This paper argues that hate differs from mere disliking in terms of its “depth,” which is understood via a notion of “othering,” whereby one rejects at least some aspect of the identity of the target of hate, identifying oneself as not being what they are. Fleshing this out reveals important differences between personal hate, which targets a particular individual, and impersonal hate, which targets groups of people. Moreover, impersonal hate requires focusing on the place hate has within particular sorts of (...) communities, enabling a further important distinction between “insider” and “outsider” hate in terms of whether the hater includes members of the targeted group within a particular community or rejects them as “beneath” membership in that community. (shrink)

This paper explores how individuals experiencing hostile affective states such as envy, jealousy, hate, contempt, and Ressentiment tend to deceive themselves about their own mental states. More precisely, it examines how the feeling of being diminished in worth experienced by the subject of these hostile affective states motivates a series of self-deceptive maneuvers that generate a fictitious upliftment of the subject’s sense of self. After introducing the topic (section 1), the paper explores the main arguments that explain why several hostile (...) affective states involve a feeling of diminution in the subject’s own value (section 2). Next, it offers an analysis of how the negative feeling of self-worth motivates self-deception. While in extrinsically motivated self-deception, the subject feels diminished in worth after negatively evaluating her own hostile affective states, in intrinsically motivated self-deception, the negative feelings of self-worth are constituent elements of the hostile affective state in question (section 3). Cases of intrinsically motivated self-deception are particularly intriguing because in them the motivation for self-deception is inherent to the hostile affective state, independently of external reasons. I coin the expression “self-deceptive style” to capture the distinctive form in which each hostile affective state intrinsically motivates changes in the architecture of the mind (e.g., perception, imagining, memory, judgment, attention, etc.) in order to generate an upliftment of the self (section 4). To show the descriptive and explanatory function of this concept, a comparative analysis of the self-deceptive styles of envy and hate is provided (section 5). The conclusion summarizes the main findings and explores directions for further research (section 6). (shrink)

Drawing on insights found in both philosophy and psychology, this paper offers an analysis of hate and distinguishes between its main types. I argue that hate is a sentiment, i.e., a form to regard the other as evil which on certain occasions can be acutely felt. On the basis of this definition, I develop a typology which, unlike the main typologies in philosophy and psychology, does not explain hate in terms of patterns of other affective states. By examining the developmental (...) history and intentional structure of hate, I obtain two variables: the replaceability/irreplaceability of the target and the determinacy/indeterminacy of the focus of concern. The combination of these variables generates the four-types model of hate, according to which hate comes in the following kinds: normative, ideological, retributive, and malicious. (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)

In the past few years, social and cultural theorists have pointed to the dynamic and performative character of forms of disparagement such as public shaming, humiliation, invective or hate speech. In this paper, I endorse a different route and focus on the distinctive affective and dialectical nature of what might be called the ‘politics of disparagement’. I will do so by elaborating on the affective intentionality of hatred, which can be seen as an affective attitude that paradigmatically encapsulates the dialectical (...) antagonism at play in the politics of disparagement. I argue that the affective intentionality of hatred is distinctive in three interrelated ways: First, it has an overgeneralising, indeterminate affective focus, which typically leads to a certain collectivisation of its target. Secondly, short of a determinate affective focus, haters derive the indeed extreme affective powers of the attitude not in reaction to any specific features or actions of the targets or from some phenomenological properties of the attitude but, rather, from the sheer commitment to the attitude itself. Finally, in sharing this commitment to hate with others, hatred involves a certain negative dialectics and becomes entrenched as a shared habitus. Ultimately, I suggest that we can only counteract the politics of disparagement if we understand how a shared commitment to disparagement and hatred establishes its own normative logic, which not only concerns their victims but also, dialectically, sanctions their enactors. (shrink)

Violence is signaled by a mark of discontinuity, interruption, rupture. The tripartite temporality of violence, with its strong focus on the present, points to the originary violence. Moreover, the violent event is structuring the order of the action sequences in an actual violent (embodied) interaction. The interactional dynamics in violent encounters between co-present actors shapes the specific forms of the experiencing in (and of) the violent interaction. Based on how violence is experienced in an interactive situation, the phenomenon of violence (...) articulates itself according to three coordinates: directedness, co-performativity and de-capabilisation. The outlining of the structure of the lived experience of violence is revealing something irreducible in it. To understand the experience of violence as such, I propose that we accept the idea of violence per se and depart from the idea that the acts of violence are essentially moral actions. The core of the ethical-moral discussion concerning violence should be grounded instead on the moment of conversion identifiable when we take into account the reaction to violence. (shrink)