Pride and Moral Responsibility

Abstract

Having the emotion of pride requires taking oneself to stand in some special relation to the object of pride. According to agency accounts of this pride relation, the self and the object of pride are suitably related just in case one is morally responsible for the existence or excellence of the object of one's pride. I argue that agency accounts fail. This argument provides a strong prima facie defence of an alternate account of pride, according to which the self and the object of pride are suitably related just in case one's relation to the object of pride indicates that one's life accords with some of one's personal ideals. I conclude that the pride relation, though distinct from the relation of moral responsibility, is nonetheless a relation of philosophical interest that merits further attention. 1 . . . the objects which excite these passions [pride and humility], are very numerous, and seemingly very different from each other. Pride or self-esteem may arise from the qualities of the mind; wit, goodsense, learning, courage, integrity: from those of the body;

Emotions in a Time of Radical Change: Untangling Narratives of Pride and Achievements in Post-1989/1991 Lithuania and East Germany

“…Richard Lazarus has defined pride as the 'enhancement of one's ego-identity by taking credit of a valued object or achievement, either of our own or that of someone or group with whom we identify' (Lazarus, 1991: 122). Thus, pride occurs only when there is a relationship of belonging (possession or identification) between a person and something valued (Taylor, 1985) that fosters their identity (Tracy et al, 2010) or allows for the satisfaction of personal ideals (Fischer, 2017).…”

“…In conceptualizing pride, one of the major debates relates to the role of active pursuit of achievement in it. The agential view of pride (Brady, 2017; Kauppinen, 2017) argues that pride only occurs when an individual feels responsible for a specific accomplishment (Fischer, 2017) and expressed when this agency is manifested (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985). Brady (2017) questions the notion of pride as a feeling that arises only when a person acts and takes responsibility for the achievement(s).…”

“…Brady (2017) questions the notion of pride as a feeling that arises only when a person acts and takes responsibility for the achievement(s). According to the reduced-agency approach to pride (Fischer, 2017), people may experience ego amplification due to factors beyond moral responsibility, such as background, ethnicity, or family history.…”

“…Although achievements are often associated with personal effort and often give rise to individual pride, we argue that pride is a thoroughly sociocultural phenomenon. Pride is commonly studied as an individual feeling or psychological state (Brady, 2017; Fischer, 2017), while cultural sociologists examine it at a macro level, for example, when studying national pride (Bonikowski 2017; Spillman, 1997). In this article, we argue that pride is articulated through social and cultural sources and propose a middle ground between individual and macro-level analyses by tracing the social facets of pride in biographical narratives.…”

The Rational Appropriateness of Group-Based Pride

“…An initial worry is whether we are warranted to take credit for valued objects or achievements of other people, whether or not this is psychologically possible. An agential view of pride that ties this emotion to personal achievements denies that group-based pride is ever warranted, or that it even counts as an instance of genuine pride as there is no agential connection to the relevant success (e.g., Kristjánsson, 2002 ; Fischer, 2017 ; Kauppinen, 2017 ). Instead, these cases have been suggested to manifest the phenomenon of basking in reflected glory or BIRGing ( Cialdini et al, 1976 ) in which people hop on to winners’ bandwagon, expressing and publicizing their, however, thin relationship to successful others, in order to reap psychological benefits from a group identification with them.…”