When making choices under conditions of perceptual uncertainty, past experience can play a vital role. However, it can also lead to biases that worsen decisions. Consistent with previous observations, we found that human choices are influenced by the success or failure of past choices even in a standard two-alternative detection task, where choice history is irrelevant. The typical bias was one that made the subject switch choices after a failure. These choice history biases led to poorer performance and were similar for observers in different countries. They were well captured by a simple logistic regression model that had been previously applied to describe psychophysical performance in mice. Such irrational biases seem at odds with the principles of reinforcement learning, which would predict exquisite adaptability to choice history. We therefore asked whether subjects could adapt their irrational biases following changes in trial order statistics. Adaptability was strong in the direction that confirmed a subject’s default biases, but weaker in the opposite direction, so that existing biases could not be eradicated. We conclude that humans can adapt choice history biases, but cannot easily overcome existing biases even if irrational in the current context: adaptation is more sensitive to confirmatory than contradictory statistics.

The orthodox view of anger takes desires for revenge or retribution to be central to the emotion. In this paper, I develop an empirically informed challenge to the retributive view of anger. In so doing, I argue that a distinct desire is central to anger: a desire for recognition. Desires for recognition aim at the targets of anger acknowledging the wrong they have committed, as opposed to aiming for their suffering. In light of the centrality of this desire for recognition, I argue that the retributive view of anger should be abandoned. I consider and dismiss two types of moves that can be made on the part of a proponent of the orthodox view in response to my argument. I propose that a pluralist view, which allows for both retribution and recognition in anger, is to be preferred.

The phenomenon of self‐anger has been overlooked in the contemporary literature on emotion. This is a failing we should seek to remedy. In this paper I provide the first effort towards a philosophical characterization of self‐anger. I argue that self‐anger is a genuine instance of anger and that, as such, it is importantly distinct from the negative self‐directed emotions of guilt and shame. Doing so will uncover a potentially distinctive role for self‐anger in our moral psychology, as one of the strongest affective motivators for self‐change.

Anger is often an appropriate reaction to harms and injustices, but is it a beneficial one? Martha Nussbaum (2015;2016) has argued that, although useful in initially recruiting agents for action, anger is typically ineffective and often counterproductive to securing the political aims of the oppressed. Nussbaum argues that to be effective at enacting social change, groups and individuals alike, must move quickly out of states of anger. Feminist theorists, on the other hand, have for long highlighted the efficacy of anger, as well as its moral and epistemic value, in fighting against the oppressive status quo (Frye, 1983; Lorde, 1984;Narayan, 1988). It might be thought, therefore, that for political action to be effective, a continued state of anger is preferable. I present a novel, empirically informed, defense against Nussbaum's attack on anger's efficacy in political action. Nussbaum adheres to a traditional view on the nature of anger, which holds that anger constitutively involves a desire for retribution. The view that anger is ineffective falls out of this and is dominant in the literature, as well our everyday lives. Informed by work in social psychology, I argue that anger is far more effective than Nussbaum allows. This will give us cause to reconsider the traditional view of anger's nature that Nussbaum endorses. In doing so, I highlight anger's aim for recognition, rather than retribution, as key. I also uncover conditions that favour anger's political efficacy, as well as reasons for why the traditional view of anger has been so pervasive.

In this paper I lay the foundations for the construction of an affective quality space. I begin by outlining what quality spaces are, and how they have been constructed for sensory qualities across different perceptual modalities. I then turn to tackle four obstacles that an affective quality space might face that would make an affective quality space unfeasible. After showing these obstacles to be surmountable, I propose a number of conditions and methodological constraints that should be satisfied in attempts to construct an affective quality space. Before concluding, I detail the high explanatory pay-off such a project promises.