Between zeal and fanaticism. On vices of excess
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The paper develops a neo-Aristotelian account of fanaticism, along with the corresponding virtue of wholeheartedness (virtuous zeal) and the opposite vice of negligence. Departing from recent approaches advanced by Cassam and Battaly, it contends that the wrongness of fanaticism does not reside in its content (one can be a vicious fanatic even in the service of a just cause), nor in its consequences (contingently good outcomes do not convert a vice into a virtue). Rather, it argues that the viciousness of fanaticism is rooted in its excessive form. In contrast to Katsafanas’s account, which emphasises the destructive psychology of fanatics, the present approach is psychologically thinner, but morally more robust, focusing on the viciousness of excess. This approach helps to clarify the internal logic of fanatical ‘morality.’ The paper also offers an alternative explanation for more mundane cases of ‘fanaticism,’ suggesting that such instances are better understood in terms of hyperbolic language.
Source: Inquiry
Author: Dominik Jarczewski
Institution: Jagiellonian University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Narodowym Centrum Nauki
Award: G3490228679
OpenAlex ID: W4416610451