The Moral Psychology Of Shame

Few emotions have divided opinion as deeply as shame. Some scholars have argued that shame is essentially a maladaptive emotion used to oppress minorities and reinforce stigmas and traumas, an emotion that leaves the self at the mercy of powerful others. Other scholars, however, have argued that the absence of a sense of shame in a subject—their shamelessness—is tantamount to a vicious moral insensitivity. As the eleven original chapters in this collection attest, however, shame scholars are entering a new phase, one in which scholarship no longer attempts to defend one side of shame against the other, but rather accepts both faces as faithful to the phenomenon to be explained. At the core of our understanding of shame there are profound disagreements about the importance of the Other in shaping our moral identity. As this collection shows by its study of shame, the difficulty of the connection between Self, Other, and morality spans over millennia and cultures and currently animates important debates at the core of feminism and disability studies. Contributors: Mark Alfano, Alessandra Fussi, Lorenzo Greco, JeeLoo Liu, Katrine Krause-Jensen, Heidi L. Maibom, Tjeert Olthof, Imke von Maur, Alba Montes Sánchez, Raffaele Rodogno, Alessandro Salice, Krista K. Thomason, Íngrid Vendrell Ferran

Philosophers and psychologists come together to think systematically about the nature and value of guilt, looking at the biological origins and psychological nature of guilt, and then discussing the culturally enriched conceptions of this vital moral emotion.

This book offers an analysis of shame (as a state, disposition, activity, and social relation) and develops an interdisciplinary and comparative interpretation of Confucian shame as a moral disposition, the ability of critical moral-development and self-cultivation.

Under what circumstances can love generate moral reasons for action? Are there morally appropriate ways to love? Can an occurrence of love or a failure to love constitute a moral failure? Is it better to love morally good people? This volume explores the moral dimensions of love through the lenses of political philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. It attempts to discern how various social norms affect our experience and understanding of love, how love, relates to other affective states such as emotions and desires, and how love influences and is influenced by reason. What love is affects what love ought to be. Conversely, our ideas of what love ought to be partly determined by our conception of what love is.

Shame is a Jekyll-and-Hyde emotion--it can be morally valuable, but it also has a dark side. Thomason presents a philosophically rigorous and nuanced account of shame that accommodates its harmful and helpful aspects. Thomason argues that despite its obvious drawbacks and moral ambiguity, shame's place in our lives is essential.

The Ethics of Anger provides the resources needed to understand the prevalence of anger in relation to ethics, religion, social and political behavior, and peace studies. Providing theoretical and practical arguments, both for and against the necessity of anger, The Ethics of Anger assembles a variety of diverse perspectives in order to increase knowledge and bolster further research. Part one examines topics such as the nature and ethics of vengeful anger and the psychology of anger. Part two includes chapters on the necessity of anger as central to our moral lives, an examination of Joseph Butler’s sermons on resentment, and three chapters that explore anger within Confucianism, Buddhism, and other Eastern religions. Part three examines the practical responses to anger, offering several intriguing chapters on topics such as mind viruses, social justice, the virtues of anger, feminism, punishment, and popular culture. This book, edited by Court D. Lewis and Gregory L. Bock, challenges and provides a framework for how moral persons approach, incorporate, and/or exclude anger in their lives.

Whether we like it or not, boredom is a major part of human life. It permeates our personal, social, practical, and moral existence. It shapes our world by demarcating what is engaging, interesting, or meaningful from what is not. It also sets us in motion insofar as its presence can motivate us to act in a plethora of ways. Indeed, in our search for engagement, interest, or meaning, our responses to boredom straddle the line between the good and the bad, the beneficial and the harmful, the creative and the mundane. In this volume, world-renowned researchers come together to explore a neglected but crucially important aspect of boredom: its relationship to morality. Does boredom cause individuals to commit immoral acts? Does it affect our moral judgment? Does the frequent or chronic experience boredom make us worse people? Is the experience of boredom something that needs to be avoided at all costs? Or can boredom be, at least sometimes, a solution and a positive moral force? The Moral Psychology of Boredom sets out to answer these and other timely questions.

This volume is the first to bring together original work by leading philosophers and psychologists in an examination of the moral psychology of contempt.