Accommodation to injustice

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

Suppose we suffer or witness an injustice. Often we will respond with a combination of anger, grief, resentment, indignation, or horror. And it seems that this is how it should be: the injustice is the reason for our emotional response. However, it is a striking fact that our anger, grief, or horror will diminish over time, often fairly quickly, even if the injustice persists. We accommodate ourselves to the injustice. Indeed, this is good for us, and it may even seem appropriate; it is often wrong to dwell on a wrong. But how could accommodation be appropriate if the injustice remains unchanged? And how could we make sense of accommodation when we anticipate it? This chapter argues that accommodation to injustice poses an insurmountable problem for understanding our emotional response to injustice and reveals something incomprehensible at the heart of our moral outlook.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationOxford Studies in Metaethics
EditorsRuss Shafer-Landau
Chapter12
Pages263-283
Volume15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2020

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • emotions
  • grief
  • anger
  • time
  • accommodation
  • reasons
  • background conditions

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