Creative Resentments

The Role of Emotions in Moral Change

Bibliographic Data

ID4352035
AuthorsMatthew Congdon (0000-0002-9284-9233, Vanderbilt University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume68
Issue273
Pages739-757
Publication date2018-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqy011
OpenAlexW2896252224
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited19

This paper develops two related theses concerning resentment. The first, which I label the ‘prior norm requirement’, holds that feelings of resentment are grounded in the resenter's conviction that some portion of their existing normative expectations has been violated. The second holds that resentments can make a rational contribution to the development of new normative expectations, transforming the resenter's existing normative outlook. Certain expressions of the prior norm requirement in recent theory clash with the notion of norm-creative resentments, portraying resentment as essentially conservative of existing norms. Against this, I develop the notion of ‘emotional articulation’, according to which emotions like resentment can involve cognitively complex processes of working through the meaning of experiences of wrongdoing, in ways that give rise to genuinely new normative commitments. I develop this through critical comparison with Martha Nussbaum's cognitive-evaluative theory of emotion and by drawing from Charles Taylor's notion of articulation.

Epistemology · Norm (philosophy) · Normative · Political science · Politics · Resentment · Sociology · Wrongdoing · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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