Love, Hate and Moral Inclusion (original) (raw)
Related papers
Morality: The Solitary Heal of Hate
International Affairs and Global Strategy, 2012
Hate is a feeling that categorically expresses the aversion of an individual towards something. The way feeling is expressed exposes the intensity of hate. It is an innate behaviour that determines the loathing effect of individuals in different circumstances; emerge out of our social milieu. May be you hate to be a lesbian but a lesbian loves to be the same. Thus, hate comes out of our innate behaviour that grooms up in the social milieu. We react to our external happenings and show our liking and disliking accordingly. Hence, hate is a feeling as well as an expression. The Western societies are different from Eastern societies and so on. This difference may create the feeling of hate when one individual of another community does not allow assimilating the other individual on the basis of caste, creed, race, colour, and status. The racial differences are the pertinent examples in this perspective. Hate can only be avoided rather eliminated by adopting moral values. Morality is the only cure of hate. This paper is based on purely observations that lead to inductive and deductive approaches with a comparative method. Secondary and primary sources are use d in the paper.
Can it Be or Feel Right to Hate? On the Appropriateness and Fittingness of Hatred
Philosophy and Society 32(3), 2021
What exactly is wrong with hating others? However deep-seated the intuition, when it comes to spelling out the reasons for why hatred is inappropriate, the literature is rather meager and confusing. In this paper, I attempt at more precision by distinguishing two senses in which hatred is inappropriate, a moral and a non-moral one. First, I critically discuss the central current proposals defending the possibility of morally appropriate hatred in the face of serious wrongs or evil perpetrators and show that they are all based on a problematic assumption, which I call the 'reality of evil agents assumption'. I then turn to the issue of non-moral emotional appropriateness and sketch a novel, focus-based account of fittingness. Next, I outline the distinctive affective intentionality of hatred, suggesting that hatred, unlike most other antagonistic emotions, has an overgeneralizing and indeterminate affective focus. Against this background, I argue that hatred cannot be fitting. Due to the indeterminacy of its focus, hatred fails to pick out those evaluative features of the intentional object that would really matter to the emoters. I close with some tentative remarks on the possibility of appropriate hatred towards corporate or group agents.
This is not a published paper. It was shared with a consultation sponsored by the Yale Center of Faith and Culture, and supported by the Templeton Foundation.
I argue that hatred, given its longstanding folk-psychological distinction from anger and other "negative" or aversive passions (in Aristotle,'s Rhetoric, ii.4), cannot be retrojected back into the foundations or necessary conditions of agency. We should, instead, regard it as a necessarily tragic pathology or failure of agency. I then examine broad ethical implications of this view. (i) I distinguish hatred (an affective response, defined by its cognitive or propositional contents, and its motivating an aim to destroy its target as an end in itself) and 'hate' (institutional and discursive formations that oppress, are depersonalizing, and potentially dealth-dealing). (ii) I argue that because hatred as an affective response is most often a 'symptom' or outcome of subjection to trauma or other psychic harm, it is always tragic but not always yielding enough to second order desires or intentions to be understood as vice. (iii) I argue that hatred of the oppressed for the oppressor is not the moral equivalent of hatred of the oppressed for attributes that mark or predispose them to oppression. (iv) Finally, I argue (following the lead of thinkers such as Laurence Thomas and Rosalind Hursthouse) that the focus of any ethical reflection on hatred, and the ways in which it is engendered by 'hate', must focus upon responses to encounters with 'concrete others' that should motivate moral concern and corrective, revisionary reflection. So the principle focus of ethical reflection, with regard to hatred, must be absence of what Nomy Arpaly calls "moral concern." I would argue (though I have not done so here) that 'hate' is an aspect of a larger problem of bigotry, for which notions of 'virtue' and 'vice' so far articulated in broadly aristotelian terms, are irredeemably insufficient.
A CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CONCEPT OF DE-OBJECTIFIED HATRED
2021
This paper looks at Thomas Szanto's theory of hatred that suggests that hatred has an indeterminate affective focus and that it derives its intensity from the commitment to the attitude itself. Contrary to Szanto's theses, this paper claims that the hated properties are not necessarily fuzzy. On the contrary, in many cases we can clearly reconstruct the quasi-rational genesis of hatred, by relying on the deep structures behind the social dynamics (as demonstrated by the example of anti-Semitism). Furthermore, the paper states that even though in certain cases hatred is a truly empty of content, these cases are marginal in comparison to other, more important forms of hatred.
Good, Healthy Hate: The Frontier of the Negative Emotions
Australasian Political Studies Association. Hobart, Tasmania, 2003
We are so well-equipped with an emotional capacity to hate that this element of the emotional repertoire is entrenched in common parlance. We may hate persons we have known and loved, those we know only by reputation and entire groups whose members we do not know at all. We are even capable of hating abstractions and general ideas. Such a robust capacity for expression across the full range of human relationships suggests that hate is not obviously perverse or pathological. Nevertheless there is a reluctance to acknowledge hate as a normal, much less universal, element of human experience. In recent years the meaning of hate has been broadened by way of denial into an ambiguous adjective to characterise odious or illegal behaviour (e. g. hate speech and hate crimes). Hate is, of course, a strong emotion, potentially yielding a disposition to forceful action. But numerous other emotions are also powerful and may lead to aggressive and violent action. Love, for example, or patriotism, fear, envy and greed may in extreme instances incline us to danger, violence and self-destruction. This paper will explore the proposition that, like many of these emotions, hate has a range of expression that is 'developmental' in the sense of normal biological, psychological and perhaps even social formation. Although the human emotions are powerful and potentially dangerous forces, without them we would surely not be the sentient and social creatures we imagine ourselves to be. The discussion will focus on the sparse philosophical discussion of hate, beginning with Aristotle, and proceed to the cautious and decidedly reluctant examination of hate within the province of theoretical and clinical psychology.
"Love and the Pitfall of Moralism", Philosophy 93 (2), 2018, p. 231–249.
In what sense does love presuppose appreciation of the other's character? First, I argue that loving appreciation is more often a source of truthful vision than of bias and idealisation. Second, using the example of Elizabeth Bennett, I show that the tendency to forfeit love for those who lose our good opinion can be an expression of undue moralism and pride. Nonjudgmental responses to the other's flaws show how virtuous love can combine both realistic vision of the other's flaws and appreciation of the other that does not stand on balancing flaws with qualities. Such love is in the end connected with a conception of goodness inspired by Kierkegaard and Weil.
Unconditional Love in the Face of Hatred: Applications of a Timeless Teaching
International journal of philosophy and theology, 2017
Love is one of the most discussed virtues in theological and philosophical literature. In spite of centuries of teaching on the singular power of unconditional love, there are few examples of its actual practice in the public sphere. The world does not lack for philosophies and methods of social change, but lasting successes are few. The most effective movements (e.g., those led by Mohandes K. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr.) were pulsed by a philosophy or theology that emphasized the power of love, inner nobility, and the innate dignity of humankind. These movements stand the test of time because they met the ultimate challenge of sustained practice of unconditional love in the face of hatred, without lapsing into naïveté and wishful thinking. The article explores this challenge in light of a recent terrorist attack, drawing on firsthand interviews with esteemed spiritual leaders from around the world.
On Hatred: Perpetrator Fragments and Totalitarian Objects
Psychoanalytic Digalogues, 2023
In times of political extremis, the author probes the evoked hatred that threatens to transform her into the dehumanizing totalitarian object that is inciting her hatred. This article explores the trans-generational inheritance of perpetrator objects that can reignite in such inflammatory times-in our psyches, and in cultural spaces. How do we recognize, embrace, and constructively use these persecutory parts of ourselves, to illuminate the distinction between facilitating rage and annihilating hatred? Instead of trying to create a better sealant on our "depressive containers," what would happen if we looked through the cracks in that container? Would something new appear that might restore the alliances that totalitarianism fractures? This question is probed in reference to U.S. colonial era, and in relation to the voices of Black feminist psychoanalysis.
Love and Morality: Taking Iris different places
Doctoral dissertation, 2023
This doctoral dissertation is a collection of five published papers about a wide range of topics (philosophy of love, feminism, cancel culture, biomedical enhancement). Love and morality are important concepts in all of them. More specifically: love and morality as inspired by philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch, who argues that loving is what makes us better human beings. I take Murdoch to debates where she is not a regular guest. In taking her to these different debates, this dissertation not only contributes to theoretical discussions, but also shows that Murdoch’s concept of love is relevant for the more practical and everyday questions we have today about loving, feminism and social justice. An introductory chapter explains the overarching argument of the dissertation. I offer two new perspectives of Murdochian thought. In the first new perspective, I look at debates in contemporary analytical philosophy of love. Murdoch’s conception of love has been largely overlooked within this domain: contemporary discussions in analytical philosophy of love miss out on discussing love as moral. I argue that Murdoch’s conception of love could offer additional insights about love and morality in these debates. If we open the debate up to conceptions of love that – like Murdoch’s – are (at least) compatible with morality, we could have discussions about how loving makes us better human beings. I furthermore argue that the contemporary analytical discussions that do view love as moral discuss a conception of love that leads to love involving egocentric fantasies. I argue that Murdoch’s conception of love has advantages over these accounts, for viewing love as a liberation from (egocentric) fantasies. While the first new Murdochian perspective brings Murdoch into existing contemporary debates, the second perspective is adding a contemporary perspective to Murdoch’s original theory. This second perspective takes as its central question: could Murdoch’s conception of love make our society a better place? I take Murdoch’s theory from her individualistic approach to a more social approach, focusing on socio-political structures. I argue that Murdoch’s conception of love is relevant for contemporary fights for social justice. First, I argue that egocentric fantasies are particularly harmful, while focusing on social justice debates, such as feminism and anti-racism. Second, I suggest that Murdoch’s conception of love helps us move away from these egocentric fantasies. Through her concept of ‘love’ as moving from fantasy to reality, we can come to know the lived realities of others. This move takes Murdochian thought to a different level, incorporating contemporary insights from feminist philosophy, critical theory and social epistemology. I demonstrate my argument with several publications in applied ethics. I consider the biomedical enhancement debate (‘the love pill’) and cancel culture (attention and diversity in the public sphere) as case studies and applications of what is argued for above.