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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783489107 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dutton Penguin Group USA |
| Publication date: | 10/11/2017 |
| Series: | Men of Steel |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 258 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
J. Adam Carter is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Metaepistemology and Relativism (forthcoming) and has published articles in Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Analysis, Philosophical Studies and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Contributors: Michael Brady, Professor of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, UK; Eva Dadlez, Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Central Oklahoma University, USA; Allan Hazlett, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, USA; Jesper Kallestrup, Professor of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, UK; Antti Kauppinen, Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Tampere, Finland; Adam Morton, Visiting Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Canada; Duncan Pritchard, Professor of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, UK; Robert Roberts, Distinguished Professor of Ethics, Baylor University, USA; Neal Tognazzi, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Western Washington University, USA; Kevin Timpe, Professor of Philosophy, Northwest Nazarene University, USA; Samantha Vice, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rhodes University, South Africa; Ryan West, Graduate Student, Baylor University, USA; Lisa Williams, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of New South Wales, Australia
J. Adam Carter is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Metaepistemology and Relativism (forthcoming) and has published articles in Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Analysis, Philosophical Studies and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Moral Psychology of Pride
An Introduction
J. Adam Carter and Emma C. Gordon
PRIDE: A BACKGROUND
Research Context
Pride is – among other things – a central aspect of the human condition. As social history has overwhelmingly indicated, pride has been and continues to be an important explanation for morally as well as intellectually significant human behaviour, from subaltern movements such as black pride and gay pride to the rally-round-the-flag nationalism now on the march throughout Europe and other parts of the world.
Even so, there is little consensus on some of the most basic issues concerning the nature of pride: for example, what sort of thing is pride, and why do we care about it? Does being prideful lead us to act in particular ways, and if so, which ways? How do people become proud? Can one be proud only of one's own achievements and characteristics, or is it at least conceptually possible to be proud of the achievements and characteristics of others, such as those with whom one identifies? Generally speaking, is pride a good thing or a bad thing? Why?
That there have thus far been few agreed answers to such questions is, we suspect, at least partly due to the compartmentalised means by which questions about the nature, value and psychology of pride have traditionally been investigated. On the bright side, we think that this problem has the potential to be overcome by investigating pride from the interdisciplinary methodology of moral psychology – viz, in particular, by bringing together the conceptual resources that have been refined within professional philosophy with the empirical scrutiny that is distinctive of the human sciences, and the chapters in this book reflect this overarching goal. The present volume will accordingly explore some of the most important issues connected to the topic of pride in a way that utilises the theoretical resources of philosophy, psychology, sociology, religious studies and anthropology.
Pride: Key Themes
Discussions of the nature and value of pride (including moral, conative, intellectual and social dimensions) feature many distinctions drawn between different kinds of pride, as well as between different aspects of pride. It would be convenient if any one such distinction were clearly more fundamental than any of the others. However, different distinctions to do with pride tend to cluster around different kinds of research questions, and some of these research questions overlap (sometimes considerably) with others.
In what follows, we offer a brief survey of some of the key research themes that have guided some of the key contemporary discussions of pride. Each chapter in this volume addresses either directly or indirectly at least one of these themes. We note explicitly that in many cases, the kind of philosophical stance one takes on one of these themes can (but will not always) determine the kind of stance one is in a position to take on one or more of the others.
Pride, emotion and virtue
Pride is often discussed as an emotion but perhaps equally often as a kind of character trait or agential disposition. Emotions are, in the most general sense, reactions to matters of apparent importance or significance. Different kinds of characteristic reactions line up with different emotions, and these reactions generally involve certain kinds of distinctive feelings and appraisals. A theory of the nature of the emotion of pride will thus be a theory of what such characteristic reactions include and why we should think pride includes these kinds of reactions rather than others. Furthermore, to the extent that the emotion of pride involves certain kinds of appraisals (and not just feelings), we may ask what is, to use Richard Lazarus's (1991) term, pride's core relational theme. This point can be perhaps made best by analogy: envy's core relational theme is wanting what someone else has. The core relational theme of guilt is having transgressed a moral imperative. A theory of the emotion of pride will have something to say about pride's core relational theme. Finally, emotions themselves can be appraised as more or less appropriate in light of the circumstances under which they are manifested: what circumstances are befitting a response of pride? Is pride ever morally (or intellectually) forbidden? A satisfying account of the emotion of pride will likely tell us something about the appropriateness of pride as an emotional response and how this appropriateness can be accounted for with reference to specific features of the emotion of pride (e.g., its distinctive feelings, appraisals, core relational theme).
Whereas emotions are actual reactions to matters of importance or significance, character traits are stable dispositions to behave in typical ways when certain kinds of considerations are present. When these ways are conducive to or constitutive of human flourishing, they are classed as 'virtues', moral virtues (e.g., benevolence, compassion, kindness, courage, temperance) in the case of moral flourishing, intellectual virtues (e.g., open-mindedness, intellectual honesty, curiosity, fair-mindedness) in the case of intellectual flourishing.
When we say of someone that, for example, she is 'prideful' or a 'proud' person, we might grant that the individual is not (at the time of the attribution) actually reacting in any particular way distinctive of pride. The person might simply be the sort that, in the right kinds of circumstances (e.g., where certain kinds of reasons or values are present), she would be disposed to respond in certain pride-relevant ways. Furthermore, the proud person will have such a disposition not in some fleeting way, but in a way that is appropriately stable and integrated within her cognitive psychology.
On the Aristotelian conception of the structure of virtues, virtues necessarily have both a motivational component and a reliable success component. For example, the honest person must be not only suitably morally motivated in ways that are characteristic of honesty but also reliably (enough) successful in bringing about the ends of such motivations. The attempt to characterise pride, as a virtue, takes for granted that motivations that are characteristic of a proud person are grounded in a more basic or fundamental morally worthy motivations. However, the presupposition that pride qua character trait is a (moral) virtue is controversial on philosophical grounds. Pride is sometimes (and perhaps often) discussed qua character trait not as a virtue but as a vice, and when theorised about in this way, the proud person will be understood (again, on the broadly Aristotelian picture) as having certain characteristic motivations that line up with certain behaviour patterns, where the motivations are themselves are grounded in more basic morally unworthy motivations. We will turn now to the issue of positive and negative pride – viz, pride (generally speaking) understood as admitting of positive and negative moral valence.
Positive and negative pride
Aristotle and Hume have both (for different reasons) famously viewed pride positively. In Hume's case, this is because he understood pride as a certain kind of satisfaction one has on account of one's accomplishments or possessions, the experience of which brings us well-founded enjoyment. Likewise, for Aristotle, the trait of pride is a virtuous trait befitting the accomplished or great person who has a right or correct conception of her merits.
Other thinkers, however, have taken a considerably less-favourable line. Take as a starting point St Augustine's view that pride is the 'commencement of all sin', a view that is deeply grounded in the Christian tradition, where pride is that which turned the devil against God, and which was responsible for original sin. As it is put in Ecclesiasticus 10:12–13, 'The beginning of pride is when one departs from God, and his heart is turned away from his Maker. For pride is the beginning of sin, and he that has it shall pour out abomination'. Similar cautioning against pride and its consequences can be found throughout the Western intellectual tradition, from Hobbes to Jonathan Edwards to Alexander Pope to C. S. Lewis.
An important second-order question about pride (in its positive and negative guises) is whether, in fact, such opposing characterisations of pride (e.g., as it is praised by Aristotle and Hume and disparaged by Augustine), in positive and negative terms, are best understood as in competition with one another, viz, as mutually exclusive characterisations of the same underlying phenomenon. Alternatively, one might reject such a second-order view for any variety of views on which these positive and negative characterisations do not preclude one another. Perhaps, for example, pride is polysemous such that multiple meanings of pride correspond with emotions or traits that differ in their valences. Finally, perhaps pride can have multiple aspects with different valences even if pride itself is not polysemous. It is possible to give an account of pride as an emotion or virtue without taking a stand on this second-order issue, though at various points in typical first-order accounts of pride, this second-order issue can become relevant.
Appropriateness of pride
According to negative characterisations of pride, such as that which we find in Augustine, the question of the appropriateness of pride is foreclosed in advance by the fact that pride is inherently vicious. On views that refrain from this sort of claim, without thereby embracing the strong opposite position that pride is always and everywhere a good thing, it is relevant to inquire into the appropriateness of pride.
One matter relevant to the appropriateness of pride is the object of pride and the agent's relationship to that object. On a first pass, one might submit that pride in something X is appropriate, for someone S to have, only if S has through S's own efforts or skill managed to bring about X, and X is suitably good. Such a condition (albeit strict) on the appropriateness of pride gets very simple cases right. For it rules out that it would be appropriate for you to feel pride in something that (say) someone socially unconnected with you accomplished before you were born, a result that aligns with our patterns of attributing pride. Further, it rules out that it is appropriate to be proud of a wicked accomplishment – viz, pride experienced as a result of cheating your friends. However, the simple condition on the appropriateness of pride under consideration does less well in other cases. For example, it often seems appropriate (or at least common and unobjectionable) to feel pride in one's family and one's children, and perhaps in their accomplishments, even though we ourselves did not bring about these specific accomplishments through any skill or effort of our own. Or, though more controversially, it might seem appropriate to feel pride in less socially connected entities such as sports teams as countries. Furthermore, a well-meaning individual might intuitively be appropriately proud of some misguided action, where the action itself is all-things-considered not suitably good. A satisfying account of the appropriateness of pride will aim to say something informative about the appropriateness of pride which is not too inclusive or exclusive.
Objects and relations of pride
We should distinguish between the appropriateness of pride in other individuals and their accomplishments from the possibility of doing so, the latter of which is more or less uncontroversial. Typically, discussions of pride in philosophy as well as psychology have clustered around the kind of pride one has when the object of pride is primarily oneself or one's own accomplishments, the appropriateness of such pride and the social role this kind of self-regarding pride can play.
That said, the matter of to what extent what we say about self-oriented pride should apply mutatis mutandis to others-oriented pride constitutes an interesting and open question, one that can be helpfully explored by thinking about what it is in virtue of which one feels pride in others when one does, and how these considerations connect with one's attitudes about oneself.
For example, one might feel pride in one's own accomplishments because of some relationship that the individual has to oneself, and perhaps because the other's accomplishment (or existence) is taken to reflect well on oneself. Though the psychological profile of this form of others-oriented pride need not match other kinds of others-oriented pride, such as the pride one feels in (say) a group (e.g., a social or political movement) that one is a member of, but which one knows that no one knows one is a member of. More fine-grained distinctions are, of course, possible here, mapping on to different candidate objects (i.e., individuals, events, states of affairs, modal facts; e.g., pride in what one could have done or almost did), the social distance between oneself and such objects (personal versus impersonal relationships, degree of agency mixed with the object of pride), our attitudes about these relationships (e.g., because they reflect well on us, because they reflect well on our social group, or on things we value) and how we regard ourselves as expressed or reflected in such relationships.
Social function of pride
An important question in empirical psychology concerns the social role that pride, in fact, plays, and how different forms of pride potentially play different social roles, generating different kinds of social benefits. Pride based on our own accomplishments, for instance, might play a different kind of social role, with different kinds of benefits than, say, certain kinds of others-oriented pride. A correlative issue concerns social costs (i.e., of a given individual) of expressing certain kinds of pride: for example, are the social costs/benefits of expressing pride in moral achievements the same as expressing pride in competence-based achievements? Such questions can be fruitfully explored empirically, and such empirical results can be calibrated against theoretical models of pride. For example, prima facie, we want our theories of pride to potentially shed light upon how it is that expressing pride plays some of the socially adaptive roles that it does.
Moral versus intellectual pride
To the extent that pride is conceived of as a character trait as opposed to an emotion, there is an issue that cuts across the virtue–vice divide, which is the moral–intellectual divide. Generally speaking, pride is conceived of in discussions of virtue and vice as primarily concerning morally relevant behaviour and dispositions. Though there may well be a distinctive and interesting intellectual counterpart trait – viz, intellectual pride – which concerns primarily our cognitively/epistemically relevant behaviour and dispositions.
In recent discussions in virtue epistemology, a key theme has been the nature and value of intellectual humility, a trait that (on at least one prominent view) involves a kind of intellectually virtuous owning of our cognitive limitations. To the extent that pride and humility are intuitively 'opposites', one might be inclined to suppose that pride, regardless of its valence as a moral trait, is vicious specifically within the intellectual sphere to the extent that humility, its opposite, is intellectually virtuous. Thus, it might be suggested that if intellectual humility is virtuous on account of something cognitively valuable about owning our intellectual limitations, then by parity of reasoning, intellectual pride is vicious on account of something disvaluable about failing to properly own our intellectual limitations. This kind of reasoning, however, depends on several kinds of parity assumptions that might well be contested.
(Continues…)
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