MAIN ISSUE
“The Others in Me” sheds light, from a philosophical perspective, on the intersection between self-consciousness and sociality by focusing on the social dimensions of self-conscious emotions, such as shame, envy or pride. While the human capacities to relate to oneself (self-consciousness) and to relate to others (sociality) have often been treated as separate, this research project suggests that they are importantly linked. Accordingly, its overarching aim was to investigate the nature of this relation. To achieve this, the project focused on a specific class of emotions where this link becomes obvious: self-conscious emotions that seem to target others (i.e. that are based on group identification). Self-conscious emotions typically evaluate the one who feels them: in shame one feels degraded, in pride, one feels commendable. But sometimes these emotions seem to evaluate others: we often feel ashamed of our political leaders or proud of our children. The project argued that this is possible by activating a social identity, an identity that we share with them and that they can affect (we “group-identify” with others as belonging to the same group). We therefore feel ashamed or proud insofar as we are members of a “we”. What does this tell us about the social nature of persons? And how do this emotions affect individual self-understanding?
IMPORTANCE FOR SOCIETY
Understanding the emotional dynamics at the intersection between self-consciousness and sociality is important both in the socio-political arena and for individual self-understanding. In the socio-political arena, emotions are key forces that drive action and shape discourse. This includes self-conscious emotions based on group-identification, such as shame, pride and envy. Understanding the role these emotions play in phenomena like inter-group discrimination or climate activism requires investigating the structure of such emotions and their impact on behavior: one of the main aims of “The Others in Me”. As for individual self-understanding and well-being, investigating these emotions can help us elucidate which kinds of connections with others potentially have an impact on our self-evaluations and why, thus helping us address some social sources of distress or well-being.
OBJECTIVES
The project sought, first, to clarify and spell-out what our capacity to experience self-conscious emotions based on group-identification reveals about the social nature of persons, by investigating the differences among such emotions and their impact on behaviour. Secondly, the project aimed at describing the kind of self-understanding that such emotions can afford, which sort of insights we can gain from them, and how relevant and reliable these insights are.
CONCLUSIONS
The project concluded that social selves come in different forms that express themselves in different varieties of self-conscious emotions based on group identification. All varieties impact on the subject’s identity as a target of ascriptions and descriptions, but only some varieties impact on their sense of self as a (collective) agent. Furthermore, these emotions can afford knowledge of the specific associations that are (still) relevant for a subject’s sense of who they are in the world, whether they actively embrace those ties, passively accept them, or are in the process of loosening or severing them. Finally, the project concluded that emotions such as envy and shame exert pressures towards self-deception, but if individuals and groups are able to surmount them and achieve self-understanding, these emotions can become sources of motivation to improve, both individually and collectively.
