Ressentiment

Huddleston, Andrew (2021) Ressentiment. Ethics 131 (4), ISSN 0014-1704. (In Press)

Abstract

In his On the Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche famously discusses a psychological condition he calls ressentiment, a condition involving toxic, vengeful anger. My view takes some inspiration from Nietzsche, but this paper is not primarily a work of exegesis. I offer a free-standing theory in philosophical psychology of the familiar state aptly described with this term. In the process of developing my account, I chart the terrain around ressentiment and closely-related and sometimes overlapping states (ordinary moral resentment, envy, vengefulness, anger, and the like). Ressentiment, I shall contend in this paper, is not simply a ten dollar word substitutable for ‘resentment,’ though it is indeed a species of that genus. On the account I develop, the perception of being slighted, insulted, or demeaned figures centrally in cases of ressentiment. Moreover, ressentiment—like cowardice or lecherousness—is not merely an ethically neutral psychic formation, but is, I suggest, a manifestation of vice.

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