Abstract

School bullying continues to plague students around the globe. Bullying research to date has largely employed empirical methodologies, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Using a philosophical lens, this paper seeks to better understand the intentionality of bullying by considering the satisfaction derived in the tears of another. Specifically, current bullying research takes seriously the notion that bullying is primarily a problem between a bully and a victim (i.e. that the bully does not like the victim). In this paper I suggest that the bully is bullshitting us and her/his project is far bigger than the victim s/he targets. In the final analysis bullying prevention, as well as education itself, requires us to take seriously not only the activities of students, but the desires (i.e. the ?I likes?) that help us understand when we are being bullshitted and when we are not