Self-Knowledge and the Elusive Pleasure of Vengeance
The present essay looks to add to the body of literature that seeks to clarify the nature of vengeance and evaluate it morally. However, unlike previous philosophical investigations of vengeance, my essay examines it not from the standpoint of impersonal justice but from the perspective of the one w...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
Philosophia
Year: 2020, Volume: 48, Issue: 1, Pages: 289-311 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Girard, René 1923-2015
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| Further subjects: | B
Ethics
B Moral Psychology B Vengeance |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The present essay looks to add to the body of literature that seeks to clarify the nature of vengeance and evaluate it morally. However, unlike previous philosophical investigations of vengeance, my essay examines it not from the standpoint of impersonal justice but from the perspective of the one who seeks it, to determine whether it is good for the would-be avenger. The values I measure it by are fulfillment and self-knowledge. The paper has two major parts. In the first, I argue that vengefulness is motivated by two (potentially overlapping) ends: allaying a sense of vulnerability and preserving a positive self-conception. The emotional benefits of a vengeful disposition, I claim, come at the expense of self-knowledge. They are therefore unstable and prone to give way when vengefulness is translated into action. In the second part, I try to substantiate this claim by examining two criticisms of vengeance: that its pursuit can diminish the avenger by consuming him and that it is self-defeating. Framing vengefulness within broader psychoanalytic accounts of the repetition compulsion and projection, I endorse versions of both criticisms that tie vengeance’s failure to provide fulfillment to some of the ways in which it occludes self-knowledge. |
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| ISSN: | 1574-9274 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Philosophia
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11406-019-00077-5 |
