About the Benefits of Pleasure-in-Others’-Misfortune. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev’s Depiction of Emotions as Adaptive Mechanisms

• Authors: Magdalena Michalik-Jeżowska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper was inspired by two ideas: (1) the concept of emotions as adaptive mechanisms, which was suggested by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, and (2) Robert Solomon’s criticism of the distinction between “positive” and “negative” emotions which functions in social sciences. In the context of the above mentioned theoretical perspectives I consider the infamous emotion of pleasure-in-others’-misfortune in terms of possible benefits for the experiencing subject. I focus especially on supposed adaptive quality of pleasure-in-others’-aging.

Keywords

EN

emotion; pleasure-in-others’-misfortune; pleasure-in-others’-aging; adaptation; aging; Schadenfreude

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Studia Humana
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 53-69

Dates

published

2016-09-01

online

2016-11-16

Contributors

author

Magdalena Michalik-Jeżowska

• University of Rzeszow,

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/sh-2016-0015