Inappropriate emotions, marginalization, and feeling better

A growing body of work argues that we should reform problematic emotions like anxiety, anger, and shame: doing this will allow us to better harness the contributions that these emotions can make to our agency and wellbeing. But feminist philosophers worry that prescriptions to correct these inappropriate emotions will only further marginalize women, minorities, and other members of subordinated groups. While much in these debates turns on empirical questions about how we can change problematic emotion norms for the better, to date, little has been done by either side to assess how we might do this, much less in ways that are responsive to the feminists' worries. Drawing on research in cognitive science, this paper argues that though the feminists' worries are real, the leading proposals for remedying them are inadequate. It then develops an alternative strategy for reshaping problematic emotion norms-one that's sensitive to the feminists' concerns.

Automated summary

An increasing amount of research argues for the reform of problematic emotions such as anxiety, anger, and shame in order to harness their contributions to agency and wellbeing. However, feminist philosophers are concerned that correcting these inappropriate emotions may further marginalize women and other oppressed groups. This paper draws on cognitive science research to argue that the current proposals for remedying these concerns are inadequate, and proposes an alternative strategy for reshaping problematic emotion norms that is sensitive to feminist concerns.