National humiliation is the humiliation felt by individuals who identify with the state (or nation) in response to an international event. Humiliation of this variety is often used, by both politicians and scholars in international relations, to explain a range of international conflicts (e.g., Chinese antagonism towards the West, the U.S response to 9/11, the Russian invasion of Ukraine etc.). In this paper, I explore the epistemic harms that result from national humiliation. First, I argue what is most relevant within the epistemic domain is not humiliation, the emotion, but humiliation narratives, which are used as discursive mechanisms to justify conflict. Second, I argue such narratives impact in-groups mobilised by populist rhetoric, as well out-groups marginalised by them. I conclude by suggesting some possible ways to mitigate these harms and foster epistemic resilience across societal divides.
Raamy Majeed is a lecturer at the University of Manchester and an Associate Editor for the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. His primary research interests are in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and the philosophy of race. Prior to joining Manchester, he was a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland and before that a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He completed his PhD at the University of Sydney in 2012. Raamy is the author of The Plasticity of the Emotions: Puzzles in the Science of Emotion, forthcoming with Routledge later this year. He is currently preparing an introductory text on the philosophy of race, also to be published by Routledge.
Dr Maeve McKeown is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the interdisciplinary faculty Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen. Previously she was a Lecturer at Cambridge, a JRF at St Hilda’s College Oxford, and a postdoc at Justitia Amplificata, Goethe University Frankfurt. Her book With Power Comes Responsibility: The Politics of Structural Injustice (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) incorporates power into structural injustice theory. She is co-editor of What is Structural Injustice? (Oxford University Press, 2024) and Structural Injustice in Philosophy (Bloomsbury Academic, forthcoming). Her other research interests include historical injustice, reparations, and feminism. She has also published two books on theatre with Nick Hern Books.
