Tempering senses of superiority: The virtue of magnanimity in democracies

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed growing concerns about mutual disrespect and civic enmity among democratic citizens. Ordinary people often find themselves in a particularly adversarial condition in which they shamelessly disregard their opponents and hold them in contempt, and vice versa. Each tends to assert their superiority while appearing to be impudent to one another. Instead of simply calling for mutual respect—deliberative or agonistic—this article aims to understand why people are prone to treating their opponents with disrespect in such an impassioned situation and how to temper the pleasing sense of superiority while redirecting its very motivational power toward better ends. Drawing primarily from Aristotle's Rhetoric, my account of magnanimity shows that the magnanimous can better manage to interact with their opponents, retaining their sense of superiority necessary for active political participation while at once preventing themselves from the downward spiral of the politics of impudence.