There are a bunch of things to say about this talk, some of which just concern the project being pursued (maybe this is explained by the fact this seems to be a recap of a book, wherein multiple projects are pursued). A basic consideration to think about is that the talk seems to vacillate between “state talk” and “act talk.” That is, the target explanandum sometimes seems to be the emotional state of “being offended” and other times appears to be the act of “taking offense” (or perhaps manifesting one’s offense). The speaker even talks about offense taking as a social “strategy.” What is going on should be clearer because downstream questions appear to open up in one case but not the other (e.g., it voluntary or subject to rational control). For that enjoy “counterexample” philosophy, it might be useful to think about cases of offense involving fictional entities (e.g., your offense at my statement about daenerys being unlikeable early on in a Song of Ice and Fire). Think through how the analysis would go, and how compelling those analyses would be in such cases. Also think about whether more dismissive responses are appropriate-it’s not really a case of taking offense, it’s parasitic of the main phenomenon and therefore we don’t have good independent intuitions of what is going on, etc.
There are a bunch of things to say about this talk, some of which just concern the project being pursued (maybe this is explained by the fact this seems to be a recap of a book, wherein multiple projects are pursued).
A basic consideration to think about is that the talk seems to vacillate between “state talk” and “act talk.” That is, the target explanandum sometimes seems to be the emotional state of “being offended” and other times appears to be the act of “taking offense” (or perhaps manifesting one’s offense). The speaker even talks about offense taking as a social “strategy.” What is going on should be clearer because downstream questions appear to open up in one case but not the other (e.g., it voluntary or subject to rational control).
For that enjoy “counterexample” philosophy, it might be useful to think about cases of offense involving fictional entities (e.g., your offense at my statement about daenerys being unlikeable early on in a Song of Ice and Fire). Think through how the analysis would go, and how compelling those analyses would be in such cases. Also think about whether more dismissive responses are appropriate-it’s not really a case of taking offense, it’s parasitic of the main phenomenon and therefore we don’t have good independent intuitions of what is going on, etc.