Cosmopolitan anger and shame

ABSTRACT

Sentimental cosmopolitans argue that cultivating empathy for distant others is necessary in order to motivate action to address global injustices. This paper accepts the basic premises of the sentimental cosmopolitan project but argues that it ought to be extended to include cultivating other cosmopolitan emotions, particularly anger and shame. There is a tendency to think of anger and shame as unworthy, or as base motives to be overcome; but I argue that, in fact, they constitute an important resource for motivating action to address global injustices. The argument proceeds in three parts. Section 1 outlines sentimental cosmopolitanism and explicates the relationship between empathy, and anger and shame. Section 2 examines the link between anger and shame and responsibility, arguing that anger and shame are well-suited to capturing notions of responsibility for injustice, something lacking in an empathy-based account of sentimental cosmopolitanism. Section 3 provides two further arguments in favour of anger and shame: (i) anger represents a powerful source of energy for political action, and (ii) shame can motivate cosmopolitan action where empathy is absent.     

THE MORAL LEGACY OF COMMUNAL WRONGS: ETHNIC IDENTITY GROUPS AND INTERGENERATIONAL MORAL SENTIMENT

Abstract: Many individuals experience feelings of collective guilt or shame for the blameworthy historical acts of the nations or ethnic groups to which they belong. I reject the idea that collective moral sentiment rests on inherited moral responsibility. I suggest that the possibilities for individual action inherent in membership in ethnic identity groups can be a source of special moral duties. I argue that collective guilt and shame are moral emotions that individuals experience in response to complex assessments of their groups' histories and of their own practical responses to those histories. The approach I take to analyzing the concept of an ethnic identity group makes use of tools developed by Max Weber. Weber's conceptual work on social groups and related phenomena has been strongly criticized in a widely discussed book by Margaret Gilbert. I show that Gilbert's arguments fail to discredit Weberian analyses of social groups and their properties.     

Please accept my sincere and humble apologies: The HEXACO model of personality and the proclivity to apologize

We investigated the links of the HEXACO personality factors and facets with the proclivity to apologize for transgressions, using self- and observer-reports of personality in two adult samples. The proclivity to apologize showed its strongest correlations with the honesty–humility factor, whether evaluated by the self or a knowledgeable observer. Agreeableness was a positive correlate of the proclivity to apologize in one sample only. In both samples, self-reported conscientiousness was positively associated with a proclivity to apologize. We also obtained self-reports on the guilt and shame proneness scales, given the strong conceptual link between guilt and apology. The proclivity to apologize was associated positively with facets of guilt (especially Negative Behavior Evaluation) but negatively with one facet of Shame (Withdrawal).     

Sartre and Fanon: The Phenomenological Problem of Shame and the Experience of Race

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that existing accounts of shame are incomplete in so far as they don’t take account of the problem of shame. This is the problem concerning the possibility of a primary experience of shame. It is the problem Sartre considers under the terms of a “primitive shame” or shame “in its primary structure” that grounds other more complex experiences of shame. This problem is centred on the tension between shame as an immediate, pre-reflective experience and the requirement that shame must involve an awareness of some definitive aspect of the self. I’m going to suggest, correlatively, how by trying to resolve this problem we end up with a more nuanced understanding of shame. In the second part of the paper, I go on to look at how this new interpretation of shame helps us understand race. Looking at Fanon, I explore how a fundamental and overlooked ineffability in our relation to others impacts upon responses to racialized shame.     

Lingering guilt and shame: Emotional burdens upon those who intended but failed to apologize

ABSTRACT

Prior research has shown that greater willingness to apologize for an offense is prompted by greater guilt but lesser shame. Yet little work examined whether apologies indeed resolve moral emotions. This study investigated how the absence of apology psychologically affects harm-doers when they recall a past offense. Undergraduates (N = 284) were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions wherein they recalled a past incident in which they hurt, offended, angered, or had some other negative effect on another person. Harm-doers who intended but failed to apologize reported greater PFQ-2 state guilt and shame, compared to others who refused to apologize or whose apologies were rejected. However, similar results were not found for ESS state shame. Results suggest that failing to apologize may impede transgressors from relieving moral emotional burdens, but only for those who intended to apologize.     

Alleviating love’s rage: Hegel on shame and sexual recognition

ABSTRACT

The paper reconstructs Hegel’s account of shame as a fundamental (‘existential’) affect. Qua spiritual, the human individual strives for self-determination; hence she is ashamed of the fact that, qua bodily or natural, she is weak, vulnerable, and needy – namely, externally determined. Hegel approves of two typical responses to shame: (1) Reduction – the individual struggles for honour in civil society by disciplining her activity, including hiding potentially shameful features from others. Here, shame is reduced but remains a psychological burden. (2) Within marriage, however, shame is alleviated – the individual reveals shameful features to her lover and is recognized as a bodily, needy and vulnerable creature. I discuss two modes in which such recognition is manifested. First, since love is an ‘immediate unity’ – rather than governed by a rigid normative code – the spouses are implicated in each other’s failures, and, moreover, can creatively modify the significance of features, expressing their ‘infinite uniqueness’ by conferring positive value on what counts (in civil society) as shameful. The second mode is sexual intimacy: lovers affirm each other’s bodies by bodily, habituated – and therefore trustworthy – means.     

Telling the Truth About Power

SUMMARY

In this culture, those in power do not usually talk about it and the rest of us tend not to recognize it either. A similar situation exists in therapy, where the therapist herself may not be aware of her own power-over tactics. This article suggests methods that may help therapists to acknowledge their power and also to change from power-over actions to mutually empowering relationships. From this line of thinking, there follows an exploration of altering the concept of boundaries in therapy into mutually constructed agreements between patient and therapist. This article was presented at the Summer Training Institute of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute, June, 2003.