El próximo jueves, 11 de Noviembre, tendremos a Heidi Maibom (ILCLI - Ikerbasque) en el Seminario Abierto de Filosofía. La charla será en inglés, y tendrá por título "Don't Worry, Be Happy? On the alleged benefits of anxiety" (abajo el abstract de la charla, también en inglés). La sesión comenzará a la una del mediodía, como de costumbre, y será en el Salón de Juntas de la Facultad.

Abstract:

Don't Worry, Be Happy?

On the alleged benefits of anxiety

Heidi Maibom (ILCLI/Ikerbasque - EHU)

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the benefits of anxiety. Anxiety, it is now argued, aids good cognition and problem solving (De Sousa 2008, Hookway 1998, Kurth 2015 and 2016, and Vazzard 2019). It acts as a signal that an action may lead to negative consequences, that our physical or emotional welfare is under threat, or that we are precariously positioned in our environment. One of the more exciting developments is the suggestion that anxiety plays an important role in moral deliberation and moral action. However, these new positive accounts are put under pressure by the fact that people who suffer from anxiety are less happy, less successful, and less healthy (Wells 2000, Nolen-Hoeksema 2000, Wittchen & Boloch 1996). This raises the question of whether there is a way of cultivating anxiety that is compatible with happiness. In this paper, I consider two ways to solve the problem, both of which focus on the affective side of things in a rather general and abstract way. The empirical research strongly suggests that the more anxious you are, the less happy you are. Although this does not show that we cannot be happy and experience a full range of moral anxiety at the same time, it counts against it. However, if we take a more holistic view of moral anxiety, particularly the anxious element in empathic distress, the experience seems less likely to detract from a person’s being happy. The anxiety inherent in empathic distress is connected to the plight of others, sympathy, prosocial action, values, and meaning, which sets it apart from other types of anxiety. Examining the conflict between sympathy and distress indicates that there is a way of regulating anxiety that is both morally defensible and compatible with overall happiness.