Compromise and Emotions: On the Causal Role of "Practical Identities"

In this paper I will argue that the emotions elicited by cases of prospective or retrospective compromise are directly caused by the role played by our “practical identities” (Korsgaard, 1996). Although emotions, once generated, can arguably add up to the predicament of those involved in a case of prospective or retrospective compromise, and thus have a further causal role themselves, the causal role played by practical identities is psychologically, and conceptually, antecedent to any further role played by emotions. My argument draws on Korsgaard’s claim that we all are the bearers of various practical identities, e.g., we are relatives of someone else, friends, workers, citizens, members of social, political, sometimes religious circles, and so on. Each of these roles define an identity that is practical in kind (although not always strictly moral). When negotiating with others in the nuanced circumstances of our private or public life, what is at stake is not only the topic under scrutiny, but also, importantly, the kind of people that we are and/or want to be, i.e., the practical identities that define us and that we can or cannot give up. This approach will have three consequences: 1) interpersonal compromise is always an intra-personal compromise of some sort, and it doesn’t reduce to principles; 2) the emotions generated are caused by the practical identity that may result to be sacrificed; 3) although emotions can have further causal roles, in order to modify emotions we need to operate on the practical identities that generate them.