Often, when we are angry, we are angry at someone who has hurt us, and our anger is a protest against our perceived mistreatment. In these cases, its function is to hold the abuser accountable for their offense. The anger involves a demand for some sort of change or response: that the hurt be acknowledged, that the relationship be repaired, that the offending party reform in some way. In this paper, I develop and defend an account of a different form (...) of anger, called "outrage anger". Outrage anger does not aim to hold an abuser accountable, nor to demand repair or reform. Drawing on the work of Maria Lugones, I argue that outrage anger is directed at the state of affairs in which a violation is unintelligible to the dominant moral community. The central function of outrage anger is a psychological boundary setting: it closes off the victim’s ability to feel empathy for their abuser. Outrage has an important role to play in the context of political injustice, but that it also comes with significant costs. (shrink)

We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic (...) porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized. (shrink)

Moral outrage is a response to the behavior of others, never one's own. It is a response to infringements or transgressions on what people perceive to be the immunities they, or others with whom they identify, can expect on the basis of their rights and privileges and what they understand to be their reasonable expectations regarding the behavior of others. A person's culturally defined social identities and the rights and privileges that go with them in relationships to which those (...) identities can be party make up the contents of that person's social persona and also constitute that person's social territory. Infringements of rights and privileges in the social and symbolic worlds in which humans live are the equivalent of encroachments on territory among animals, and moral outrage can be understood as the human expression of what we perceive as territorial behavior in animals. As emotion, outrage is affected by such clinical processes as displacement, rationalization, projection, and reaction formation. Outrage has an essential role in the maintenance of viable social groups, but it also exacerbates conflict among people who perceive one another as “others.”. (shrink)

Three public opinion studies examined public attitudes toward prevalence reduction (PR; reducing the number of people engaging in an activity) and harm reduction (HR; reducing the harm associated with an activity) across a wide variety of domains. Studies 1 and 2 were telephone surveys of California adults’ views on PR and HR strategies for a wide range of risk domains (heroin, alcoholism, tobacco, skateboarding, teen sex, illegal immigration, air pollution, and fast food). “Moral outrage” items (immoral, disgusting, irresponsible, dangerous) (...) predicted preference for PR over HR, with disgust the most important predictor. In contrast, preferences were not predicted by whether the risk behavior was common, no one else’s business, or harmless. Study 3 explored whether there are domains where liberals might reject HR. A sample of liberal students preferred HR > PR for heroin, but PR > HR for ritual female circumcision; path analysis suggested that this reversal was explained by moral outrage rather than consequentialist judgments of harm to self and harm to others. (shrink)

Israel’s affiliation to the west can be observed in various ways. Israel is a full member of many European organizations, and the Council of Europe as well as a participant in European sports leagues, and the Eurovision song contest. However, this affiliation is not ‘natural’, and evolves from Israel’s exclusion from its geographic region due to geopolitical reasons. For Jewish-Israeli society this affiliation is a significant component in its national narrative. This narration is performed through a process of ‘othering’ Israel (...) within the Middle East. In this article the author demonstrates how the process of ‘othering’ veiled Muslim women, which is a phenomenon observed by many scholars in the past decade, is incorporated into this national narrative and results in the construction of a porno-chic feminine model for secular Jewish-Israeli women. By investigating the discursive construction of women’s bodies as symbols in a geopolitical conflict, the author shows how contemporary national and international discourses employ secular Israeli women as ‘definers and defenders’ of imagined national boundaries. (shrink)

Imagine: the Western world falls apart under political, financial, and social pressure. One result is that all funding for philosophy is suspended and diverted to STEM courses. Politicians in the U.S. and Europe, along with their voters, declare the whole tradition of philosophy a total fiasco for its inability to prevent the crisis or to show a way out. Because of this lack of funding and respect, philosophy no longer exists as an academic discipline in the mid-twenty-first century, but only (...) as a private hobby of maladjusted, wealthy eccentrics.At the same time, China has become so confident and rich that ample funding for research on the "masters" is provided. A... (shrink)

This article addresses girls' dress, which has become controversial, especially in contemporary multicultural Europe. Using the Dutch public debate about the headscarf, belly shirts, visible G-strings, and other forms of ‘porno-chic’, the authors show that these seemingly separate debates are held together by the regulation of female sexuality. Through their analysis of the headscarves and porno-chic debate, the authors argue that women's sexuality and girls' bodies in particular have become the metonymic location for many a contemporary social dilemma: (...) of the multicultural society when it concerns the scarf, of feminism and public morality when it concerns porno-chic. They conclude that despite the widely different appearance of girls wearing headscarves or porno-chic, both groups of girls are submitted to the meta-narratives of dominant discourse: the state, school, public opinion, parents and other social institutions ‘resignify’ their everyday practices as inappropriate, and reprieve them from the power to define their own actions. (shrink)

Scholars generally agree that, according to Aristotle, factionalizers are motivated by a sense of injustice (the ‘first cause’) to redress imbalances in wealth and honor (the ‘second cause’). Recent discussions, however, have offered a misleading interpretation of Aristotle’s third cause, which he identifies as the origin of the factionalizers’ sense of injustice. It involves, most importantly, greed, hubris, and other factors such as fear and ‘disproportionate growth’. In conversation with a recent publication in Polis, this article restores the third cause (...) to its proper place in Aristotle’s account. Abusive power holders, driven by greed, hubris, and overreaching, oppress their fellow citizens – following in the tradition of Homer’s Agamemnon, Hesiod’s basileis, and Solon’s aristocrats. These power holders prompt a sense of anger, indignation, and injustice in their fellow citizens, who ultimately form factions and take action on their own behalf. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Should educators encourage students to learn moral outrage in teaching about social (in)justice? If moral outrage is a catalyst for social change, to what extent can educators nurture this moral and political emotion in the classroom? These questions are at the heart of this essay. The aim is not to take sides for or against using moral outrage in education to motivate students towards change for the better, but rather to engage in an analysis and sorting (...) through of various discourses about moral outrage as a moral and political emotion, and to figure out how those discourses operate to create particular meanings for moral outrage that are circulated through educational research and practice. The author argues for a broader theorization of the relationship between moral outrage, political emotion, and education, tentatively suggesting a renewed attention to the productive possibilities as well as risks of encouraging moral outrage in education. (shrink)

In this book George Marsden responds to critics of his The Soul of the American University, and attempts to explain how, without heavy-handed dogmatism or moralizing, Christian faith can be of great relevance to contemporary scholarship of the highest standards.

Moral outrage is often characterized as a corrosive emotion, but it can also inspire collective action. In this article we aim to deepen our understanding of the dual nature of online moral outrage which divides people and contributes to inclusivist moral reform. We argue that the specifics of violating different types of moral norms will influence the effects of moral outrage: moral outrage against violating harm-based norms is less antagonistic than moral outrage against violating loyalty (...) and purity/identity norms. We identify which features of social media platforms shape our moral lives. Connectivity, omniculturalism, online exposure, increased group identification and fostering what we call “expressionist experiences”, all change how moral outrage is expressed in the digital realm. Finally, we propose changing the design of social media platforms and raise the issue of moral disillusion when ample moral protest in the online environment does not have the expected effects on the offline world. (shrink)

When an employee’s off-duty conduct generates mass social media outrage, managers commonly respond by firing the employee. This, I argue, can be a mistake. The thesis I defend is the following: the fact that a firing would occur in a mass social media outrage context brought about by the employee’s off-duty conduct generates a strong ethical reason weighing against the act. In particular, it contributes to the firing constituting an inappropriate act of blame. Scholars who caution against firing (...) an employee for off-duty conduct have thus far focused primarily on due process related issues or legal concerns pertaining to free speech, lifestyle discrimination, and employment at-will. However, these concerns amount to only a partial, and contingent, diagnosis of what is at issue. I argue that even when due process considerations are met, firings in these contexts can be unjustified. Moreover, even if a business is not concerned with the unethical conduct per se, but is rather strictly concerned with PR, the argument I advance nevertheless provides one important ethical reason that counts against firings in mass social media outrage contexts. Given that managers are often under significant pressure to respond swiftly in cases where an employee is at the center of mass social media outrage, it is especially important that scholars begin to clarify the normative issues. This article builds on the burgeoning philosophical literature on the ethics of blame and provides a novel account of a distinctive ethical concern that arises with firings in mass social media outrage contexts. (shrink)

This article explores the debate that has surrounded the use of analogies in coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, analyzing in depth two ‘analogy affairs’ on the basis of a LexisNexis corpus: the 2002 Auschwitz-Saramago affair and the 2006–2007 Apartheid-Carter affair. Using the classic Aristotelian tripartition of logos, ethos, and pathos, the article unfolds the argumentative structure of the controversies. Carter and Saramago used the combination of their own personal status and the controversial nature of their analogies to trigger a debate. (...) Commentators focused very much on the ethos and the pathos, and tended to ignore the logos. Opponents, who made up the majority of commentators, considered analogies as a way of passing judgment on and mobilizing against one of the actors in the conflict. This analysis suggests that despite the call for a more cautious use of the analogies discussed, participants in the debate on the Israeli–Palestinian conflicts are bound to resort to them – even if only to condemn them. (shrink)

The present study sought to examine the extent to which the cultural portrayal of online gamers, often in comical, caricatured, or sensational forms, has become transformed into sets of cognitive associations between the category and traits. A total of 342 participants completed an online survey in which they rated how applicable each of a list of traits was to the group of online gamers. Ratings were made for both personal beliefs (how participants themselves see gamers) and stereotypical beliefs (how most (...) others see gamers). While these beliefs were highly consensual as stereotypes, personal beliefs varied, suggesting that the cultural portrayal of online gamers is beginning to shift into cognitive associations. The role of stereotypes in negotiating a group’s social position are discussed arguing that these stereotypes currently position online gamers as low in social status and socially peripheral. The function of the media in generating stereotypical representations of social groups and convincing the public of their validity is also discussed. (shrink)

I show how non-presentists ought to respond to a popular objection originally due to Arthur Prior and lately updated by Dean Zimmerman. Prior and Zimmerman say that non-presentism cannot account for the fittingness of certain emotional responses to things past. But presentism gains no advantage here, because it is equally incapable of accounting for the fittingness of certain other emotional responses to things past, in particular moral outrage.

In this new, updated edition of a book heralded as a clarion call to the nation's conscience, William Bennett asks why we see so little public outrage in the fade of the evidence of deep corruption within Bill Clinton's administration. The Death of Outrage examines the Monica Lewinsky scandal as it unfolded, from Clinton's denials that he had had sex with a young White House intern, to his testimony before the grand jury, to the nation's decision not to (...) remove Clinton from office. Brick by brick, Bennett dismantles the wall of defenses offered by Clinton and his apologists, and casts the clear light of moral reason and common sense on a shameful chapter in American history. (shrink)

Aimed at a wide audience, this book in the general area of practical ethics consists of seven independent and humorous philosophical analyses of common moral situations, occurrences, and confrontations. The introduction discusses the idea of moralising; Cohen explains what it is, why moral philosophers tend to avoid it, and why it seems a particularly worthwhile enterprise for the book. Throughout its discussions, the book is accessible to readers at any stage of philosophic interest. The author distinguishes between moral encounters and (...) more mundane concerns, an aspect that separates this book from other practical ethics works. Contents: Introduction; Too Busy: A Note on Wasting Time; The Derogatory Erstwhile Fact, or Calling a Spade a Spade; Justification/Explanation and Treatment, or Putting the Shoe on the Other Foot; Vicarious Pride; 'Women's' Gymnastics; Vocations and Vocations; The Last Word. (shrink)

It has become all too common in discussing Rorty’s work, to distinguish the reasonable and constructive Rorty from the outrageous, destructive and irresponsible enfant terrible of twentieth century American philosophy. According to this familiar reading, one can unproblematically distinguish those rhetoric flourishes that have enraged so many of his philosophical colleagues from the substantive, and one might even say constructive, insights that are hidden in his work. However, as I will argue in this paper, this distillation process is not only (...) hermeneutically suspicious, but actually hinders our ability to make sense of what Rorty was trying to say. Rorty’s call was to “break the crust of convention”; not for destruction’s sake but to warn us against the dangers of all forms of fundamentalism and dogmatism and more importantly, open up the possibilities of a post-foundationalist, post-representationalist culture where solidarity and imagination at the service of human dignity replace the old obsession with objectivity and the quest for certainty. (shrink)

This article conceptualises the role of audience agency in the performance of American conservative identities within a hybridised outrage media ecology. Audience agency has been under-theorised in the study of outrage media through an emphasis on outrage as a rhetorical strategy of commercial media institutions. Relatively little has been said about the outrage discourse of audiences. This coincides with a tendency to consider online political talk as transparent and "earnest," thereby failing to recognise the multi-vocality, dynamism, (...) and ambivalence—i.e., performativity—of online user-generated discourse. I argue the concept of recontextualisation offers a means of addressing these shortcomings. I demonstrate this by analysing how the users of the American right-wing partisan media website TheBlaze.com publicly negotiated support for Donald Trump in a below-the-line comment field during the 2016 US presidential election. These processes are situated with respect to the contested, dynamic, and creative construction of partisan identities in the contemporary United States. (shrink)

Quelles formes prennent les dispositifs marchands dits «populaires»? À partir de l'exemple des magasins Tati de Barbès, dans le 18e arrondissement de Paris, l'article examine les conditions sociales et historiques du développement de cette enseigne et propose une analyse des modes de sociabilité à l'oeuvre chez Tati en particulier et à Barbès en général. Il montre enfin en quoi cet espace social particulier a contribué, dans les années 1990, à l'avènement du « chic-popu ».The author examines the so-called "popular" (...) shopping networks and facilities. Taking the example of the Tati stores in Barbès, in the 18th district of Paris, she examines the social and historic conditions of the development of this brand, and offers an analysis of the different types of social relations at work at Tati in particular and Barbes in general. Lastly, she demonstrates how this particular social environment contributed to the arrival of "popular-chic" in the nineties. (shrink)

When pressed, many atheists offer three reasons why they reject theism: there is strong evidence against theism, there is no strong evidence for theism, and theism is so outrageous that it needs a great deal of support in order for us to believe it in a reasonable manner. I examine the third reason, arguing that it fails.

McCullough et al.'s functionalist model of revenge is highly compatible with the person-centered approach to moral judgment, which emphasizes the adaptive manner in which social perceivers derive character information from moral acts. Evidence includes act–person dissociations in which an act is seen as less immoral than a comparison act, yet as a clearer indicator of poor moral character.

Many people think there is something objectionable about ‘selective outrage’. After investigating how to best characterise what selective outrage is and what these objections target, this paper argues that many cases of supposedly selective outrage actually have important positive effects. Because we often have limited resources with which to enforce norms, it can be collectively prudent to prioritise enforcing norms that are well-established or collectively recognisable over those that are not. This will sometimes require responding to individual (...) wrongs that seem less immoral, outrageous or in need of attention than others. We argue that when we encounter agents who are outraged about a violation of a genuinely valuable norm but not another relevantly similar violation, we should generally refrain from objecting unless we have good independent evidence the agent’s outrage stems from objectionable motives. (shrink)

This article conceptualises the role of audience agency in the performance of American conservative identities within a hybridised outrage media ecology. Audience agency has been under-theorised in the study of outrage media through an emphasis on outrage as a rhetorical strategy of commercial media institutions. Relatively little has been said about the outrage discourse of audiences. This coincides with a tendency to consider online political talk as transparent and "earnest," thereby failing to recognise the multi-vocality, dynamism, (...) and ambivalence—i.e., performativity—of online user-generated discourse. I argue the concept of recontextualisation offers a means of addressing these shortcomings. I demonstrate this by analysing how the users of the American right-wing partisan media website TheBlaze.com publicly negotiated support for Donald Trump in a below-the-line comment field during the 2016 US presidential election. These processes are situated with respect to the contested, dynamic, and creative construction of partisan identities in the contemporary United States. (shrink)

A growing body of literature documents the important role played by moral outrage or moral anger in stakeholders’ reactions to cases of corporate social irresponsibility. Existing research focuses more on the consequences of moral outrage than a systematic analysis of how appraisals of irresponsible corporate behavior can lead to this emotional experience. In this paper, we develop and test, in two field studies, an extended model of moral outrage that identifies the cognitions that lead to, and are (...) associated with, this emotional experience. This research contributes to the existing literature on reactions to corporate social irresponsibility by explaining how observers’ evaluation of irresponsible corporate behavior leads to reactions of moral anger. The paper also helps clarify the difference between moral outrage and other types of anger and offers useful insights for managers who have to confront public outrage following cases of irresponsible corporate behavior. Finally, the analysis of the causes of stakeholders’ anger at irresponsible corporations opens important avenues for future research that are presented in the paper. (shrink)

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." This quote, often attributed to Gandhi, suggests the illegitimacy of the retributive urge. On the other hand, many feel a strong intuitive sense that "justice must be served" and that violators of justice must be fittingly punished. In this paper I examine the urge for retributive justice and argue that, at its base, it is rooted in a profound desire to have a wrongdoer see the nature of his or (...) her wrongdoing, with the ultimate aim of inducing the repentance and reformation needed for a genuine healing of relationship. In this way, the urge for retributive justice may be seen as having, as its true end, the restoration of wholesome relations between wrongdoer and wronged. (shrink)

*Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author's and should not be ascribed to the American Medical Association.