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Commentary
Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco
Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA
LaGuardia-LoBianco, Alycia. 2021. “Emotions Under Trauma.”
Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 3, no. 1: 31-38. https://doi.org/10.33497/2021.summer.6.
Abstract: In these comments, I argue that Michael Brady’s analysis of emotions tacitly assumes ideal, non-adverse conditions, and that this makes his theory apt only for certain kinds of lives. I aim to augment his view by considering how certain emotions work differently under one non-ideal circumstance: trauma (specifically, intimate partner violence). The standard function and value of emotions that Brady articulates alters for agents surviving this trauma, and therefore cannot be captured by a theory that assumes ideal conditions. Instead, it requires a different theoretical approach. My overall aim is to make the case that when doing philosophy of emotion, it is imperative to consider the non-ideal, adverse, and messy circumstances of our lives—exemplified by trauma—in order to provide a truly human theory of emotion.
Keywords: emotion, trauma, virtue, and non-ideal ethics
Michael Brady (2019) has written a clear and informative work on the role of emotions in our lives. He argues that emotion, in addition to reason, is an integral part of what makes us human: without our capacities to love, anger, fear, and be curious, the meaning in our lives would be impoverished. Brady pays close attention to the complex reality of human emotions, carefully noting that the epistemic, motivational, and social values of emotions are contingent. Emotions can misfire, misdirect, and bias as much as they can illuminate and inform, but Brady argues that these dangers, though present, do not undercut the value of emotions. Rather, he pushes us to shift our focus to consider these values, though without ignoring the potential pitfalls. This attention to detail is a virtue of Brady’s analysis, especially given the decidedly grounded topic of emotions with its decidedly untidy subjects in human agents.
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Yet for all these attentive virtues, his analysis assumes a certain sort of life (that which is shaped by the usual upsets and successes, griefs and loves), a certain sort of world (that which is safe, trustworthy, and ready to reveal its information), and a certain sort of agent (one who is oriented to this world as an eager discoverer and willing social participant). And while this portrait of a life, world, and agent that neatly fit together is true of many people, and the corresponding analysis of emotions therefore appropriate in these cases, its privileging of certain ways of being in the world circumscribes the theory to ideal agents and circumstances. This is worrisome if we think the philosophy of emotions (perhaps more so than some other subfields of philosophy) should capture and explain human experiences as they are actually lived, and should do so because, as Brady effectively argues, emotions are a central part of human existence. If a theory of emotions purports to give us some insight into our lives, then it would behoove us to consider emotions in real, messy, tragic, imperfect, self-destructive, and uncertain lives, not just those lives in which all the pieces seem to fit into place.
My criticism of Brady’s work is thus not with the mechanics of his theory or his normative conclusions about emotions (which I largely agree with). Nor is my aim to nitpick his cases with counterexamples. Rather, I’m concerned with the implicit assumptions in his approach and the incomplete view of emotions they yield. I will try to make this case by focusing on the function, dysfunction, and value of emotions in one all too common but non-ideal condition: traumatic experiences and their fallout. Suffering real or threatened harm (especially, though not exclusively, from other agents) in the form of acute attacks or prolonged abusive treatment (Herman [1992] 1997) can deeply shape an agent’s emotional orientation to the world as well as what information is salient to her, what she values, and what motivates her. And it does so by design. The characteristic emotional responses to trauma are not deviant in one important sense: hypervigilance, fear, distrust in others, quickness to anger, for instance, are adaptive responses to a real threat or attack (though paradoxically, it is just these emotional responses that are also destructive). Under trauma, the world has lashed out and caused damage, and the agent has responded appropriately. Therefore, I think we should resist a temptation to dismiss cases of trauma as pathological outliers. Rather, we should understand traumatic responses as another way of being in the world—a painful, difficult way of being that requires address, but nonetheless a legitimate and valid way that an agent makes sense of her life and relates to the world. And this means we should take seriously the way that trauma changes the landscape of emotions for these agents.
In what follows, I’ll apply parts of Brady’s analysis of the value of emotions to traumatic experiences and try to show how this both interrupts and expands his view. I’ll argue that looking at how trauma shapes the emotional profile of survivors complicates the role of emotions in our lives, not only by providing additional ways to understand the value of emotions, but also by suggesting that we have to look at an agent’s circumstances—especially adverse, non-ideal circumstances—in order to articulate the function and potential values of certain emotions. I’ll focus on two parts of Brady’s analysis: the epistemic value of emotions as motivation to seek reasons, and the role of emotions in cultivating intellectual virtues. I aim not to undermine Brady’s view, but instead to tell a more complicated story about the role of emotions in our lives.
EMOTIONS AND MOTIVATION
Brady argues that emotions have practical value as motivational forces. When we feel remorse, it motivates us to redress our wrongs; when we feel anger at injustice, we are moved to intervene or resist (Brady 2019, 94-98). We
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are pulled to action in order to escape the negative feeling of these emotions and to enjoy its relief, and emotions are often more powerful in this capacity than an inert rational judgment. Brady writes that these emotions “seem vital in the lives of creatures like us . . . those who are unable to feel emotions like remorse and guilt and shame will find it very difficult to live and function and flourish in normal human society” (2019, 97). (He goes on to consider how one would try to “go through the motions” of an apology without remorse, and how ineffective this would be.) So, a lack of these emotions would be a significant loss. By a similar token, certain emotions have an epistemic value in motivating the search for reasons. Brady argues that they do this by virtue of “attentional persistence”: we tend to remain fixed on our guilt, shame, or jealousy, no matter how hard we try to shake it (2019, 58). And this attention can “motivate reflection” on the objects of our emotions, thereby “[enabling] us to discover reasons which bear on the accuracy of our initial emotional appraisals . . . in other words, emotions can motivate the search for and discovery of reasons, and in so doing can help to bring about a more accurate judgement as to whether emotional appearance matches evaluative reality” (Brady 2019, 58). So, one’s nagging fear of house spiders can lead one to investigate the reason for this fear, and to realize there is nothing, in fact, dangerous about these spiders; one’s initial appraisal was incorrect.
Though I’m sympathetic to this analysis, I’m worried that it privileges a world and an agent that are undistorted by traumatic settings. Under trauma, emotions can give survivors exactly the wrong information—information that reinforces a traumatic response—and crucially, they do so by that very function which, under normal circumstances, facilitates knowledge. Consider the typical emotional profile of someone who is coping with a traumatic event—for instance, someone living under abusive conditions. A characteristic symptom of abusive victimization is feelings of guilt and self-blame for that abuse. Survivors adapt to a distorted moral environment in which they are told they are the cause of the abuse they suffer. The abuser’s word is God and thus cannot be wrong. To make sense of the abuse, survivors often resort to confabulation, convinced that they must have done something wrong (Spear 2020). And all this can very clearly lead to strong, pervasive feelings of guilt and self-blame that are utterly unwarranted. The issue here is not that emotions can misfire and sometimes give us the wrong information, as Brady acknowledges. Rather, the issue is that part of the systematic harm of relational violence is that it distorts (part of) a survivor’s emotional system so that it no longer functions as it should: certain emotions can no longer reliably give correct knowledge in certain areas. Emotional sensors have been damaged by abuse and weaponized against the survivor. I think this idea actually supports Brady’s argument for the value of emotions. Like a neuroscientist who discovers the function of some part of the brain by noting what ability is lost when it is damaged, recognizing how adverse conditions systematically distort the function of emotions puts the value of emotions under healthy conditions into relief. Seeing how emotions go wrong reinforces their importance when they go right.
But this picture is even more complicated. The distortion of emotions under trauma reinforces the value of these emotions in ideal conditions, but it also shows how the typical functioning of emotions can make things worse under traumatic conditions. Note that guilt and self-blame are emotions that can assist a survivor in coping with helplessness: if the survivor were responsible for their trauma, then they are not a mere victim of their abuser, or the abuser is not actually as terrible as the abuse suggests. But also note that it is exactly this rationalization, this search for reasons that explain existing guilt and self-blame, that the persistence of these emotions can motivate. Recall Brady’s argument that emotions can motivate us to uncover the reasons for these emotions, like a question that must be answered. But when one lives in an environment in which negative self-regarding emotions (like guilt and self-blame) are induced and reinforced without justification, this
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motivational tendency of emotions can be a curse. If pervasive guilt motivates a survivor to figure out why they feel so guilty, the most likely available answer (and the one that is “confirmed” by the environment and other beliefs created by abuse) is that they have in fact done something wrong that warrants this guilt. This is at best a distortion and at worst a confabulation, but it reinforces just the moral inversion of right and wrong and the undermining of self-knowledge that helps keeps the abuser in power.[1] When the real reasons for one’s emotions are hidden behind layers of psychological abuse, the motivation to explain these emotions can end up reinforcing patterns of abusive thinking. What is of value under healthy conditions is a disvalue under traumatic ones.
INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES UNDER TRAUMA
Brady articulates another important value of emotions: certain emotions can lead to the development and regulation of intellectual virtues. Among the list of these excellences of knowing are open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, conscientiousness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. Certain emotions can “constitute the motivational components of intellectual virtues” (Brady 2019, 64). Brady’s paradigm example is curiosity. A disposition towards curiosity can lead us to seek out novel and interesting information. In other words, curiosity can motivate open-mindedness, and motivate it better than the judgment that some bit of information is worthwhile. Again, I want to suggest that these virtues presume a safe environment and untraumatized agent, and that the landscape of intellectual virtues changes under trauma. In order to do this, I will use Lisa Tessman’s (2005) framework of burdened virtues.
In the conclusion of her book, Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles, Tessman categorizes different types of what she calls burdened virtues—that is, a trait exhibited under non-ideal, adverse conditions which “carries a cost [but] can still be praiseworthy” (2005, 167). The first type is a virtue that would be straightforwardly conducive to flourishing under ideal conditions, but which becomes taxing under non-ideal conditions. It allows the bearer to act as well as they can under actual conditions, but not without attendant remorse or regret (Tessman 2005, 163) (call this type one burdened virtue). A second type of burdened virtue is only tenuously labelled a “virtue” by Tessman; this is a trait that allows for the best kind of life possible under adverse conditions, though this life is not a flourishing one (call this type two burdened virtue). Though Tessman focuses on moral virtues and oppression, I propose to look at intellectual virtues under trauma as burdened virtues, those traits which either facilitate survival under trauma yet carry an intellectual cost, or else run counter to intellectual flourishing for the price of survival.
To return to the example of the abuse survivor, consider the fact that in order to get by in their environment, a survivor must be acutely aware of any indicators that the abuser can become angry or violent so as to preclude them if possible (insofar as they are predictable). The survivor must stick to the script they are given, pay attention to the abuser’s moods and desires, and do their best not to upset anything. Hypervigilance and attention to detail can help the survivor quickly attend to those unpredictable triggers of abuse. Of course, this is part of the moral distortion of the environment, but it also means that for the sake of survival, curiosity is an incredible risk. Being disinclined to seek out novel information, remaining focused on the banal details of the abuser’s preferences, is far safer than following the motivation to uncover an interesting truth. And this suggests that curiosity, and the open-mindedness it encourages, is maladaptive for the survivor.
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In these circumstances, closed-mindedness is a type two burdened intellectual virtue: it allows the survivor to navigate their situation as well as they can, but this hardly constitutes a flourishing life (intellectually and otherwise).
Likewise, intellectual humility—another virtue—is a type one burdened virtue under conditions of trauma. Under normal conditions, intellectual humility helps correct a tendency to bias our own knowledge and assume we are correct without much evidence. Under trauma, intellectual humility is an exacerbation of a disturbing tendency to undermine one’s own knowledge, doubt one’s own beliefs and intuitions, and discredit one’s own voice—exactly those features of gaslighting that help constitute abuse (Abramson 2014). So, a tendency towards humility that straightforwardly contributes to intellectual flourishing under normal conditions here carries a significant cost. Instead, intellectual hubris, a tendency to trust your knowledge despite the evidence, seems to be a type two burdened intellectual virtue under trauma—it is only “virtuous” under certain non-ideal conditions.
Brady offers a second way that emotions can help cultivate intellectual virtues. This is through “regulatory virtues” (2019, 67)—those virtues that help keep one’s emotions in line with and properly motivating worthwhile intellectual goals. The prime example of this is intellectual wisdom, which helps keep in check and properly direct emotions that contribute to intellectual virtues. So, the intellectually wise person “knows which topics and subjects and questions merit investigation, inquiry, and understanding, and is someone whose epistemic emotions are guided and regulated by this kind of evaluative knowledge . . . the wise person [also] knows when to stop inquiring and investigating: she knows when the level of knowledge and understanding she has attained is enough, relative to the topic or question at hand” (Brady 2019, 67-68). Intellectual wisdom thus helps one be more intellectually virtuous overall.
Now, consider the regulatory virtue of intellectual wisdom for a trauma survivor. They will know which minutia to inquire into when attempting to set up a predictable environment, when to stop investigating their abuser’s actions, when to defer to their abuser against their own self-knowledge, when safety demands a retreat into self-doubt. An intellectually wise trauma survivor will have ample tools to negotiate their surroundings as well as they can, yet this hardly constitutes an intellectually flourishing life and, crucially—it makes them a less intellectually virtuous agent overall, understood in terms of non-adverse conditions. For outside these constrained circumstances, the survivor is cultivating a host of intellectual vices (which, indeed, is another way to understand type two burdened virtues—these would be straightforward vices under ideal conditions).
For a trauma survivor, having intellectual virtues (understood under ideal conditions) is risky, as these virtues can potentially run counter to the aims of survival. And while this does not mean the agent who is merely surviving is flourishing, it does mean that under conditions of trauma, the emotions that facilitate the development of intellectual virtues—and the virtues themselves—are actually maladaptive, and thus may make one’s life go less well in the immediate circumstance. All this suggests, perhaps controversially, that we can’t ignore or take for granted an agent’s circumstances when thinking about virtue. Rather, the conditions of the world an agent lives in—ideal or otherwise—must be considered before we can determine which traits are virtuous for that agent.
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CONCLUSION
Though I’ve focused on trauma and interpersonal abuse here, these are not the only adverse conditions that can change the value of emotions and for which intellectual virtues come out differently. Oppression, Tessman’s focus, is another paradigm case, since oppressed agents are often safer when intellectually deferring to privileged authorities (or at least, incur a cost for failing to defer), for one instance. And this suggests that to fully articulate the roles and values of emotions and their connections to intellectual virtue in our human lives, we should pay close attention to the type of environment an agent is in and how she has learned to respond to that environment, and then investigate her emotions. I hope to have contributed to this goal by augmenting Brady’s analysis, even in a small way.
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Notes
[1] Note that this does not mean the survivor is responsible or blameworthy for her abuse.
[2] Tessman identifies another type of burdened virtue which is only virtuous under non-ideal circumstances since it aids in the project of overcoming oppression; it contributes to flourishing only insofar as it helps create a world where “flourishing lives [are] more possible overall” (Tessman 2005, 165).
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References
Abramson, Kate. 2014. “Turning up the Lights on Gaslighting.” Philosophical Perspectives 28, no. 1: 1-30.
Brady, Michael S. 2019. Emotion: The Basics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Herman, Judith L. (1992) 1997. Trauma and Recovery. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Spear, Andrew D. 2020. “Gaslighting, Confabulation, and Epistemic Innocence.” Topoi 39: 229-241. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9611-z.
Tessman, Lisa. 2005. Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco © 2021
Author email: laguarda[at]gvsu.edu
