yet fully acquired the abilities needed to consider the reasons for their gratitude. Accepting the above would also suggest that my initial worry that we cannot increase our disposition to be grateful is unfounded. For if Brady is correct and we give serious consideration to the reasons as to why we are grateful then we should be able to increase our disposition to be grateful. If when I feel the emotion connected to gratitude and I reflect on how someone has gone beyond the call of duty to benefit me then this reflection is likely to increase my disposition to reflect in a similar manner in a similar situation.

Unfortunately the situation appears not to be as simple as I have painted it above. Let us accept that negative emotions do cause us to focus our attention more selectively. However this might not be true of positive emotions. Many positive emotions appear to give us a broad feel good factor with a broad focus of attention; see for instance positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection . Gratitude is a positive emotion. It might then be argued because the feeling of gratitude is a positive emotion that any reflections caused by gratitude are unlikely to narrowly focus on our reasons to be grateful and hence are unlikely to increase someone’s disposition to feel gratitude. Brady suggests that the way in which attention is connected to emotion is complex. He further suggests that there is attention which is constitutive of the emotion involved and attention which focuses on the consequences of that emotion. He then goes on to suggest that the broad focus of positive emotions only involves consequential attention (4). If this is so then the attention that is constitutive of positive emotions need not differ from that of negative ones. I have some doubts about Brady’s suggestions for it seems to me evolution may well have evolved us to pay more attention to some emotions than others. For instance if one of our ancestors saw a lion approaching her this would grab her attention much more than any shame she felt at wandering off and not helping with childcare. In general it seems to me that primitive negative emotions are much more likely to capture and consume our attention than positive or social emotions. Moreover I am not sure we can constitutive attention and consequential attention. Nonetheless even if I am correct this does not mean we pay no attention to the reasons for positive or social emotions. We pay such attention, just a little less urgently. It follows we can still cultivate a disposition to feel gratitude. Tiberius suggests that if we wish to live well we should cultivate a disposition to change our reflective perspective from a broad one to narrow one (5). Such a disposition might aid us to become more attentive to the positive emotions such as gratitude.

1.  Christine Korsgaard, 2009, Self-Constitution, Oxford University Press, page 3.
2.  Jesse Prinz, 2007, THE EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF MORALS, Oxford University Press
3.  Michael Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press.
4.  Brady, page 181.  
5. Valerie Tiberius, 2008, The Reflective Life, Oxford University Press, Chapter 4.

Why love is not just a disposition to feel empathy

In my last two postings I have argued the love of inanimate objects may not be same as the love of persons and that loving someone might simply be a disposition to feel empathy for beloved. However I will now present two examples which appear contradict my previous view. My first example is of a mother’s love of her baby and my second is self-love. I will firstly consider a mother’s love and attempt to show this love is incompatible with love being regarded as a disposition to feel empathy and I will then repeat the exercise with self-love.

Empathy is defined by the Cambridge Online Dictionary as follows; empathy is the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation. Let it be assumed that loving someone simply means having a disposition to feel empathy for her. It follows if a mother loves her baby she is able to share her baby’s feelings or experiences. I accept a mother may share her child’s feelings or experiences but it seems inconceivable to me that a mother could share her baby’s feelings or experiences. A baby’s experiences just aren’t available to others. Moreover it would seem to be impossible for a mother to share her baby’s feelings by imagining what it would be like to be a baby. She might of course be able to imagine what it would be like for her to be a baby but this is by no means the same thing as imagining what it is like to be a baby. It follows if we accept the premise that love is simply a disposition to feel empathy it follows that mothers are unable to love their babies. Mothers clearly do love their babies. It follows the above conclusion is false and we must reject the premise it is based on.

Are there any counter arguments which would enable us to accept the above premise and also accept that mothers love their babies? If empathy is defined as above it seems to me the answer is clearly no. However let us consider a real case in order to clarify our concept of empathy. In 2007 the Washington Post reported that a colonel in the US army called off a test using a land mine sweeping robot because it continued sweeping after losing several of its legs. The colonel declared the test was inhumane. What might be the reasons behind the colonel’s decision? His decision was clearly not based on pure rationality. It follows the colonel’s decision was at least in part emotionally based. People have a tendency to anthropomorphise in such situations. It seems likely this was happening in this case, the colonel was treating the robot as if it was something like a human being. It further seems to me the colonel was doing so because he attributed feelings or emotions to the robot. The colonel felt sympathy for the robot. I believe feeling sympathy is connected to some degree with feeling empathy. Sympathy is defined by the Cambridge Online Dictionary as; an expression of understanding and care for someone else's suffering. It seems to me one cannot possibly understand someone else’s suffering unless one has some ability to share that person’s feelings or experiences. Admittedly this sharing does not need to be very precise. For instance a child may share a sense of unease with his mother who has lost her partner. The mother feels uneasy but it would be more accurate to say she feels grief. I believe for sympathy to take place between persons there must be some basic sharing of feelings, or at the very least moods, between the persons involved. I believe understanding how someone feels must involve emotion. I cannot use pure logic to understand someone’s grief. Moreover the emotion involved must be an appropriate emotion. It makes no sense to say I understand someone’s grief if the only emotion I feel is happiness. Accepting the above means sympathy of necessity involves some basic form of empathy. Accepting the above also means the colonel felt some basic or primitive form of empathy for the robot. Clearly this scenario is nonsensical. However it might be suggested this difficultly might be overcome if a primitive form of empathy was defined as the ability to experience what you believe to be someone or something else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation. It might then be argued that whilst a mother cannot feel full blown empathy for her baby she may nonetheless feel some primitive form of empathy based on what she believes her baby feels. And her disposition to feel this primitive empathy can form a basis of her love for her baby.

The question I now wish to address is whether the primitive form of empathy defined above really is a form of empathy? Does this primitive form of empathy even exist? It seems clear to me the concept of empathy can be stretched and that the feeling of empathy is to some extent a matter of degree. For instance I may have the ability to share some of someone else's feelings or experiences but not others. This is probably particularly true of the sharing of some feelings and experiences between men and women. However is describing, the ability to experience what you believe to be someone or something else's feelings or experiences as empathy, stretching the concept of empathy too far? Let it be accepted that the feeling of empathy depends on our ability to experience emotions as well as place ourselves in someone else’s situation. The connection between the emotion and the situation cannot be purely arbitrary. I believe empathy should not be regarded as the feeling of any emotion but the feeling of an appropriate emotion. The feeling of a shared emotion is an appropriate emotion. It follows the feeling of a believed shared emotion is not an appropriate emotion and for this reason, the ability to share what you believe to be someone or something else's feelings or experiences, is not a genuine form of empathy. Let us accept that mothers do love their babies. Let us also accept that mothers cannot feel or have a disposition to feel empathy for their babies. It follows that loving someone cannot simply be a disposition to feel empathy for the beloved.

It might be pointed out in response to the above that loving friends, partners and children differs from loving babies. It might then be suggested that loving someone other than babies means loving persons. Young babies might be regarded as human beings and potential persons rather than actual persons. It might then be further suggested that loving a person simply means having a disposition to feel empathy for her. Accepting these suggestions would not mean we don’t love babies, for clearly we do, but rather that we love babies in a different way to the way we love persons. I would be reluctant to accept to this suggestion. For they imply either we love babies in the same way as we love cities, landscapes or a particular piece of music. Or that we love babies in a completely different way to the way we love both inanimate things and the way we love persons.

My second example of why it is hard to accept that loving, someone is simply a disposition to feel empathy, is connected to self-love. Let it be accepted that I cannot feel empathy for myself. It follows if loving someone simply means having a disposition to feel empathy for that person that self-love is impossible. Intuitively we can love ourselves. If our intuitions are correct we must reject the premise that loving someone simply means having a disposition to feel empathy for her.

Let it be accepted the two examples I have used show that I was wrong to argue that loving someone might simply be a disposition to feel empathy for the beloved in a previous posting. However the idea of self-love is interesting and I now wish to examine self-love further in order to try and better understand the nature of love. Some people believe that the self-love is not at all bad even if it runs counter to accepted morality. They might use Nietzsche to justify this belief. However I would argue such a belief is based on a false view about the nature of love. This false view seems to connect loving purely with satisfying our desires. Nietzsche would have approved of the strong satisfying their desires. However let us consider a mother who desires chips, cocaine, cigarettes and large quantities of alcohol. Let it be assumed she neglects her child and indulges in all of the above. If loving one-self is purely a matter of satisfying one’s desires then clearly this mother loves herself. It might be objected my example only shows that self-love based on the rather basic desires, I introduced in my example, is not genuine self-love. My objector might then be suggest that the satisfaction of noble desires is a form of self-love. Once again Nietzsche might well have approved of this objection seeing the desire for power rather than gluttony as a form of self-love. My reply to this objection is simple. I do not deny love can be connected to our desires. Indeed I believe love must be connected to our desires. I do however believe love cannot be only connected to our desires. If love can be based on noble but not base desires then there must be some way, of differentiating between noble and base desires. Furthermore any way of differentiating between noble and base desires cannot itself be a desire. Returning to my example I would suggest that the mother in question not only neglects her child but that she also neglects herself. I would further argue anyone who neglects herself does not genuinely love herself. My reason being I believe loving is linked to caring about and it follows loving oneself involves caring about oneself.

I accept Harry Frankfurt is correct when he states that love is a form of ‘caring about’ and that love concerns the will rather than being a simple emotion. Love has persistence and desires and emotions however noble need not. This persistence was the main reason for my suggestion that love might be defined as a disposition to feel an emotion. It in order to better understand the nature of love we must understand the nature of caring about. What then does caring about consist of? Frankfurt argues a lover is benefited when her beloved flourishes and this means accepting the interests of her beloved as her own (1). Let it be accepted ‘caring about’ ourselves is the same as ‘caring about’ others. It follows if we ‘care about’ ourselves we must be concerned with our flourishing and our interests.

Let us accept that if I love someone that I must be concerned with my beloved’s flourishing and furthering her interests. It seems to me this concern must contain two important elements. Firstly this concern cannot be a passive concern but must involve action. If my beloved needs help and I fail to help for no good reason then it must be questioned whether my love is genuine. Secondly this concern must involve some reflection. If I am genuinely concerned with someone’s flourishing and interests I must concerned with how my actions will promote this flourishing and these interests. It follows loving defined as ‘caring about’ someone must involve our cognitive powers. Accepting that love involves cognition does not of course imply that love does not also involve the emotions. Personally I would argue love must involve the emotions. I pointed out in my posting ‘love revisited’ some philosophers would argue emotions are intentional and as a result must have a cognitive element. If this is correct then love might be regarded as an emotion which includes a cognitive element. However I myself am doubtful as to whether emotions contain a cognitive element. Emotions might of course act as alarms calling for reflection by our cognitive elements, see Brady (2). Our emotions might alert us to consider the needs of our beloved. It seems to me that any meaningful actions, including loving ones, must depend on both a cognitive and affective element for without any affective element we have no reason to act.

I have argued loving someone must include a reflective element. This conclusion seems at odds with some parts of Frankfurt’s concept of love. Frankfurt argues a lover,

“is not free. On the contrary, he is in the very nature of the case captivated by his beloved and his love. The will of the lover is rigorously constrained. Love is not a matter of choice. (3)

Clearly reflection serves no useful purpose if someone’s will is rigorously constrained. Am I wrong to argue love involves reflection or is it possible to reconcile these two views? Frankfurt’s defines loving in terms of what a lover cares about. He also defines autonomous decisions as decisions the agent cares about. Cuypers believes Frankfurt’s concept of autonomy and hence his concept of love is a hybrid concept. He believes this hybrid as a combination of voluntaristic and non-voluntaristic components. He argues that the harmonious agreement between a person’s second-order volitions and his first order desires defines the voluntaristic component. He then further argues that the non-voluntaristic component consists of what the agent cares about (2). I have some sympathy for Cuypers view. However I believe these two views might be better reconciled by differentiating between the way someone loves a beloved and comes to love a beloved.

I believe the way we love someone involves reflection. We must consider the interests of our beloved. The way we come to love someone might not. The way we come to love someone is constrained. It seems ridiculous to me to say I choose to love Jennifer, Newcastle United or philosophy. Do the emotions play any part in the way I come to love someone? Frankfurt would argue not. According to him the emotions have no persistence whilst love does. Indeed it might argued that he believes what defines coming to love someone is a lack of emotion. A lover might be defined as a satisfied person, perhaps willing to change her beloved, but also one who has no active interest in bringing about such a change. Intuitively however coming to love someone does involve emotion. If I come to some love someone I identify with her and as a result I become vulnerable to any harm that befalls her and become distressed as a result. It might be suggested coming to love someone means coming to have a disposition to feel empathy for her. However my example of the love between a mother and her baby seems to make this concept of coming to love difficult to accept. For this reason it might be suggested that coming to love someone simply means coming to be pleased when she is pleased and distressed when she is distressed. It might be objected that accepting this suggestion seems to conflate coming to love and actual loving. In response I would argue that someone cannot come to love someone without actually loving her. Loving someone of necessity must involve some emotion, if I love someone and she becomes distressed I must also become distressed. It follows coming to love does involve the emotions.

However I can feel distress for a lot of people I hardly know. For instance I may feel distress at seeing the distress of famine victims on TV, victims I don’t really know. It follows if my suggestion is accepted that I love these famine victims. It might then be pointed out this love seems counter to our intuitions of love. I am however prepared to argue that I do in fact love these victims to some degree. The degree to which I love my wife, children, friends and neighbours varies greatly. I see no reason why I should not feel at least some slight degree love for these famine victims. Indeed it might be a natural default position for most people to feel some degree of love for others. Optimistically considering the last century one of the defining characteristics of persons might be a natural tendency to love. People lacking this tendency such as sociopaths might be seen as damaged persons.

There is one final question I wish to address in this posting; does coming to love come to involve our rational faculties in any way? Clearly we may choose who we wish to marry but not who we love. Prima facie if it is accepted that our love is constrained it might be concluded our rational faculties play no part in our coming to love. I will argue such a prima facie conclusion is unjustified. What is meant by our will being constrained when we come to love? It certainly doesn’t mean our will is constrained by others. It means we cannot choose whom we come to love, our will is constrained by forces which are part of us, we like Luther can do no other. However these constraining forces are our constraining forces and hence our will seem likely to shaped by our perceptions of the world. These perceptions include our beliefs. Our rational faculties shape these beliefs. My perceptions of a situation surely partly determine the emotions I feel as I pointed in my posting love revisited. In this posting I pointed out if I am fearful, because I perceive a tiger approaching me, my perception is the cause of my fear. Moreover part of my perception must include the concept that tigers are dangerous. It might now be argued our perception of someone, which includes cognitive elements, frames our coming to love that person and reason indirectly affects our choice of a beloved.

1.  Harry Frankfurt, 2006,Taking Ourselves Seriously, Stanford University Press, page 41.
2. Michael Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press.
3. Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity Volition and Love, Cambridge University Press, page 135.
4. Stefaan Cuypers, 2000, In Defence of Hierarchy, , Canadian Journal of Philosophy 30(2).

The Pharmacological Induction of Emotions

This posting is based on a paper by David Wasserman and Mathew Liao (1). In this paper they question whether the pharmacological induction of the emotions can satisfy reasonable conditions for authenticity. They conclude an induced emotion might well satisfy these conditions. I will argue what is important when considering an induced emotion is not simply whether the emotion is an authentic one but rather the ways in which an emotion might be induced. I will further argue we have no reason to reject some induced emotions which I would class as inauthentic.

Prior to setting out my arguments I first must briefly consider the intuitive meanings of authentic. Firstly we might intuitively say a person is simply authentic provided he is not a wanton. A wanton has no true self and bases his life on whims or the wishes. However this definition of an authentic person is no help in deciding whether an emotion is authentic or inauthentic. Secondly we might intuitively also say an action or an emotion is authentic if it accords, in some way, with the agent’s inner self. I would define someone’s inner self by the things he loves. Frankfurt would define the things someone loves by what he cares about.

“A person who cares about something is, as it were invested in it. He identifies himself with what he cares about in the sense that he makes himself vulnerable to losses and susceptible to benefits depending upon whether what he cares about is diminished or enhanced.”(2)

Let us assume for now that an authentic emotion is one that accords with the things an agent cares about. It follows if we are investigate authentic emotions that we must be clear about the nature of the accordance between someone’s inner self and his authentic emotions if term authentic be useful.

Someone’s actions may be classed as authentic or inauthentic. I have suggested above that intuitively if someone is authentic then he leads his life in accordance with his own inner self. An authentic action might be defined as an action that accords with the agent’s inner self. It seems natural to define an action as according with someone’s inner self if it furthers the ends of his inner self. If this natural definition of accordance is accepted then an authentic action is simply one that furthers the ends of an agent’s inner self. It also seems natural to extend this definition of an authentic action to an authentic emotion. Let us accept our emotions are not just things we experience but reasons for action. This view holds that an emotion is not simply a physical feeling but combination of feelings behaviour and cognitions and is supported by Wasserman and Liao (3). A similar view is held by Michael Brady who argues emotions are analogous to alarms readying us for action (4). An authentic emotion might then be defined as an emotion that furthers the ends of the agent’s inner self.

Let us examine the above definition of an authentic emotion by the use of two examples. Firstly Wasserman and Liao use grief as an example of an emotion that it might not be wrong to induce pharmacologically. Let it be assumed it is possible to induce grief pharmacologically by taking a pill. Let it be further assumed someone does not feel genuine grief at the loss of a family member. However he may be aware society believes it right to grieve at the loss of a close family member. Such a person may care about what society cares about and thinks it right to take a pill to induce grief. In this case using the above definition of an authentic emotion this pharmacologically induced grief might be classed as not inauthentic and there seems to be no reason as to why it should not be induced. However not all authentic emotions using the above definition should be induced. Let us move from considering grief to considering love. Let it be assumed someone lusts after another but fails to love the other. Let it be further assumed he is unable to satisfy his lust because his beloved perceives this lack of love. Let it be still further assumed it is possible to pharmacologically induce love by taking a pill. Lastly let it be assumed this lustful person takes this pill in order to induce love so he can satisfy his lust. This pharmacologically induced love would be an authentic emotion according to the above definition, because it furthers the ends of the lustful lover. However the object of the lustful lover’s lust would not regard his emotion as authentic if she was aware his love was pharmacologically induced. Moreover it would seem wrong to induce love in these circumstances. It follows using my definition of authentic that not all authentic emotions should be induced.

Perhaps someone’s inner self or true self is an illusion. If this is true then there is no need to consider questions of authenticity. I would be reluctant to accept this position. Perhaps our inner self or true self is a purely cognitive construction. Once again there would be no need to consider questions of authenticity. And once again I would be reluctant to accept this position. I have suggested above that we are defined by what we care about. I will now argue we are not defined by all the things we care about. We are defined by those things which we care about and are either proud or would be ashamed of. Someone’s true self need not actually involve feeling shame but must include a disposition to feel shame in certain circumstance. Additionally I have suggested that actions which make someone proud are actions he can defend even if sometimes his defence can sometimes only be mounted retrospectively. Similarly someone must be able to give some reason for his shame, see true selves do they exist. Accepting this definition would mean someone’s true or inner self might include elements of which he is ashamed. Some of his actions might be authentic actions but would nonetheless be actions of which he is ashamed. Adopting this definition would mean someone’s true or inner self concurs better with third party assessments. For instance in my example of the lustful enhanced lover his love might be authentic but it is love he should be ashamed of, his beloved might concur.

How then are emotions linked to someone’s true self as defined above? It might be objected that there is no connection. Someone can have emotions but can’t have emotions about emotions. In reply I would point out pride and shame are meta-emotions. Schadenfreude is pleasure at another’s discomfort is surely an emotion one should feel some shame about. In addition if our lustful lover enhances his love to mislead his beloved then surely he should feel some shame at his tainted love. Let us divide emotions into two types. Firstly emotions we feel no pride or shame about are inauthentic emotions. Secondly emotions we feel some pride or shame about, even if only slightly, are authentic emotions. It might be objected that emotions we feel shameful about feeling, such as schadenfreude, are inauthentic emotions rather than authentic emotions. In response I would point out if we have a disposition to take pleasure at another’s discomfort that this is part of our essential character, even if we wish it wasn’t, and as such is an authentic disposition to feel a particular emotion. Most of us have some incompatible elements in our character and part of being a person is being able to come to care about some things rather than others (5). We want to eat cream cakes and remain thin.

Let us first consider emotions that are inauthentic, emotions that someone feels no pride or shame about. Let us accept that at some future date it is possible to induce love or compassion perhaps by the use of oxytocin. It seems clear that sociopaths lack compassion. Love and compassion are not connected to a sociopath’s true self. Let it be assumed some sociopath is given pharmacologically induced compassion. This induced emotion would be an inauthentic emotion at the time of its induction using the above definition because a sociopath feels no shame at his lack of compassion. However this induced emotion might be regarded as a moral enhancement that appears to benefit both society and the individual concerned. Provided of course the sociopath continues to take his drugs. It therefore seems possible to conclude that some induced emotions which are inauthentic, when they are induced, should be encouraged. Accepting this conclusion does not of course mean that all induced emotions which are inauthentic, when induced, should be encouraged. Consider again the lustful lover. Clearly his induced love should not be encouraged. Let it also be accepted that there some are harmful emotions such as spite and envy should never be induced in anyone. However there are some usually beneficial emotions for which there seems to be no reason, based solely on the nature of emotion, as to why they should not be pharmacologically induced. I suggest that we should permit the pharmacological induction of beneficial emotions which are inauthentic as defined above provided their induction is not intended to deceive. One way of safeguarding against these induced emotions deceiving would be to make the induction public knowledge.

It might be argued my safeguard is unnecessary because an inauthentic pharmacologically induced emotion might become an authentic one over time. Consider again the lustful lover whose love is clearly inauthentic when induced. It might argued, provided this lover persists in taking the drugs that induce his love, that his inauthentic love at the time it was induced becomes authentic love after a period of time. In reply I would suggest a beneficial induced emotion only becomes authentic provided the agent starts to take pride in feeling the emotion; time is irrelevant. I would further suggest authenticity is also irrelevant, all that matters is that the induced emotion is beneficial and does not deceive; my safeguard should help prevent deception.

Lastly I want to consider authentic emotions. These emotions cause the agent to feel some pride or shame. Such emotions cannot be induced but one or more of them might be enhanced. Enhancement might alter the balance between these emotions causing a shift in someone’s true self. It might be argued such a shift causes a change in authenticity, in his character. Is such a shift harmful? People try to change their character and stop doing or feeling the things they are ashamed of. Changing one’s character is hard and most people’s attempts are unsuccessful. I see no reasons why someone’s autonomous decision, driven by his authentic shame, shouldn’t be assisted by pharmacological means. However such enhancement carries dangers. Let us consider a homosexual man. Perhaps he feels shame at his homosexuality and perhaps some sort of emotional enhancement might curtail his desire for other men. Let us accept that homosexuality has some genetic basis it follows any change in sexual orientation is contrary to his nature. In order to safeguard against such dangers we need to be sure such decisions are autonomous and that the shame that drives them is authentic and not induced by others.

1. David Wasserman, Mathew Liao, Issues in the Pharmacological Inductions of Emotions, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25(3)
2. Harry Frankfurt, 1988, The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge University Press, page 83.
3. Wasserman and Liao, page 17.
4.  Michael S. Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press.
5. Bennett Helm, 2010, Love, Friendship & the Self, Oxford.
6.  Frankfurt, 1988, page 91