Abstract

This chapter argues that the extent to which disorientations can benefit agency depends in part on the ways disoriented people are responded to in communities. Drawing on feminist philosophy of emotional expression, it defends the view that how individuals experience their own disorientations can depend on what experiences they are enabled to express to others. The possibility that disorientations will benefit individuals depends in part on each individual’s ability to have and express such experiences, which depends on the existence of sympathetic interpreters. The chapter then argues that members of communities and institutions can have responsibilities to create social conditions hospitable to and supportive of those who are disoriented and that individuals can have a responsibility to respond to ourselves as disorientable.