Recent work on ecological accounts of moral responsibility and agency have argued for the importance of social environments for moral reasons responsiveness. Moral audiences can scaffold individual agents’ sensitivity to moral reasons and their motivation to act on them, but they can also undermine it. In this paper, we look at two case studies of ‘scaffolding bad’, where moral agency is undermined by social environments: street gangs and online incel communities. In discussing these case studies, we draw both on recent (...) situated cognition literature and on scaffolded responsibility theory. We show that the way individuals are embedded into a specific social environment changes the moral considerations they are sensitive to in systematic ways because of the way these environments scaffold affective and cognitive processes, specifically those that concern the perception and treatment of ingroups and outgroups. We argue that gangs undermine reasons responsiveness to a greater extent than incel communities because gang members are more thoroughly immersed in the gang environment. (shrink)

This article investigates conceptions of morality within the framework of ressentimentful victimhood in the manosphere, while also exploring avenues for resistance among young individuals encountering the “hatred pipeline”. In Study 1, we use the emotional mechanism of ressentiment to examine how incels construct narratives of victimhood rooted in the notion of sexual entitlement that remains owed and unfulfilled, alongside its “black pill” variant emphasising moral and epistemic superiority. Through a linguistic corpus analysis and content examination of 4chan and Incel.is blog (...) posts, we find evidence of ressentiment morality permeating the language and communication within the incel community, characterised by blame directed at women, and the pervasive themes of victimhood, powerlessness, and injustice. In Study 2, we delve into young individuals’ reflections on incel morality and victimhood narratives as they engage with online networks of toxic masculinity in the manosphere. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with young participants who have accessed the manosphere, we explore their perceptions of risks, attribution of blame, and experiences of empathy towards individuals navigating the “hatred pipeline”. Our analysis underscores the significance of ressentiment in elucidating alternative conceptions of morality and victimhood, while shedding light on the potential for acceptance or resistance within online environments characterised by hatred. (shrink)

Recent research has drawn attention to the prevalence of self-reported autism within online communities of involuntary celibates (incels). These studies suggest that some individuals with autism may be particularly vulnerable to the impact of incel forums and the hopelessness they generate. However, a more precise description of the experiential connection between inceldom, self-reported autism, and hopelessness has remained unarticulated. Therefore, this article combines empirical studies on the incel community with phenomenological and embodiment approaches to autism, hopelessness, and online affectivity. We (...) analyze three interrelated aspects of online interactions in incel communities – worldview, bodily self-relation, and mutual dismissals – and examine how these elements contribute to the consolidation of the loss of significant life possibilities. By investigating the potential negative influence of specific online environments on affective dispositions, our approach contributes to the debate on current challenges to “situate” phenomenological psychopathology. (shrink)