Antipathy is an affective phenomenon which has not received much attention by philosophers and psychologists, unlike its antonym, sympathy. However, antipathy is a phenomenon that contributes to and fuels many of the challenges related to our social behaviours and interpersonal relationships. Antipathy’s exact nature needs to be identified, if only because of the importance it has, for example, in political opposition, in loss of civility, but also in situations that cause poor psychological well-being. It would be then essential to be (...) able to determine whether antipathy is a phenomenon that could be felt on a short term (an episode) or last in the long term (a disposition), since it would allow to study and measure more precisely the nature of the acts it gives rise to, the range of its intensity or/and its social consequences. Like sympathy, antipathy is most often understood as an affective phenomenon that lasts over time. Antipathy is often presented as an instinctive and irrational aversion to something or someone. Yet this common definition is too similar to the definition of other affective phenomena such as disgust or even fear. This article will therefore examine the nature of antipathy by differentiating it from other emotional phenomena that resemble it. But more importantly, the limited existing literature on antipathy mostly characterises it as an affective disposition. In this paper, I will rather argue that antipathy is a conscious emotion, i.e., an emotion that occurs consciously and has a phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper examines the dynamic of belittlement and self-affirmation that is characteristic of hate. It argues that in hate we respond to a belittlement of our feeling of self-worth with an extreme form of self-affirmation which consists in regarding the other as evil and as deserving of being annihilated. Analyzing the origins and causes of hate, I develop a taxonomy of its main forms and distinguish between retributive, normative, malicious, and ideological hate. I show that all forms of hate aim (...) at increasing our feeling of self-worth. This common aim, however, is not always achieved: while retributive and normative hate can lead to an enhancement of one’s feeling of self-worth, in malicious and ideological hate such enhancement remains illusory and subject to self-deception. Finally, I argue that hate can never be morally justified. (shrink)