Taking offence

Abstract This chapter offers an analysis of a distinctive emotion of offence, contrasting both to Joel Feinberg’s disunified account, where any disliked state resented and wrongfully caused in us counts, and to the abstract account in philosophy of language on slurs, which gives us little sense of what feeling offended is like. On the account defended in this chapter, offence is taken at affronts to social standing, and results in a tendency towards acts expressing one’s withdrawal. Offence is contrasted with nearby emotions—of anger, pride, disgust, and contempt—to outline its unusual place as both an other-condemning emotion and an emotion of self-assessment. This analysis has implications not only for how we conceptualise offence but also for what we think about those who take it. Offence tends to be a smaller-scale and a more everyday emotion than those who make claims about its threat to society suppose, and one ripe for moral reassessment.