Comments on: Truly Truly Truly Outrageous

By: Julien

Julien — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:01:28 +0000

I think we’re in agreement. I don’t think people should try to suppress or ignore their emotions. But they should realize that any motivational force emotions have is essentially private. A feeling of anger or offense has no claims on other people. David Hume said, “Reason is, and ought only to be, slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” Perhaps he’s right, but there are times when emotions (passions) should also be tempered by reason, especially when trying to persuade other people. What I object to when people seem to think anger or offense gives them a right to dicate other people’s actions is not so much the emotionalism of the stance, but it’s subjectivism: the idea that my emotions are somehow universally representative and must be taken into account and protected from provocation by others.

By: Brian Crowley

Brian Crowley — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:37:44 +0000

I take that back, of course the moral-sense philosophers more or less say an emotion is necessary for recognition of moral transgression.

By: Brian Crowley

Brian Crowley — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:36:28 +0000

Neither I, Plato, or any other philosophy I’ve read says anger (or any emotion) is a necessary (let alone sufficient) condition for recognizing an injustice. But some with a nuanced moral psychology admit that many people will need motivations beyond rational one’s. But this tradition never claims that the emotion justifies the moral.

However, part of me wants to say that if someone claims to be offended, to be morally insensed, they do have a certain “right to redress.” At least, in the minimal sense of having the situation addressed. This would not be a redressing of moral transgression or injustice, but a social/political addressing of a break in the social sphere–the point of which may very well be to disabuse the person offended of his or her uncritical feelings or latent presumptions.

By: Julien

Julien — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:14:29 +0000

Well, you (and Plato) are right that one should feel anger when confronted with injustice, but even if you don’t feel any anger at all, you should still try to do what you can to correct an injustice. Recognizing and reacting to the injustice is more important than the feeling it provokes. I feel that many people believe that the emotion itself, whether anger or offense, confers upon them some sort of right of redress, without bothering to reason through and articulate exactly what needs to be redressed or the consequences of doing so. The bumper sticker, to my mind, puts much more emphasis on the outrage than the “paying attention.”

I’m also not convinced that anger is always a motivational force. It can be paralyzing and distracting as well, depending on the person and the circumstances.

By: Brian Crowley

Brian Crowley — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 05:42:52 +0000

There are several ways to read the bumper sticker, I think.

I read it as presuming that there is a state of affairs, that this state is morally wrong (and is so in some objective way), and that if one were conscious of that state then one would be morally indignant.

This need not mean that the anger is being taken as proof of the state of affairs or that one’s emotions are “finding” that state to be immoral. It could simply mean that the natural and motivationally appropriate moral response is anger (among other things). (Which is an idea as old as Plato’s writings.)

Such presumptions about objective morality and natural responses to situations could be used to stymie debate and discussion. But again, it need not. Nevertheless, like any bumper sticker I’ve seen, it does nothing to raise the level of moral or political discourse–and, as you note, is completely content- or party-neutral, and to that extent uninformative.

However, regarding the original philosophy student’s post, I think there is some confusion between “warranted emotions” and “warranted appeals to/from emotion”. But one gets the gist and that I think is in the right direction.