The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the APA Newsletters

Political philosophers tend to either fear passion or ignore it. In the former case, they may argue that passion poses a danger to politics and is best eliminated from the public realm as much as possible. In the latter case, they may simply consider passion to be politically irrelevant, or, at best, a private phenomenon that the political process exists to manage. In neither case, though, is the capacity for passion treated as an important component of political life—as the capacity for reason always is. From a feminist perspective, given the familiar coding of reason as "masculine" and emotion as "feminine" in the history of Western culture, this dismissal of a role for passion in politics calls for inquiry and challenge. Building on feminist (and other philosophic) arguments about the interconnections between reason and passion, I argue that passion is no less valuable to politics than reason is, and no more dangerous to it either.

In recent years feminist thinkers have paid a fair amount of attention to the political value of care, compassion, and empathy, particularly as counterparts to the value of justice (see e.g. Held, 1995, Tronto 1993). Less attention has been paid to passion, an emotional capacity that may manifest itself in feelings of compassion and empathy, yet is not limited to such expressions. My argument is that this broader category of emotions has political significance in its own right.

Let me begin by clarifying my usage of this rather amorphous term. Conventionally, "passion" is often used as a virtual synonym for either "emotion" in general or "sexual desire" in particular. It also frequently conveys the notion of a feeling that is "overmastering," that is, one that threatens one’s supposed rational mastery of oneself. But passion can also be understood as "a strong liking for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept."¹ I believe this understanding is preferable, for two reasons. First, it allows us to articulate experiences in human life that are not reducible to sexual desire, yet are similar to it in their intensity and motivational effect — experiences that are otherwise left nameless. Second, it does not inherently oppose passion and reason, capacities that are in many ways quite intertwined.² Understood as a strong liking or yearning, passion certainly requires the use of some form of reason, for implicit in any devotion to an object is a cognitive judgment about its value, its worthiness of one’s emotional commitment. Hence, passion is not "mindless" or "blind"; rather, it entails a vision of a good.³

To say that passion entails a vision of a good, however, is not to guarantee the "goodness" or "rightness" of any such vision. In arguing for the political significance of passion, I do not presuppose that all passions are good, or even that all take positive form. One of the most salient characteristics of both modernity and postmodernity is the acknowledgment that there are multiple and diverse visions of the good, and no clearly recognizable "truth" as to which of these visions is "correct." I cannot dispute this perspective, nor solve the political problems it entails. But what I would like to point out is that, as the value of an envisioned good may well be debatable, so too will the passion linked to that vision. In other words, passion is neither good nor bad by definition. (As I shall indicate below, the same holds true for reason.) Moreover, it is quite possible for passion to be expressed in "negative" form (for example, as indignation or hatred), for the desire to reject a particular object or value is simply the reverse side of the desire to embrace its opposite. A perception of what is hateful, wrong, unjust, and so forth implies a perception of what is not hateful, and vice versa. Thus, in speaking of passion as a desire for an envisioned good, I include both attractions and revulsions, as well as desires that may be either praiseworthy or blameworthy.

An understanding of passion as a devotion to an envisioned good challenges the conclusion that it is irrelevant to the political realm. There are at least three ways in which passion in this sense is important to politics: first, as a key component of political values and choices, second, as a bond of political community, and third, as a motivator of political action.

What is the role of passion in political choices and values? The act of making choices is fundamental to politics. But with every political decision, the choices of the people involved are shaped, at least in part, by their desires to attain envisioned goods (and avoid envisioned harms). On a fundamental level, without some desire among a group of people to pursue an ideal of a life in common, no polity would be possible. The structure of a political unit is also shaped in part by citizens’ devotions to such values as justice, equality, order, security, liberty, comfort, and material wealth. On a more daily level, desires for an envisioned good play a role in the ongoing decisions of any political process.⁴ Consider, for example, the question of whether a nation should use its military forces abroad. Part of a debate that might ensue around this issue would no doubt concern such technical questions as "What is the strength of the opposing forces?" and "Can the use of military force effectively accomplish the goals set for it?" These questions surely call for answers based on rational-technical calculation, regardless of anyone’s desires. But another part of the debate would likely be about the different desires people hold for different ideals: desires to support the cause of "justice" wherever it may be found, or to preserve the lives of one’s own citizens above all, or to be "first" among nations, or to uphold an ideal of "nonviolence," and so forth. These are all passions according to the definition I have been using: they are deep yearnings for values and activities perceived to be good. One may certainly disagree that one or another of these values is indeed "good," but the point is precisely that these desires are not just personal emotions that are out of place in the public realm. On the contrary, they are—or should be—an important part of a political debate about the values that should guide a polity’s actions.

Consider now the role of passion in political community. As I argued above, a polity requires some desire among a group to pursue a life in common. Such a life in common requires, in addition to the basic goal, at least some feeling of connection to the other people in the group, and to the group as a whole. The feeling of connection may range from tenuous to quite strong, but if it does not exist at all it is difficult to imagine how a state can keep from disintegrating—witness the conflicts that have recently torn apart a number of European and African countries. Now, liberal states profess not to rely on such emotional allegiances, or on any shared visions of "the good," hoping to rely instead on a rational social contract that establishes a supposedly "neutral" framework of justice. But I would argue that the liberal distinction between "the right" and "the good" is not relevant here. A neutral framework of justice is still an envisioned good to which one may be passionately committed. Moreover, in practice even liberal citizens are expected, and indeed exhorted, to "love their country." It would seem that some form of allegiance is politically inescapable.

Is this feeling of connection to one’s country and its inhabitants a passionate or even erotic one? Certainly it seems to be less clearly so than the kind of desire and attraction that occurs on a more personal level. Nevertheless, it still has elements of passion as I have defined the term. For why does one identify as a member of a group in the first place? There are many possible answers, among them a sense of shared history, circumstances, goals, or values—perhaps even all of the above. In each of these cases, the tie one feels to other members of the group does not come from knowing them personally but rather from feeling (perhaps mistakenly) that one knows what they stand for, and believing in its importance. To the extent that there is an affinity for other members of the group, who are likely to be strangers, the affinity is for the values they symbolize; they may be strangers, but they are fellow Americans (or whatever), and that frequently means something to people. This phenomenon is less strong but not qualitatively different from an attraction to the values one perceives to be embodied in a beloved (precisely what is identified as eros in Plato’s dialogues). Another way of putting this is to say that political community depends upon some form of patriotism or nationalism, and patriotism depends upon passion.⁵

A third way in which passion is involved in politics is as a source of political action. An important basis for this argument can be found in the feminist literature on "eros," a term that is meant to convey something very similar to the concept of passion presented here (Brock 1991, Hartsock 1983, Heyward 1984, 1989, Lorde 1984, Schott 1988, Trask 1988). The central argument advanced in this literature has two steps, which are effectively compressed in Audre Lorde’s claim that "our erotic knowledge empowers us" (Lorde 1984, 57). The first step is the contention that eros provides people with knowledge: specifically, knowledge of what they need and want in the world, what gives them joy, and knowledge of what matters to them, what gives their lives richness and meaning. Building on this point, the second contention is that such knowledge provides power because it helps guide and inspire people to pursue the things they value in life. The more in touch people are both with what they value and with the satisfaction that living up to it brings, the greater their ability and their motivation to strive for their vision of the best will be. Because it helps people take positive action in their lives, then, eros is a source of power.

The most important point for my purposes is that eros or passion motivates not only private action but public action as well. Political apathy among citizens is a commonly noted problem, but what is apathy if not a lack of passion? As these authors argue, without eros people lack the energy and commitment to act, because they lack the sense that their actions have any meaning. Alienation from desire engenders despair, hopelessness, and resignation (Lorde, 58). In order to become politically involved, then, people must (among other things) care about an issue, they must have some vision of how things ought to be done, and they must have hope that at least some progress can be made toward realizing this vision. These things are precisely the work of passion. The final point is that such passion is particularly important for those who have been oppressed: those who do not have equal power to determine their own lives and who have been expected to "settle." Anyone in this situation must fight for a more meaningful and joyful existence, and yet many in this situation end up passive out of alienation and hopelessness (Lorde, 57-58). Such "disaffection" keeps people docile and obedient to the dominant political order. The motivating power of a desire for a better world would thus seem crucial to the ability to challenge existing political arrangements and policies.⁶ Surely this makes it a significant political force.

But one could well object here: is allowing passion worth the risk? Can’t passion foster divisiveness, or unjust partiality, or mob violence? My reference to nationalism is perhaps most likely to have conjured up the danger of passionate politics, calling to mind any number of murderous, even genocidal campaigns against an Other. Nor is it hard to identify the role that passion can play in such deadly dramas. So isn’t there good cause to attempt to keep passion out of politics, as many philosophers have argued?

I believe the answer is no, because I believe this way of posing the problem is misconceived. To begin with, while it is clear that some forms of passion contribute to the politics of violence, repression, and injustice, it is not clear that we can assume that all, or even most, pose such dangers. Such a presumption ignores the many passions linked to more ethical ideals, including precisely those passions that are crucial to countering repression and injustice. So it is a mistake to attempt to exclude "passion" in general from political life. But more importantly, even when the capacity for passion does pose a danger, it does not do so singlehandedly. What has been hard to identify—and largely overlooked—is the role that the capacity for reason plays in the politics of violence. Arguments for the exclusion of passion tend to cast it as the source of the problem and the use of reason as the solution. Passion is considered subjective and erratic while reason is considered objective and steadfast. Or passion is considered extreme, partial, and selfish, while reason is considered moderate, impartial, and just. But these formulations of the problem are inaccurate. One can use one’s reason to be selfishly calculating and drastically manipulative; one can be motivated by one’s desire to be giving and fair. Furthermore, as argued above, passion is not opposed to reason but rather intertwined. In the case of xenophobic conflicts and so-called "ethnic cleansings," the unjust ideas of racial or ethnic "purity" and superiority are as much to blame as the passions they inspire. Thus, dangerous political circumstances stem from a specific use of both reason and passion. Guarding against such circumstances, then, does not call for drawing lines between reason and passion. Rather, it calls for drawing lines between forms of reason/passion that are beneficial and forms that are oppressive.

My purpose in this paper has been to point to some of the political significance of passion, in response to its marginalization in male-stream political philosophy. Using a concept of passion as a desire for an envisioned good, I argue that the capacity for passion is as important to political life as the capacity for reason, and poses no more of a threat to peace and justice than does reason. Recognizing the political significance of passion is especially important from a feminist perspective, not only because passion is crucial to challenging oppressive institutions, but also because of the conventional association of passion with women. Given this association (which also depends upon reason/passion and masculine/feminine oppositions), to fear or ignore passion means to fear or ignore women, and to attempt to exclude passion from the public realm is to attempt to exclude the "feminine" from the public realm. It is for all of these reasons that I argue that "passion" should be established alongside such concepts as "reason" and "justice" as a central category of analysis in political philosophy.

1. This particular articulation comes from Webster’s New Collegiate.

2. See Calhoun and Solomon 1984; de Sousa 1990; Lloyd 1984; Nussbaum 1986, 1990a, 1990b, Rorty 1980; and Solomon 1993, 1995 for arguments in support of this point.

3. It is important to note that the concept of passion detailed here owes much to the Platonic concept of "eros," which conveys an emotional/cognitive attraction toward and longing for "the good" (or, in my sense, what is envisioned as good or right).

4. This is not to say that passion will always play a part in the daily workings of politics, especially when this work is done by "professionals" and bureaucrats.

5. While contemporary political philosophers have often been understandably wary of patriotism, recently a number have persuasively argued that not all forms of patriotism are harmful or dangerous, and that, indeed, some are quite necessary. See, for example, Miller 1995 and Viroli 1995, as well as an earlier essay by Schaar (1989).

6. Lorde makes a remarkably similar argument about the important "uses of anger" (1984). I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting a return to this essay, and for encouraging me to clarify the point that passion may take "negative" as well as positive forms.