Abstract How should we respond to the stalker who claims he is just taking the bus or going to the shops and not doing anything wrong? The philosophical literature contains only two attempts to explain what is morally wrong with stalking. Elizabeth Brake’s recent account proposes that stalking is wrong because it forces a personal relationship on the target. This paper argues that stalking does not constitute a personal relationship in the required sense. I then offer a new account based on the power imbalance between target and stalker. This is best unpacked, I argue, as a relationship of neo-republican domination. The stalker subjects the target to an inappropriate excess of attention and thereby gains the capacity to control her choices by diverting her mental resources. I aim for this account to capture the essence of stalking as a crime of power and control, and illuminate a shared phenomenology in cases of stalking which might initially seem very different.

Abstract This paper responds to the dilemma of affective injustice by distinguishing between three forms of anger and recommending a model of virtuous anger the expression of which is consistent with the productive pursuit of justice. It argues that anger may in the first instance be either passive or active, that is, a passive affective register and morally inert experience, or something that is manifest in action towards other agents. Active anger may then be grounded in moral norms, or not. Anger that is properly grounded and guided by morality is consistent with virtuous agency and the productive pursuit of moral ends. In constructing this model of anger we draw inspiration from the Kantian account of virtue. We argue that this model provides a sound structure for morally productive anger while remaining vigilant towards anger’s darker possibilities. To demonstrate the comparative strength of this model, we outline some challenges with the idea of apt anger, arguing that moral norms and constraints are better suited to guide our evaluation of anger. We apply this model to educational settings, where we argue that it is beneficial to channel anger through moral norms, rather than attempt to calibrate its proper magnitude. All things considered, the moral status of anger is equivocal: it can both aid and hinder the pursuit of justice, so it is best to take a cautious while permissive stance towards its use in our common life.

Abstract Although communication scholars have extensively documented how populist actors engage in deceitful forms of speech, it remains unclear why populists so blatantly disregard truth. This article addresses that question by drawing on the works of Laclau and Mouffe to develop a normative theory of populist communication. This theory posits that, to successfully achieve their goal of uniting ‘the people’ against ‘the elite,’ populist actors should produce three distinct kinds of discourse: agonistic, articulating, and mobilizing. Against this theoretical backdrop, the article advances three claims that shed light on the relationship between populism and deception. First, while populist speech is indifferent to truth, it need not involve lies, as its functions can be fulfilled by non-lying strategies such as cherry-picking and the avoidance of falsifiable statements. Second, due to its indifference to truth, populist speech is nonetheless prone to containing lies, which are likely to increase in number as populist actors gain popularity. Third, populist speech can be conceptualized as a specific variant of what Harry Frankfurt defined as ‘bullshit,’ which I refer to as ‘populist bullshit.’ The article thus bridges political theory and empirical research, provides a novel theoretical framework for understanding populist communication, and poses a direct challenge to the acceptability of populism as a political strategy.