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The relationship of emotions, ethics, and authenticity constitutes a nexus of philosophical and psychological problems with wide interdisciplinary relevance. What is the proper role of emotions in moral behavior and theory; are emotions reliable guides to our authentic personal values; and finally; what does it mean to be authentic in one's emotions, assuming that there is such thing as emotional authenticity in the first place? The various contributions of this book seek to answer these vexing but rarely discussed questions, offering a broad intellectual tour that ranges from philosophy to ps.

The article offers an account of emotional mechanisms (EMs). EMs are claimed to be personal, often unconscious, distinctively patterned, mental processes whereby an emotion of a given kind is transmuted into an emotion of a different kind. After preliminary considerations about emotions as felt evaluations, the article identifies three families of emotional mechanisms. These processes are set in motion when a given emotion (for example, envy, shame or anger) generates feelings of inferiority and/or impotence in the subject resulting in a negative sense of self. These feelings prompt an evaluative reappraisal of the emotion's intentional target. Based on the reappraisal, the subject comes to feel a different kind of emotion, which does not generate feelings of inferiority and/or impotence. Importantly, the second emotion entails a psychological disposition to be collectivised: the subject seeks confirmation of the revised evaluation by sharing the emotion with others. It is argued that these features set EMs apart from other emotion regulatory processes.

This paper proposes that the emotion of shame is key to understanding the appeal of Poland's ruling populist right-wing party, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, or PiS). PiS employs shame in its strategy of emotion regulation in mediated party communication in pro-government media outlets. We suggest that there are two pillars of shame that underpin support for PiS: (1) the collective shame that originates from the perceived cultural inferiority of Poland in relation to the West/Europe, and (2) the individual shame of failing to achieve material prosperity in the context of the post-communist economic transformation. We examine how shame and pride have been instrumentalised in the coverage of the 2019 European Parliament elections by the right-wing media outlet wPolityce.pl. The paper demonstrates how wPolityce.pl consistently invoked both economic and cultural shame and highlighted the antagonism between PiS and the opposition by identifying the latter with a 'pedagogy of shame.' ; Peer reviewed

<em>Ressentiment </em>is central for understanding the psychological foundations of reactionary politics, right-wing populism, Islamic fundamentalism, and radicalism. In this article we theorise <em>ressentiment </em>as an emotional mechanism which, reinforcing a morally superior sense of victimhood, expedites two parallel transvaluation processes: What was once desired or valued, yet unattainable, is reassessed as something undesirable and rotten, and one's own self from being inferior, a loser, is reassessed as being noble and superior. We establish negative emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger as the main triggers of <em>ressentiment</em>, with their associated feelings of inferiority and impotence, which target the vulnerable self. We identify the outcomes of <em>ressentiment </em>as other-directed negative emotions of resentment, indignation, and hatred, reinforced and validated by social sharing. We map the psychological structure of <em>ressentiment </em>in four stages, each employing idiosyncratic defences that depend on the ego-strength of the individual to deliver the transvaluation of the self and its values, and finally detail how social sharing consolidates the outcome emotions, values, and identities in <em>ressentiment</em> through shallow twinship bonds with like-minded peers. Our interdisciplinary theoretical account integrates classic philosophical scholarship of <em>ressentiment</em> and its contemporary proponents in philosophy and sociology, which highlight envy as the prime driver of <em>ressentiment</em>; it also considers the sociological approaches that focus on the repression and transmutation of shame and its social consequences, as well as the psychoanalytic scholarship on psychic defences and political psychology models on the emotionality of decision-making. We conclude the article by elaborating the political implications of <em>ressentiment</em> as the emotional mechanism of grievance politics.

Ressentiment is central for understanding the psychological foundations of reactionary politics, right-wing populism, Islamic fundamentalism, and radicalism. In this article we theorise ressentiment as an emotional mechanism which, reinforcing a morally superior sense of victimhood, expedites two parallel transvaluation processes: What was once desired or valued, yet unattainable, is reassessed as something undesirable and rotten, and one's own self from being inferior, a loser, is reassessed as being noble and superior. We establish negative emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger as the main triggers of ressentiment, with their associated feelings of inferiority and impotence, which target the vulnerable self. We identify the outcomes of ressentiment as other-directed negative emotions of resentment, indignation, and hatred, reinforced and validated by social sharing. We map the psychological structure of ressentiment in four stages, each employing idiosyncratic defences that depend on the ego-strength of the individual to deliver the transvaluation of the self and its values, and finally detail how social sharing consolidates the outcome emotions, values, and identities in ressentiment through shallow twinship bonds with like-minded peers. Our interdisciplinary theoretical account integrates classic philosophical scholarship of ressentiment and its contemporary proponents in philosophy and sociology, which highlight envy as the prime driver of ressentiment; it also considers the sociological approaches that focus on the repression and transmutation of shame and its social consequences, as well as the psychoanalytic scholarship on psychic defences and political psychology models on the emotionality of decision-making. We conclude the article by elaborating the political implications of ressentiment as the emotional mechanism of grievance politics. ; Peer reviewed

Ressentiment is central for understanding the psychological foundations of reactionary politics, right-wing populism, Islamic fundamentalism, and radicalism. In this article we theorise ressentiment as an emotional mechanism which, reinforcing a morally superior sense of victimhood, expedites two parallel transvaluation processes: What was once desired or valued, yet unattainable, is reassessed as something undesirable and rotten, and one's own self from being inferior, a loser, is reassessed as being noble and superior. We establish negative emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger as the main triggers of ressentiment, with their associated feelings of inferiority and impotence, which target the vulnerable self. We identify the outcomes of ressentiment as other-directed negative emotions of resentment, indignation, and hatred, reinforced and validated by social sharing. We map the psychological structure of ressentiment in four stages, each employing idiosyncratic defences that depend on the ego-strength of the individual to deliver the transvaluation of the self and its values, and finally detail how social sharing consolidates the outcome emotions, values, and identities in ressentiment through shallow twinship bonds with like-minded peers. Our interdisciplinary theoretical account integrates classic philosophical scholarship of ressentiment and its contemporary proponents in philosophy and sociology, which highlight envy as the prime driver of ressentiment; it also considers the sociological approaches that focus on the repression and transmutation of shame and its social consequences, as well as the psychoanalytic scholarship on psychic defences and political psychology models on the emotionality of decision-making. We conclude the article by elaborating the political implications of ressentiment as the emotional mechanism of grievance politics.

Ressentiment is central for understanding the psychological foundations of reactionary politics, right‐wing populism, Islamic fundamentalism, and radicalism. In this article we theorise ressentiment as an emotional mechanism which, reinforcing a morally superior sense of victimhood, expedites two parallel transvaluation processes: What was once desired or valued, yet unattainable, is reassessed as something undesirable and rotten, and one's own self from being inferior, a loser, is reassessed as being noble and superior. We establish negative emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger as the main triggers of ressentiment, with their associated feelings of inferiority and impotence, which target the vulnerable self. We identify the outcomes of ressentiment as other‐directed negative emotions of resentment, indignation, and hatred, reinforced and validated by social sharing. We map the psychological structure of ressentiment in four stages, each employing idiosyncratic defences that depend on the ego‐strength of the individual to deliver the transvaluation of the self and its values, and finally detail how social sharing consolidates the outcome emotions, values, and identities in ressentiment through shallow twinship bonds with like‐minded peers. Our interdisciplinary theoretical account integrates classic philosophical scholarship of ressentiment and its contemporary proponents in philosophy and sociology, which highlight envy as the prime driver of ressentiment; it also considers the sociological approaches that focus on the repression and transmutation of shame and its social consequences, as well as the psychoanalytic scholarship on psychic defences and political psychology models on the emotionality of decision‐making. We conclude the article by elaborating the political implications of ressentiment as the emotional mechanism of grievance politics.

There are two opposite views about the relation of collective emotions and normativity. On the one hand, the philosopher Margaret Gilbert (1997, 2002, 2014) has argued for years that collective emotions are by constitution normative as they involve the participants' joint commitment to the emotion. On the other hand, some theorists especially in sociology (Durkheim 2009, 2013a; Collins, 2004) have claimed that the values of particular objects and/or social norms originate from and are reinforced by collective emotions that are intentionally directed or associated with the relevant objects or actions. In this chapter, I discuss these opposing views about the relation of collective emotions and normativity, defending the latter view. While collective emotions typically emerge in situations in which some shared value or concern of the participants is at stake, I suggest that collective emotions may also ontologically ground norms in the manner suggested by Durkheim. I present support for this view from a recent sociological case study on the emergence of punitive norms in the social movement Occupy Geneva.

AbstractIn contemporary philosophy of collective intentionality, emotions, feelings, moods, and sentiments do not figure prominently in debates on the explanation and justification of joint action. Received philosophical theories analyze joint action in terms of common knowledge of cognitively complex, interconnected structures of intentions and action plans of the participants. These theories admit that collective emotions sometimes give rise to joint action or more typically, unplanned and uncoordinated collective behavior that falls short of full-fledged jointly intentional action. In contrast, minimalist theorists pay some attention to affective elements in joint action without much concern about their collective intentionality. They refer to an association between low-level synchrony in perceptual, motor, and behavioral processes, and increased interpersonal liking, feelings of solidarity, and cooperativeness. In this paper, we outline an account of collective emotions that can bridge this theoretical divide, linking the intentional structure of joint actions and the underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms. Collective emotions can function as both motivating and justifying reasons for jointly intentional actions, in some cases even without prior joint intentions of the participants. Moreover, they facilitate coordination in joint action.

Although collective emotions have a long tradition in scientific inquiry, for instance in mass psychology and the sociology of rituals and social movements, their importance for individuals and the social world has never been more obvious than in the past decades. This book explores this fascinating and timely topic

Emotions are prevalent in the rhetoric of populist politicians and among their electorate. We argue that partially dissimilar emotional processes may be driving right- and left-wing populism. Existing research has associated populism with fear and insecurities experienced in contemporary societies, on the one hand, and with anger, resentment, and hatred, on the other. Yet there are significant differences in the targets of right- and left-wing resentment: A political and economic establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left) and political and cultural elites accused of favoring ethnic, religious, and sexual out-groups at the expense of the neglected in-group (right). Referring to partially different emotional opportunity structures and distinct political strategies at exploiting these structures, we suggest that right-wing populism is characterized by repressed shame that transforms fear and insecurity into anger, resentment, and hatred against perceived "enemies" of the precarious self. Left-wing populism, in turn, associates more with acknowledged shame that allows individuals to self-identify as aggrieved and humiliated by neoliberal policies and their advocates. The latter type of shame holds emancipatory potential as it allows individuals to establish bonds with others who feel the same, whereas repressors remain in their shame or seek bonds from repression-mediated defensive anger and hatred.