Assholes by Aaron James Page A

Trouble with Psychopaths.”
    14 . Some philosophers find it intelligible that a person could have moral concepts but stand unmoved by his own moral judgments, perhaps because he does not see them as supplying him with any reason for action. I’m inclined to classify this character as a psychopath rather than as an asshole. The asshole not only uses moral concepts but is motivated by his use of them, albeit in a deeply egocentric way.
    15 . For this general kind of argument, about moral incapacity due to upbringing, see Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility,” in Watson,
Free Will
, 372–87.
    16 . This is T. M. Scanlon’s view in “Blame,” in
Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame
(Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008). Our suggestion is that this view fits the asshole, which might be true even if Watson is right that it doesn’t fit the psychopath. For a related view of “attributability,” see Angela M. Smith, “Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life,”
Ethics
115 (2005): 236–71.
    17 . Which is not to say Watson is right that an asshole could not be properly held accountable if he suffered from local moral blindness. (I myself am not sure.) We sidestep that further issue here.
    18 . For a version of this argument in light of “Jeff the jerk,” see Manuel R. Vargas, “The Trouble with Tracing,”
Midwest Studies in Philosophy
29 (2005): 269–91.
    19 . Three different Jack Nicholson characters, in
As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt
, and
Something’s Gotta Give
, eventually come into self-knowledge that mitigates their assholish condition.

[ 5 ] ASSHOLE MANAGEMENT
    We have said that an asshole can be beyond moral correction and yet still be the appropriate object of blame. That is not yet to say how he is best handled. How, aside from merely placing blame, should we respond to the annoying man who has just interrupted, or woven across three traffic lanes, or created a giant political mess?
    Much of the rest of this book is about asshole management, or, more accurately, why asshole management is unavoidably difficult. In chapter 6 , we look at the difficulty of limiting the profusion of assholes throughout society. In this chapter, our topic is personal asshole management and the special way assholes destabilize small groups.
SELF-UNDERSTANDING AS SELF-HELP
    When it comes to personal asshole management, there is unfortunately very little useful to say by way of self-help—certainly nothing like an eleven-step guide to an asshole-free life. The asshole is deeply bothersome because we find it difficult to even
understand
what a good, constructive response would be, let alone to actually produce it on the spot. Despite many hard lessons about what did not work, and perhaps even the odd success, it takes only a fresh kind of asshole—or just the same old sort of asshole, encountered at a bad time—tocatch one unawares, throw one off balance, and spoil one’s whole day.
    One’s day is spoiled because one feels forced into either of two unpalatable responses: a demeaning acquiescence or a personally disappointing and ineffectual fit of rage. That is, on the one hand, we have the option of
resignation:
we give in to what is plainly mistreatment, allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, and find reasons to somehow make this feel okay. On the other hand, we have the option of
resistance:
we stand up for ourselves and fight to be morally recognized. But fighting back can seem an exercise in futility. No amount of angry protest will get a true asshole to listen. As we explained in chapter 1 , he is
entrenched
in his outlook; he is exceedingly good at walling out complaints, and, in this, he will most likely never change. Although neither resignation nor all-out resistance seems finally acceptable, we often have only the faintest sense of an ever-elusive better way.
    Our best hope for finding that better way is to better understand