Penn Philosophical Perspectives - University of Pennsylvania

if they are felt universally or if they have no obvious, directnegative effects. If a passion is an ineluctable fact of the humanfor feeling it, and if it does no harm or good, it seems pointless tionsonly the additional possibility that vindictiveness might“straddle” the virtuous and evil groups, we must consider alsothe possibility that vindictiveness falls into this neutral categorythat does not imply it should be praised or cultivated. - involves feeling some “negative passions,” and it seems natu-tivepassions negative, it seems, is that they involve seeking toharm the perpetrator, since “the goal of vengeance is simply toin its various forms, then, is effectively the desire for variousforms of vengeance, felt with various levels of intensity. form of vengeance should not be judged on the same standardtionalityof an emotion itself and the rationality of the role thatupon vindictive feelings in many different ways, and we caneven choose not to act on them at all. Thus, we cannot point tosomeone with an all-consuming desire for vengeance as proofmake a similar argument against, say, generosity by claimingthat someone who gives everything away to anyone he meetsmotivation, generosity is certainly a virtue, and nearly any virtuecan be taken to excess or distorted. tionincautiously will justify virtually any passion as long asit is minimally expressed in action. In moments of extremefrustration, for example, I sometimes feel an urge to committhis urge, and so it has no immediate negative consequences inthe world. That I am able to give this urge its proper role in motivatingmy actions (namely, no role at all) should not mean that-one never commits these acts, the passion cannot be considered-acts of random violence, my general outlook on things changesin ways that affect other aspects of my behavior. (I will becomethe passion is part of the general outlook is unclear, but it seemsthat if one works to eliminate destructive, evil passions, one’soverall outlook will improve as a result. Thus, a passion mayJanuary 2010Penn Philosophical Perspectivesbe considered destructive if eliminating it will produce a morevirtuous outlook on life in general. structive,in fact reinforces two important aspects of a virtuouswill attempt to understand exactly what self-respect ought toequal moral being with basic rights.” (19) These rights surely-otherwise one’s status as a free and equal moral being wouldring hollow. The various forms of harm perpetrated upon usby others violate this basic moral autonomy to various degrees.For example, being lied to deprives one of the information oneuses in making moral judgments, and so the act of lying impliesthat the liar is capable of judging for the person being lied to.The liar deprives the person being lied to of a choice he wouldotherwise have made for himself, and this implies that the liarassumes that his own capacity for moral judgment is superior tothat of the person being lied to. Lying is, in this sense, akin toan act of coercion. Thus not only is my autonomy reduced, butits reduction is the result of a decision made autonomously bysomeone elseIn general, the distinguishing feature of vindictiveness isthat it is directed at an independent moral agent. If a boulderfalls on me, I do not resent the boulder, but if a person punchesme, or even accidentally (but negligently) bumps me, I do re-I have no desire to suffer. Thus it is not losing autonomy thatarouses vindictive feelings, but rather the idea that someoneelse can choose to take away my autonomy, or in the case ofnegligence, willfully disregard it. The inequality of havingsomeone harm me hurts more than the harm itself (and the lackof autonomy it implies). Thus we may even resent good deedsif we see them as establishing the moral superiority of the attemptedaltruist, or if we see the altruist as making choices forus. challenges to this sort of equality-based self-respect, but such respect requires that I value, defend, and maintain my equalityto others as a moral agent. Thus I will naturally have a strongemotional response when another’s action denies my morality.It might seem appealing to assert my moral equality to theperpetrator by seeking to do to him as he did to me; if I am hisThis reasoning is not entirely sound, however. The perpetratortakes himself to be my moral superior; his desire to harm memust, in his view, be inherently a stronger moral considerationthan my desire not to be harmed. If I am devoted to the conceptof moral equality, I cannot use any such claim of moral superiorityin my reasoning. That the perpetrator asserts his superiorityover me and I assert my superiority over him does not make16