In this tribute to the work of Robert Solomon, I address a topic that occupied him frequently in the last 20 years of his life, and about which he wrote a book and several articles: the relation(s) between the emotions and justice as a personal virtue. I hope to clarify Solomon’s views using three distinctions that seem implicit in his writings, among (1) justice as general virtue and justice as a particular virtue, (2) objective justice and justice as a virtue, (...) and (3) an emotion and a passion. Using these three distinctions and a fourfold schema of emotional objects that seems implied by the foregoing discussion, I argue that an account of emotions like Solomon’s, which construes emotions as in crucial ways like judgments, contains resources for grasping in some detail how particular emotions are related to the virtue of justice. Among these emotions, I pay special attention to compassion. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a philosophical analysis of the nature and role of perceived identity threats in the genesis and maintenance of fanaticism. First, I offer a preliminary definition of fanaticism as the social identity-defining devotion to a sacred value that demands universal recognition and is complemented by a hostile antagonism toward people who dissent from one’s group’s values. The fanatic’s hostility toward dissent thereby takes the threefold form of outgroup hostility, ingroup hostility, and self-hostility. Second, I provide a (...) detailed analysis of the fears of fanaticism, arguing that each of the three aforementioned forms of hostile antagonism corresponds to one form of fear or anxiety: the fanatic’s fear of the outgroup, renegade members of the ingroup, and problematic aspects of themselves. In each of these three forms of fear, the fanatic experiences both their sacred values and their individual and social identity as being threatened. Finally, I turn to a fourth form of fear or anxiety connected to fanaticism, namely the fanatic’s anxiety of and flight from the existential condition of uncertainty itself, which, at least in some cases, ground the fanatic’s fearfulness. (shrink)

Reformed Scholastic John Owen's appropriation and adaptation of Thomas Aquinas’ development of the classical ‘disposition’ (Latin: habitus) concept offers practical insight into seventeenth century faculty psychology. This article argues that Owen not only borrows deliberately from Aquinas, he also attempts to simplify and even improve upon Aquinas’ more complicated theological, philosophical, and psychological insights in this important area. While he deals with dispositions of the mind, will, and affections in a way that is broadly similar to Aquinas’ ontological understanding, Owen's (...) most significant contribution to seventeenth century faculty psychology and its theological use is a sustained and consistent emphasis on the necessity of virtuous affections in the pursuit of communion with God. Examining this concept also provides greater context for how the Reformed Scholastics were able to interact with their medieval counterparts. In this we see the Reformed Scholastics’ continuity with the Christian tradition and their depth of understanding regarding human nature. (shrink)

Does remorse imply self-hatred? In this paper, I argue that self-hatred is a false response to one’s wrongdoing because it is corrupted by the vice of pride, which affects the perception of its object. To identify the detrimental operation of pride, I propose to study the process of change of heart and its impediments. I use the example of Kostelnička, from Janáček’s opera Jenůfa, to show that the impediment to remorse is active already as a source of wrongdoing and self-deception. (...) I identify three different aspects of Kostelnička’s pride: social ambition, defensive anger, and moral ambition. I show that it is pride as moral ambition that prevents the wrongdoer’s acknowledgment of her blameworthiness by causing her obsession with her blameless self-image and corrupting her self-love. In the last part of the paper, I reject Kostelnička’s initial self-hatred before her change of heart, because it is not based on an accurate judgement of her agency. Kostelnička’s true remorse is thereupon connected with her inner transformation towards humility and with a reorientation of her attention towards the victim of her wrongdoing, as testified in her plea for forgiveness. The implied moral improvement and reconstitution of her relationship to herself and others opens the way for her coming to terms with her guilt. (shrink)

The philosophy of hope centers on two interlocking sets of questions. The first concerns the nature of hope. Specific questions here include how to analyze hope, how hope motivates us, and whether there is only one type of hope. The second set concerns the value of hope. Key questions here include whether and when it is good to hope and whether there is a virtue of hope. Philosophers of hope tend to proceed from the first set of questions to the (...) second. This is a natural approach, for one might expect that you must develop a basic understanding of what hope is before you can determine its value. The structure of this chapter thus follows this approach. But readers should not be misled: there is in fact a good deal of feedback between the two sets of questions. A theory of hope is more plausible to the extent that it fits well with plausible ideas about the value of hope. So the movement from hope’s nature to its value is one of emphasis rather than a strict, step-wise process. (shrink)

What kind of affective phenomenon is religious zeal and how does it relate to other affective phenomena, such as moral anger, hatred, and love? In this paper, I argue that religious zeal can be both, and be presented and interpreted as both, a love-like passion and an anger-like emotion. As a passion, religious zeal consists of the loving devotion to a transcendent religious object or idea such as God. It is a relatively enduring attachment that is constitutive of who the (...) zealot is, and it expresses itself in a distinctive set of mental and behavioral dispositions. Most importantly, it motivates uncompromising actions and involves intense, hot, and deep emotions. As an anger-like emotion, religious zeal is an occurrent affective state of mind that is intentionally directed towards a specific object, characteristically a person or group of persons. It condemns the violation of a religious norm that is taken to be of absolute validity and general applicability. It motivates an action aiming at vengeance and retaliation, and it involves intense and hot feelings of hostility towards its object. I argue that rather than reducing the complex phenomenon of religious zeal to one of these two manifestations, we should reflect upon the question of how the two distinct conceptualizations relate to each other. (shrink)

This essay argues that there are concrete emotion regulation practices described, but not developed, in Kierkegaard’s Christian Discourses. These practices—such as attentiveness to emotion, attentional deployment, and cognitive reappraisal—help the reader to regulate her emotions, to get rid of negative, unwanted emotions such as worry, and to cultivate and nourish positive emotions such as faith, gratitude, and trust. An examination of the Discourses also expose Kierkegaard’s understanding of the emotions; his view is akin to a perceptual theory of the emotions (...) that closely connects emotions and concerns. In particular, this analysis unearths two main regulatory strategies located in the Discourses, strategies that closely resemble present-day psychological accounts of emotion regulation. I conclude that contemporary research reinforces Kierkegaard’s philosophical analysis of emotions and emotion-regulation strategies. Drawing on this research provides the most persuasive interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the emotions and emotion-regulation strategies. Additionally, present-day research clarifies the otherwise elusive, opaque strategies he describes. Finally, my analysis demonstrates that Kierkegaard’s work can uniquely contribute to the present-day psychological research by emphasizing the need for diachronic regulation strategies, while the contemporary literature overwhelmingly focuses on synchronic strategies. (shrink)

What is the feeling of religious longing and how, if at all, can religious longing justify religious beliefs? Starting with an analogy between religious longing and basic physical needs and an analogy between religious longing and musical longing, I argue that the feeling of religious longing is characterized by four features: its generality, its indeterminate transcendent object which by its nature is not capable of empirical verification or falsification, its mode of being infinitely interested in passion and its ambiguity with (...) regard to our own power and powerlessness. Religious longing can neither epistemically nor pragmatically justify religious beliefs. If we want to account for the rationality of religious beliefs motivated by religious longing, we have to consider passionate rationality as a third kind of rationality. We wholeheartedly take as true what we experience as a condition of the possibility of life. (shrink)

Our focus in this chapter will be the role the pride has played, both historically and contemporarily, in Christian theology and philosophical theology. We begin by delineating a number of different types of pride, since some types are positive (e.g., when a parent tells a daughter “I’m proud of you for being brave”), and others are negative (e.g., “Pride goes before a fall”) or even vicious. We then explore the role that the negative emotion and vice play in the history (...) of Christianity, with particular attention to a number of influential figures. We conclude by exploring how pride connects with a number of other central issues in Christian theology. (shrink)

Aristotle and others suggest that a single virtue – ‘good temper’ – pertains specifically to anger. I argue that if good temper is a single virtue, it is constituted by aspects of a combination of other virtues. I present three categories of anger-relevant virtues – those that dispose one to anger; those that delay, mitigate, and qualify anger; and those required for effortful anger control – and show how virtues in each category make distinct contributions to good temper. In addition (...) to clarifying the relationship between anger and the virtues, my analysis has theoretical implications for virtue individuation more generally, and practical implications for character cultivation. (shrink)

Envy is, roughly, the disposition to desire that another lose a perceived good so that one can, by comparison, feel better about one’s self. The divisiveness of envy follows not just from one’s willing against the good of the other, but also from the other vices that spring from it. It is for this second reason that envy is a capital vice. This chapter begins by arguing for a definition of envy similar to that given by Aquinas and then considers (...) its relationship to other vices (e.g. jealousy, schadenfreude, and hate). At the heart of envy is a disposition to make relative comparisons which lead to a sense of inferiority. This is turn can lead a person to feel and act in ways destructive of community and the self. The present chapter also addresses recent work in both psychology and economics related to envy. (shrink)

The debate about physician-assisted suicide has long been entwined with the nature of the doctor–patient relationship. Opponents of physician-assisted suicide insist that the traditional goals of medicine do not and should not include intentionally bringing about or hastening a patient’s death, whereas proponents of physician-assisted suicide argue that this practice is an appropriate tool for doctors to relieve a patient’s suffering. In this article, I discuss these issues in light of the relevance of a Christian account of the doctor–patient relationship. (...) I argue that Christians typically object to assist suicide independently of the doctor–patient relationship. I argue that a focus on the Christian virtues of charity, compassion, and humility helps to explain why doctors should not assist their patients in suicide. (shrink)

Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can be explained. I do so (...) by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what the attitude of hope consists in. We argue that shortcomings in recent theories of hope have methodological roots in that they proceed with little regard for the rich body of literature on the emotions. Taking insights from work in the philosophy of emotions, we argue that hope involves a kind of normative perception. We then develop a strategy for determining the content of this perception, arguing that hope is a perception of practical reasons. (...) Our proposal stands in contrast with familiar views on which hope is fundamentally about the good. We conclude by considering the increasingly popular idea that some hopes are non-intentional and thus, by implication, non-perceptual. We reply by arguing that our perceptual theory plausibly generalizes to these instances of hope. (shrink)

Analyses of the theological virtue of hope tend to focus on its interior dispositional structure, shifting attention away from the social dimensions crucial to its formation and exercise. We argue that one can better appreciate the place of hope in Christian thought by attending to communal features that have been peripheral to or excluded from traditional analyses. To this end, we employ resources from the literature on the extended mind and group agency to develop an account of the theological virtue (...) of hope as a socially extended virtue—that is, a virtue scaffolded by and enacted within a community whose practices are ordered toward a shared conception of human flourishing. (shrink)

Hope is crucial human agency, but its fragility grounds a substantive challenge to Christian belief. It is not clear how a perfectly loving God could permit despairinducing experiences of divine silence. Drawing upon a distinctively Christian psychology of hope, this paper seeks to address this challenge. I contend that divine silence can act as a corrective to misplaced natural hopes. But there are risks in God’s choice to allow a person to lose all natural hope. Thus, if God is perfectly (...) loving, God ought to find a way to demonstrate goodness to those who are tempted by theological despair. I argue that the Church demonstrates God’s goodness through its merciful care and hope for the afflicted. The local community can act to sustain or recover a person’s capacity to remain open to the gift of hope even in the midst of divine silence. (shrink)

The current rise of populism is often associated with affects. However, the exact relationship between populism and affects is unclear. This article addresses the question of what is distinctive about populist (appeals to) affects. It does so against the backdrop of a Laclauian conception of populism as a political logic that appeals to a morally laden frontier between two homogenous groups, ‘the people’ and ‘those in power’, in order to establish a new hegemonic order. I argue that it is distinctive (...) of populism that it breaks with the dominating feeling rules by overtly appealing to affects and reclaiming them for the realm of the political. The article explores three groups of affective phenomena: discontent, anger, and fear; empathetic, sympathetic, group-based, and shared emotions; and collective passions of enthusiasm and love. It shows how an appeal to these affects relates to the political logic of populism itself by contributing to the concretization, collectivization, and unification of affects. (shrink)

Many comparative philosophers discuss ceyinzhixin 惻隱之心 and its moral psychological nature to understand the Confucian heart-mind and the unique Confucian approach to other-concerning love. This essay examines and analyzes different interpretations of ceyinzhixin. First, it surveys and compares the four interpretations in recent publications of comparative Chinese philosophy, and analyzes their moral psychological viewpoints. Second, three major approaches to ceyinzhixin and their differences are analyzed. Third, the moral psychological complexity of ceyinzhixin and the advantage of the integrative approach are discussed. (...) The integrative approach, in comparison to other approaches, explains both the complexity and the unity of ceyinzhixin better and develops an inclusive and comprehensive interpretation of ceyinzhixin and the unique moral psychological nature of the Confucian heart-mind in its empathic other-concerning love. (shrink)

Research indicates that greater involvement in religion may be associated with better physical health. The purpose of this study is to see if the satisfaction of spiritual needs is associated with health. This model that contains the following core hypotheses: Individuals who attend church more often are more likely to receive spiritual support from fellow church members than people who attend worship services less frequently ; receiving more spiritual support is associated with stronger feelings of belonging in a congregation; individuals (...) who feel they belong in their congregations are more likely to feel their spiritual needs have been met; and people who feel their spiritual needs have been met are more likely to rate their health in a favorable manner. The data provide support for each of these relationships. (shrink)

While philosophical debates about the ethical dimension of cinema have flourished over the last few decades, discussions of cinema and virtues are still limited. And, even if virtues are explored with regard to film, humility is not often the most obvious virtue that comes to mind. As this article argues, this might in part be due to humility’s lack of expressive action and its tendency to remain in the background. In addition, the wide range of philosophical views on what actually (...) counts as virtuous humility, if it is to be considered a virtue at all, further problematises the discussion. One aspect of these disagreements is the question of humility’s compatibility with great achievement. This article aims to demonstrate both how humility can be shown on screen and reveal greatness and humility can go together in practice. For this, the author draws on contemporary philosophical accounts of the virtue of humility to examine Damien Chazelle’s 2018 film First Man, a Neil Armstrong biopic based on James R. Hansen’s biography of the same name. The article outlines how both the distinct portrayal of its main protagonist and the film’s aesthetic features, such as mise-en-scène, sound and editing, are used to convey an idea of humility that reconciles achievement, ambition and greatness with a recognition of sacrifice, serendipity and sometimes the futility of human endeavours. Consequently, First Man is not only a film about a humble main character, but also indicates how cinematic techniques can be used effectively to enable us to experience humility, thus demonstrating how films can make a distinct contribution to philosophical debates about virtues beyond mere illustration. (shrink)

Clergy sexual abuse is both sexual and psychological violence, but it is also a paradigmatic case of spiritual violence that rises to the level of religious trauma. In this paper I argue that the spiritual violence of clergy sexual abuse diminishes, and in some cases may even destroy, a survivor’s capacities for religious faith or other forms of spiritual engagement. I use and illustrate the value of feminist methodology, as developed and advanced by Alison Jaggar, for generating and pursuing philosophical (...) questions about religious experience. Feminist methodology’s sensitivity to theorizing situated subjects who stand to each other in relations of racialized male dominance helps us see the ways in which clergy sexual abuse is gender-based violence in both its causes and effects. It also helps us both ask and answer questions about religious faith in the unjust meantime from the perspective of those who endure spiritually violent faith communities. (shrink)

Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 345-354, December 2021.

How does it feel to be in a crisis? Is the idea of the crisis itself bound to our affectivity in the sense that without the occurrence of specific emotions or a change in our affective lives at large we cannot even talk about a crisis properly speaking? In this paper, I explore these questions by analyzing the exemplary case of the corona crisis. In order to do so, I first explore the affective phenomenology of crises in general and the (...) corona crisis in particular, thereby paying attention to both individual (personal) and collective (socio-political) crises and crisis experiences. Then, I turn to the limits of the analogy between individual and collective crises. I reflect on how socio-political crises are not simply there but performed and procedurally constructed and show how, in the context of the corona pandemic, fears and hopes, feelings of solidarity and antagonistic emotions mirror political interests and values. While the phenomenological reflections in the first part help us to account for the fact that crises are not just objective facts but also subjective forms of experience, the political reflections in the second part help us to do justice to the inherently political nature of the language and experiences of (collective) crises. I conclude by pointing out a twofold relationship between (socio-political) crisis and critique. Thanks to their characteristic affective phenomenology, crises are tools of criticism; but due to their inherently political character, they also themselves have to be subjected to critique. (shrink)