Abstract
This chapter proposes that shock can be morally significant independently of its consequences but only as part of an ongoing commitment to certain norms, in particular norms that constitute recognizing another as a person. When we witness others in agony, or being severely wronged, or when we ourselves severely wrong or mistreat others, our shock can reflect our recognition of them as persons, a recognition constituted by our commitment to certain moral norms. However, if we do not in fact respond to the suffering or wrong in accordance with these norms—if, for example, we do not act to relieve their suffering or to properly address the wrong done, and do not avoid or prevent its recurrence—then our commitment to the relevant norms is undermined. When we consistently violate the norms whose violation initially shocked us, our lingering shock upon repeated violations gradually loses its significance and becomes a mere impulse—a fossil of a past commitment, so to speak—before it disappears completely. The failure to be shocked in such instances marks the failure of our moral commitments, which is the failure to recognize others as persons.
…the disintegration of the aura in the experience of shock.
—Walter Benjamin
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Notes
- 1.
In the literature about the problem of evil it is common to distinguish natural evils from moral evils. Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents (e.g., hurricanes and toothaches), whereas moral evils are bad states of affairs that result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents (e.g., murder and lying). The same distinction can be drawn not in terms of states of affairs but of suffering that either involves or does not involve the violation of moral norms. I’m suggesting that moral shock is about moral evils, though shock about natural evils (as well as about other things) can be morally significant. For the distinction, see for example Calder (2018).
- 2.
For a critique of the idea that ‘the shock of the city’ is comparable to trauma, see Samuels 2010.
- 3.
I do not pretend to have offered an account of mutual recognition here, nor of a relationship based on the possibility of mutual recognition. How to understand these ideas is a difficult matter (for an influential account, see Honneth 1992). The only thing I want to insist on here is that we can have a sense of what mutual recognition (and the possibility of it) is, even if we don’t have a satisfactory analysis of it. Similarly, I do not offer an account of the distinction between a relationship of sheer force and a relationship based on the possibility of mutual recognition. But we admit such a distinction when we contrast coercion or exploitation with relations of basic equality and dignity. Of course, there are rival accounts of these ideas as well. All I need for the purposes of the present essay is to be granted the distinction. My use of the distinction is not meant to be partial to any one analysis, though what I say about it, if plausible, might be seen as an adequacy-constraint on a plausible analysis.
- 4.
My suggestion—i.e., that a relationship of mutual recognition is a moral relationship that is constituted by certain norms and that shock is a response to the violation of these norms while at the same time an expression of one’s commitment to them—is similar to Agnes Callard’s view of anger. Callard argues that anger is how we value a relationship whose constitutive norms have been violated :
My violation of a norm constitutive of our relationship is a failure to care about what we can only care about together. When I defect, I reduce you to anger. Anger is the form that your co-valuation of our relationship takes in response to the action by which I (seem to you to) withdraw from co-valuing with you. Because you cannot care (value) together with me, you care about (are angered by) it. (Callard 2017: 130)
- 5.
Here the “possibility of mutual recognition” cannot be understood too literally, since any actual encounter between the viewer and the individuals in the photo might in fact be impossible due to distance in time and place. This is precisely why I avoid offering a full account of what “the possibility of recognition” amounts to. Perhaps a counterfactual account of this possibility is needed, but I cannot examine this question within the limits of this paper. Still, I insist, we can have a sense of there being such a possibility even if we struggle to spell out what it amounts to.
References
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Acknowledgment
This paper was written while I was in quarantine, during the first lockdown due to COVID-19, yet in writing it I resorted to the wisdom and insight of others. An early draft of this paper was presented (online) at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows. I thank my friends and colleagues at the Buber Society for their valuable comments. For generous and helpful conversations on drafts of the paper, I thank Ulrika Carlsson and Liran Razinsky. For astute written comments, I am grateful to Chiara Caradonna, Antonio Vargas, and Vida Yao. The writing of the paper was supported by the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University.
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Na’aman, O. (2021). The Moral Significance of Shock. In: Falcato, A., Graça da Silva, S. (eds) The Politics of Emotional Shockwaves . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56021-8_8
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