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Authors: John Portmann
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reject as unconscionable, but at pain or suffering that someone may view as entirely legitimate to enjoy. A defense of such enjoyment, like condemnation of it, requires an account of the rationality of Schadenfreude .
The Rationality of Schadenfreude
Revulsion to Schadenfreude as a sign of the diabolic seems to deny the rationality of Schadenfreude . It is easier to censure Schadenfreude if we portray it as a knee-jerk, sadistic response. Sometimes emotional reactions (such as fear and simple likes and dislikes) grab us before we have time for deliberate thinking. Other emotional reactions (such as love and reverence for justice) represent emotional sophistication. Accordingly, I want to introduce Schadenfreude as a sophisticated emotion, not as a feeling.
What is the difference between emotions and feelings? Simply put, emotions matter more to moral analysis than do feelings. Because feelings lack the complexity, intentional focus, and susceptibility to appraisal often ascribed to emotions, cognitivist theorists of emotions de-emphasize them and focus on emotion, which they analyze chiefly in terms of belief and desire. No doubt feelings and emotions are sometimes confused with one another, in part because of the admittedly nebulous line that separates them. Various philosophers set themselves to distinguishing the various emotions from each other and from feelings in general: for example, Aristotle in the Rhetoric , Descartes in The Passions of the Soul , Hobbes in the Leviathan , Spinoza in his Ethics , and Hume in his A Treatise on Human Nature . Feelings are never sufficient to identify emotions, which means that emotions are more than just feelings. Feelings are mental states distinguished by their qualitative, phenomenological properties. They are neither beliefs nor desires.
Philosophers take cognitive processes to be somehow essential to emotions, but not to feelings, and generally agree that emotions are subject to normative appraisal though feelings are not. For, depending upon the circumstances, we may judge an emotional response to be justified or unjustified, warranted or unwarranted, reasonable or unreasonable. Unlike feelings, emotions can be admirable, blameworthy, or childish. Love, respect, and grief stand as ready examples of emotions, as do malice and hatred. Schadenfreude is an emotion as well, for Schadenfreude always has an object (for example, we are happy that Camille has failed at something). Though certain feelings (such as hunger) may involve objects as well, they do not entail cognitive analysis.
Knowledge or belief precedes and contributes to Schadenfreude . Thus, for example, I am glad that Yale rejected Camille (because I know that her grades did not qualify her for admission or because I believe that she cheated on placement tests). Depression, melancholy, and euphoria are not “about” anything in particular, even if they are supposedly “about” everything (namely, the whole world). But if Camille steals my car, any revenge I seek will be directed specifically at her. And any Schadenfreude others consequently feel will center on my loss of a valuable possession. This is not to say that Schadenfreude cannot center on a large object: a Dutchman may have felt schadenfroh about Germany’s total defeat in the Second World War, for instance.
Why should we care at all about the moral status of taking pleasure in the hardships of others if this pleasure doesn’t stem from or lead to action? I follow Aristotle and oppose Kant in presupposing that emotions constitute an important part of character. Character deserves as much moral attention as conduct.
Kant viewed the emotions as “brute” forces that lie beyond the will and thwart reason. Subversive of the ideals of autonomy and rationality, the emotions prevent all-important reason from working smoothly. Western philosophers have largely equated (inferior) femininity with the emotions and (superior) masculinity
The Rationality of Schadenfreude
Revulsion to Schadenfreude as a sign of the diabolic seems to deny the rationality of Schadenfreude . It is easier to censure Schadenfreude if we portray it as a knee-jerk, sadistic response. Sometimes emotional reactions (such as fear and simple likes and dislikes) grab us before we have time for deliberate thinking. Other emotional reactions (such as love and reverence for justice) represent emotional sophistication. Accordingly, I want to introduce Schadenfreude as a sophisticated emotion, not as a feeling.
What is the difference between emotions and feelings? Simply put, emotions matter more to moral analysis than do feelings. Because feelings lack the complexity, intentional focus, and susceptibility to appraisal often ascribed to emotions, cognitivist theorists of emotions de-emphasize them and focus on emotion, which they analyze chiefly in terms of belief and desire. No doubt feelings and emotions are sometimes confused with one another, in part because of the admittedly nebulous line that separates them. Various philosophers set themselves to distinguishing the various emotions from each other and from feelings in general: for example, Aristotle in the Rhetoric , Descartes in The Passions of the Soul , Hobbes in the Leviathan , Spinoza in his Ethics , and Hume in his A Treatise on Human Nature . Feelings are never sufficient to identify emotions, which means that emotions are more than just feelings. Feelings are mental states distinguished by their qualitative, phenomenological properties. They are neither beliefs nor desires.
Philosophers take cognitive processes to be somehow essential to emotions, but not to feelings, and generally agree that emotions are subject to normative appraisal though feelings are not. For, depending upon the circumstances, we may judge an emotional response to be justified or unjustified, warranted or unwarranted, reasonable or unreasonable. Unlike feelings, emotions can be admirable, blameworthy, or childish. Love, respect, and grief stand as ready examples of emotions, as do malice and hatred. Schadenfreude is an emotion as well, for Schadenfreude always has an object (for example, we are happy that Camille has failed at something). Though certain feelings (such as hunger) may involve objects as well, they do not entail cognitive analysis.
Knowledge or belief precedes and contributes to Schadenfreude . Thus, for example, I am glad that Yale rejected Camille (because I know that her grades did not qualify her for admission or because I believe that she cheated on placement tests). Depression, melancholy, and euphoria are not “about” anything in particular, even if they are supposedly “about” everything (namely, the whole world). But if Camille steals my car, any revenge I seek will be directed specifically at her. And any Schadenfreude others consequently feel will center on my loss of a valuable possession. This is not to say that Schadenfreude cannot center on a large object: a Dutchman may have felt schadenfroh about Germany’s total defeat in the Second World War, for instance.
Why should we care at all about the moral status of taking pleasure in the hardships of others if this pleasure doesn’t stem from or lead to action? I follow Aristotle and oppose Kant in presupposing that emotions constitute an important part of character. Character deserves as much moral attention as conduct.
Kant viewed the emotions as “brute” forces that lie beyond the will and thwart reason. Subversive of the ideals of autonomy and rationality, the emotions prevent all-important reason from working smoothly. Western philosophers have largely equated (inferior) femininity with the emotions and (superior) masculinity
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