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One of the most striking and controversial features of Aristotle's moral exemplar, the megalopsychos, is his tendency to be contemptuous. Not surprisingly, modern scholarship has found this attribute of the megalopsychos particularly unappealing. This article probes the question about the targets of the contempt of the Aristotelian megalopsychos and explores the forms that this contempt might take. I argue that the primary targets of the megalopsychos are people who claim superiority on the wrong grounds (their external prosperity and social status). The megalopsychos, who prioritizes virtue over external goods as a criterion of individual worth (axia), rejects the self-image these people claim for themselves and refuses to grant them the appraisal respect they are accustomed to receiving, and think they deserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to a collection of nine papers on contempt, bringing contemporary philosophical approaches to the phenomenon into relation with its construction and presentation in the four classical cultures of China, Greece, India, and Rome. The introduction offers a brief summary of the papers and places the issues that they explore in the wider research context of the historical and cross-cultural study of emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That contempt and dishonor are closely related has been shown not only in recent discussions of the subject, but also in Aristotle's investigation of emotions in the judiciary. In this paper, I will discuss the ways in which the ancient Greeks—and, in particular, the polis of Athens—institutionalized what Bell calls "apt contempt" (i.e., contempt as a response to actual and serious faults of character which stems from the contemnor's concern for the values at stake) through the legal penalty of atimia ("dishonor"). Not only does Athenian evidence prove Bell's point that contempt can be "apt"—it also represents an early case study of a community that formalized such "apt" contempt in law and in the formal enactment of collectively approved social norms. And yet, the Greeks were also aware of the potential ambivalence of notions such as "contempt" and "dishonor." This ambivalence is likely to have been one of the factors that catalyzed a differentiation, within the semantic field of atimia, between "dishonoring" (atiman / atimoun) and "disrespecting" (atimazein)—between "apt" and "inapt" contempt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the wages (costs) of contempt. It argues that the social and political division and dysfunction caused by contempt and imagined content undermines political discussion and creates terrible costs for contemned and contemner in the burdens of shame and guilt they must bear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading a passage in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata —the attempted disrobing of Princess Draupadī after her senior husband has gambled her away (after losing all his wealth, his brothers and himself)—I suggest that we see in her attitude and angry words an expression of contempt. I explore how contempt is a concept that is not thematized within Sanskrit aesthetics of emotions, but nonetheless is clearly articulated in the literature. Focusing on the significance of her gendered expression of anger and contempt, and the positive acceptance of it in the text, I suggest that contempt can be understood as a transformative attitude in a woman (even a high-born one) towards iniquities in a patriarchal culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Confucius and Xúnzǐ take for granted that contempt, in certain situations, is an appropriate and justified response for a person of virtuous character. But Xúnzǐ departs from his predecessor in his insistence on drawing clear boundaries around contempt so as to diminish its destructive and destabilizing potential. This article argues that Xúnzǐ's efforts to circumscribe contempt reflect a shift in the vision of the ritual community from one based on affective ties to one based on an impersonal, universalist state. It also traces the implications of this connection for how we might confront the problem of toxic contempt that has pervaded our political landscape today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Sanskrit and Pali conceptions of contempt, and explores how they work in a number of ancient Indian genres, with a sustained focus on the Rāmāyaṇa. The article argues that while Indian texts often analyze emotion words and concepts systematically and with intricate granularity, contempt was not seen as an interior state to be theorized or managed therapeutically or morally. Rather, words for contempt are used to describe behaviors, etiquette, and social relationships, and are principally concerned with stipulating social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While philosophers have discussed the emotion of contempt from antiquity to the present day, contempt has received less attention in psychological research. We review the defining features of contempt, both as a short-term emotion and as a more long-lasting sentiment. Contempt is similar to anger in that it may occur after (repeated) social or moral transgressions, but it differs from anger in its appraisals, actions, and emotivational goals. Unlike anger, contempt arises when a person’s or group’s character is appraised as bad and unresponsive to change, leading to attempts to socially exclude the target. We discuss associative, self-regulatory, and social distancing functions of contempt and present a dynamic social model of contempt versus anger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]