Introduction

Abstract This chapter introduces the book and its defence of offence. These introductory remarks first describe the book’s topic: the distinctive emotion of taking offence. Second, this chapter discusses the background of the book. There is widespread popular criticism of those deemed to take offence too easily. Meanwhile, philosophers are paying increasing attention to the moral emotions, such as anger and resentment, but far less has been said about the social emotions. To take offence over the details of social interactions appears, on the face of it, to be an especially poor candidate for any moral or political defence: why should we care about the small-scale slights and affronts that others offer us? But this book will offer a defence of the significance of details of our social interactions, and the moral and social value of resisting social hierarchies through taking offence, as the introduction explains. An overview of the following chapters is provided.