When you think it's bad it's worse than you think: Psychological bias and the ethics of negative character assessments

In Brian Bruya (ed.), The Philosophical Challenge from China. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 3-21 (2015)
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Abstract

We often find ourselves thinking of others as boring, nauseating, dim, dodgy, clumsy, or otherwise irritating or unpleasant. What’s the right thing to do when we have such thoughts? Some philosophers argue we ought to be civil and conceal them, lest others pick up on them and feel disrespected. Drawing on experimental psychology and classical Confucianism, I argue otherwise, suggesting that we ought to (literally) doubt such appraisals and be wary of their veracity.

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Hagop Sarkissian
CUNY Graduate Center

Citations of this work

Confucius and the superorganism.Hagop Sarkissian - 2018 - In Philip J. Ivanhoe, Owen Flanagan, Victoria S. Harrison, Hagop Sarkissian & Eric Schwitzgebel (eds.), The Oneness Hypothesis: Beyond the Boundary of Self. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press. pp. 305-320.

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