A stranger in the pub bumps into you spilling your drink and then doesn't apologize, or someone pushes past to grab a seat on the train. A colleague makes a dismissive remark about your work in front of your boss. A man catcalls a woman on the street, or wears a T‐shirt declaring, “keep calm, watch lesbians.” One reaction to affronts like these is to take offense. Philosophers have said a great deal about causing offense, especially whether we should punish or prevent it, but very little about what is to take offense, let alone whether we should.11 To illustrate, see, for example, Joel Feinberg's influential discussion in legal philosophy. Joel Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law: Volume 2: Offence to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). For more recent discussions, see, for example, George Sher, “Debate: Taking Offense,” Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 3 (September 2020): 332–42; Jeremy Waldron, “Debate: Taking Offense: A Reply,” Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 3 (September 2020): 343–52. See also the philosophical work on slurs, for example, Luvell Anderson and Ernie Lepore, “Slurring Words,” Noûs 47, no. 1 (March 2013): 25–48; Mihaela Popa‐Wyatt and Jeremy L. Wyatt, “Slurs, roles and power,” Philosophical Studies 17 (2018): 2879–2906. Hitherto, the focus of moral and legal philosophy has tended to be the offender, not the offended. Meanwhile, taking offense has captured popular attention, with a multitude of books and opinion pieces condemning “oversensitive millennials” and “generation snowflake.” 22 Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, “Microaggression and Moral Cultures,” Comparative Sociology 13, no. 6 (2014): 692–726; Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, “The New Millennial ‘Morality’: Highly Sensitive and Easily Offended,” Time, November 17, 2015, https://time.com/4115439/student-protests-microaggressions/; Claire Fox, I Find That Offensive! (London: Biteback Publishing, 2016); Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind (London: Penguin Books, 2018). There, however, being offended tends to be characterized, I will argue, mistakenly, as a kind of emotional upset, borne of oversensitivity or emotional fragility, or as a retreat into victimhood.33 As illustrations of this victimhood or emotionally upset interpretation of offense‐taking, see most notably Campbell and Manning, “Microaggression and Moral Cultures”; Campbell and Manning, “The New Millennial ‘Morality.’” As they describe, “A culture of victimhood is one characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties.” Campbell and Manning, “Microaggression and Moral Cultures,” 715. In places where we find such a culture, they suggest, “personal discomfort looms large” in policymaking. Campbell and Manning, “Microaggression and Moral Cultures,” 716. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, discussing offense‐taking on university campuses, declare: “the current movement is largely about emotional well‐being… it presumes an extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche, and therefore elevates the goal of protecting students from psychological harm.” Lukianoff and Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind. Within philosophy, see Sher's characterization of offense as hurt feelings. Sher, “Debate: Taking Offense.” One thing that goes wrong in these contemporary debates is that the anger of marginalized groups is misread as “mere” offense. Another—and this article's target—is that offense is mischaracterized.

In this article, I offer an analysis of what it is to take offense and what doing so is like, on which a more nuanced and positive appraisal of this emotion becomes possible as compared to its popular reputation. First, I survey the shortfalls of the limited discussion of offense by philosophers, before proposing an alternative analysis. Second, I distinguish offense from nearby emotions, like anger, disgust, and pride. Third, I examine the implications not only for how we conceptualize offense but also how we regard those who take it. On my account, offense tends to be a smaller‐scale, more everyday emotion than those making claims about its threats to society suppose, and one ripe for a moral reassessment. While offense sometimes appears excessive, that is likely only in limited cases: namely, those requiring symbolic withdrawal or proxy forms of estrangement. Even there, the appearance of excess may be illusory, with the grander gestures of offense appropriate given the distance between the offended and offending parties. Furthermore, on my account, to take offense is to resist affronts to one's standing, rather than merely a reflection of hurt feelings. Concluding, I sketch a defense of this resistance as a sometimes valuable response to injustice.

酒吧里的一个陌生人撞上你，把酒洒了出来，然后没有道歉，或者有人冲过去，在火车上坐下。一位同事在老板面前对你的工作不屑一顾。一名男子在街上叫来一名妇女，或穿一件T恤宣称：“保持镇静，观察女同性恋者。” 对这种冒犯者的反应之一就是发脾气。哲学家们说，大量关于造成犯罪，特别是我们是否应该惩罚或阻止它，但很少关于什么是采取进攻，更何况我们是否should.11为了举例说明，请参见例如Joel Feinberg对法律哲学的有影响力的讨论。乔尔·芬伯格（Joel Feinberg），《刑法的道德界限：第2卷：对他人的犯罪》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，1985年）。有关更近期的讨论，请参见例如George Sher的“辩论：冒犯”，《政治哲学杂志》第28期，第1期。3（2020年9月）：332-42；杰里米·沃尔德隆（Jeremy Waldron），“辩论：冒犯：答复”，《政治哲学杂志》第28期，第1期。3（2020年9月）：343-52。另请参见有关诽谤的哲学著作，例如Luvell Anderson和Ernie Lepore，“ S昧的言语”，第47号，否。1（2013年3月）：25-48；Mihaela Popa-Wyatt和Jeremy L. Wyatt，“诽谤，角色和权力”哲学研究17（2018）：2879-2906。迄今为止，道德和法律哲学的重点往往是犯罪者，而不是犯罪者。同时，冒犯引起了广泛关注，大量书籍和意见书谴责“过分敏感的千禧一代”和“世代相传”。2个2 Bradley Campbell和Jason Manning，“微侵略与道德文化”，《比较社会学》第13期，第1期。6（2014）：692-726；布拉德利·坎贝尔（Bradley Campbell）和杰森·曼宁（Jason Manning），“新千禧年的“道德”：高度敏感且容易受到冒犯”，《时代》，2015年11月17日，https：//time.com/4115439/student-protests-microaggressions/；克莱尔·福克斯（Claire Fox），我觉得令人反感！（伦敦：Biteback出版社，2016）; 格雷格·卢基安诺夫（Greg Lukianoff）和乔纳森·海特（Jonathan Haidt），《美国心灵的Co恋》（伦敦：企鹅出版社，2018年）。 但是，在那儿，冒犯往往是一种特征，我会错误地认为这是一种情绪不安，过分敏感或情绪脆弱，或者是退缩成受害者。33 作为这种受害行为或令人不安的犯罪行为解释的例证，最著名的是坎贝尔和曼宁的著作《微侵略与道德文化》；坎贝尔和曼宁，“新千禧年的“道德”。”正如他们所描述的那样，“一种受害文化是一种特征，即关注地位和敏感度，并严重依赖第三方。” 坎贝尔和曼宁（Campbell and Manning），“微侵略与道德文化”，715。在我们发现这种文化的地方，他们建议，在决策过程中“个人不适感日益严重”。坎贝尔和曼宁（Campbell and Manning），《微侵略与道德文化》，716。格雷格·卢基安诺夫（Greg Lukianoff）和乔纳森·海特（Jonathan Haidt）在大学校园讨论违法行为时宣称：“目前的运动主要是关于情感幸福……它假定大学精神非常脆弱。 ，因此提高了保护学生免受心理伤害的目标。” Lukianoff和Haidt，美国心灵的Co依。在哲学内，将谢尔（Sher）的进攻描述为伤害的感觉。Sher，“辩论：冒犯。” 在这些当代辩论中出了错的一件事是，边缘化群体的愤怒被误读为“纯粹”的冒犯。另一个（也是本文的目标）是该罪行的特征是错误的。

在本文中，我将对进攻的含义和行为进行分析，与流行声望相比，对这种情绪进行更细微而积极的评估是可能的。首先，在提出替代分析之前，我调查了哲学家对犯罪的有限讨论的不足之处。其次，我将冒犯与附近的情绪（例如愤怒，厌恶和骄傲）区分开。第三，我不仅研究了我们如何将犯罪概念化，而且还研究了我们如何对待犯罪者。在我看来，与那些声称声称对社会构成威胁的人相比，犯罪往往是一种更小规模，更日常的情感，并且是道德重新评估的成熟时机。尽管有时冒犯性过大，但这仅在有限的情况下才可能发生：那些需要象征性撤回或代理形式的疏离的人。即使在那儿，过分的表象也可能是虚幻的，考虑到犯罪方和犯罪方之间的距离，可以采用更大的进攻姿态。此外，以我的名义，冒犯是为了抵制对自己立场的侮辱，而不仅仅是反映受到伤害的感觉。最后，我将这种抵抗的辩护作为有时对不公正的有价值的回应而辩护。