Faces of Affective Injustice

Philosophers of emotion and affectivity have recently begun to explore the idea that there may be distinctive forms of injustice related to affectivity. These may include the dismissal or lack of uptake to the emotions of those facing oppression or marginalization (Whitney 2018), the demand that victims of oppression get rid of their anger before engaging in public debates (Srinivasan 2018; Archer & Mills 2019), or the imposition of a dominant group’s emotional norms on the oppressed (Archer & Matheson 2022). This work points towards a potentially fruitful way of understanding various forms of emotional wrongs and providing a theoretical framework for work in the ethics and politics of emotions. Up to now though, little work has been done to better understand what precisely the implications are of calling something affectively just or unjust in particular (though see Gallegos 2022). In addition, much of the current discussion is focused on one specific emotion (anger) while this concept might also help us understand ethical and political issues related to other emotions such as hope, gratitude and contempt and also to other affective states such as moods.

The aim of this workshop is to simultaneously deepen the discussion by clarifying what distinguishes the affective injustice framework from alternative ways of conceptualizing the relevant issues, and to broader it by addressing new faces of affective injustice.