For the Love of Hate: Hatred as an Emotive Tool Against Injustice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59123/hcrj1f66Keywords:
Hatred, feminist ethics, Moral psychology, Simone de Beauvoir, Injustice, Moral CommunitiesAbstract
Philosophers have focused a great deal of attention on the moral dimensions of our emotions, but relatively little on the value of hatred. This is a significant oversight, as there are serious implications for how we treat victims of gross injustice who respond or cope with hate. And although many variations of hatred are not liable to any genuine defense, this is not true for all varieties. While it stands against common positions within the literature, I argue that hatred is not always vicious, and that there exists variants which are valuable to our moral lives. To establish this, I first taxonomize a few varieties of hatred, identifying a moral form which I term Beauvoirian hatred - inspired by the influential work of Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoirian hatred, as I conceive of it, is a form of hate which we do no wrong in feeling—and perhaps is even good to feel in the face of serious injustice.
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