Sukaina Hirji (University of Pennsylvania), "Outrage and the Bounds of Empathy"

Philosophers' Imprint, 2022

By Sukaina Hirji

In “Outrage and the Bounds of Empathy” (just published in Philosophers’ Imprint and available open-access) I argue that a certain kind of anger, which I call “outrage” anger, is valuable because of the way it closes off a victim’s ability to feel empathy for their abuser. I suggest that this anger, though sometimes necessary for a victim’s self-preservation, also comes with significant costs, both epistemic and prudential. I offer some thoughts on when, and for whom, the benefits outweigh the costs.

This paper was partly inspired by the protests following the shooting of George Floyd. Like a lot of people (see, for example, Myisha Cherry’s recent book The Case for Rage), I was thinking about the political value of anger even in cases where it seems counterproductive to certain political goals. I was also thinking about “cancel culture” and the punitive, sometimes carceral, attitudes on the part of the left to perceived moral failures (see, for example, the ContraPoints episode on “Cancelling”). Finally, I was thinking about my own experience of anger in interpersonal relationships, and about the ways we sometimes marshal anger to sever intimate connections. In all of these cases, I was interested in when a person should stop trying to make themselves intelligible to the people who have caused them harm -- when doing so is likely to cause them significant further damage.

In the paper, I develop an account of “outrage” anger, and consider how it compares to the sort of anger that has received much more philosophical attention, which I call “reform” anger. By reform anger I mean the broadly Strawsonian picture of anger as a reactive attitude. Reform anger involves holding an abuser accountable for an offense, and demanding some kind of repair or reform. Reform anger, even when painful or scary, is ultimately an expression of care. It reflects one’s continued investment in being in moral community with the person who has caused  the offense.

By contrast, drawing on the work of Maria Lugones, I argue that outrage anger does not have as its object an abuser, and does not function to demand repair or reform. Instead, outrage anger has as its object the state of affairs in which the harm one has endured is not intelligible as the harm that it is. The primarily function of outrage is a kind of psychological boundary setting. Outrage anger serves to close oneself off from empathy for one’s abuser, and from the hermeneutical space that trivializes or undermines the character of the harm that one has experienced. A second function, especially in political contexts, is to help build a new hermeneutical space in which one’s experience is intelligible; it allows for consciousness raising and for creating a sense of solidarity amongst the victims of abuse.

Outrage anger is sometimes necessary, but it is also costly. By blocking off their ability to feel empathy for their abuser, the victim is able to see certain things more clearly, but they do so by limiting the sort of information they take in. Likewise, outrage anger can function to create solidarity amongst victims of an injustice. But it plausibly undermines a different politically important outcome, one that is the target of reform anger, namely, constructively engaging with the perpetrators of injustice with the aim of having them change their behavior.

Like a lot of my work, this paper is really just trying to describe some aspect of the social world in its full complexity. I don’t really come down on any side, and I don’t offer any clear prescriptions. That being said, here are two things I hope people take away from the paper. First, anger can be valuable even if it isn’t aimed at trying to change anyone’s mind, or at lodging a protest against an abuse. Sometimes, what is politically and personally valuable is screaming into the void, refusing to make oneself intelligible. Second, my defense of outrage is heavily qualified: I think outrage should be used sparingly. Most of us, most of the time, should find more constructive outlets for our frustration that don’t involve fragmenting the moral community (I’m looking at you Twitter).

I hope this paper is philosophically interesting for anyone thinking about the political uses of anger, the pitfalls of empathy, our practices of blame, political polarization, identity politics, or “call out” culture. I also hope it might be personally resonant for anyone who has experienced a harm or abuse that the world around them has trivialized or dismissed, and anyone who has needed outrage to carve out a space for themselves in which they could feel safe and seen.