Mar Rosàs Tosas

Over the last few decades, the positive effects of gratitude at a psychological, moral, social, and spiritual level have been explored and applauded. Its negative side, however, has received little attention. This article identifies four main negative aspects of gratitude -the unpleasant emotions it might lead to and the fact that feeling grateful might generate or overshadow unfair circumstances. We review the literature on gratitude—from philosophy, anthropology, theology, and psychology—to identify the few occasions in which the scholarship points to negative aspects; we group these cases together into four categories, and explore them. The four cases analyzed are: 1) the “gratitude paradox,” 2) feelings of debt toward the benefactor, 3) feelings of inferiority, and 4) when gratitude replaces apology. Our aim is not to contradict the previous work on these aspects, which is scant but rigorous. We complement it, by arguing that gratitude does not stem from what happens, but rather from the narrative that one builds and the conditional syllogism underpinning this narrative, which prescribes certain emotions. Last, we hold that, while gratitude constitutes a positive emotion, self-help books, counselors, and social media promoting gratitude practices should remember why it might also signal problematic social dynamics.

The arrival of some diagnoses tends to bring about relief because it validates suffering and grants access to social legitimization, medical resources, and economic aid. This is the case of the Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a pathology with multisystemic involvement characterized by general laxity. Patients find it difficult to secure a diagnosis of one of its types—hypermobile EDS—due to a lack of awareness among physicians, the multiple changes that the diagnostic criteria undergo, and their increasing restrictivity. Consequently, several patients are intermittently let in and out of the diagnostic label, which leads some members of family, friends, administration, working environment, and healthcare professionals to view these patients with a skeptical gaze. This article argues that the ambiguity and contradictions surrounding the diagnosis of hEDS partially result from and reflect two philosophical controversies on the nature of disease. First, the debate between naturalists and normativists. Second, the discussion on the line-drawing problem. It concludes by urging healthcare practitioners to tell patients the implications of these contradictions—mainly, that medicine can work, and does work, without definitive diagnostic criteria.

The arrival of some diagnoses tends to bring about relief because it validates suffering and grants access to social legitimization, medical resources, and economic aid. This is the case of the Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a pathology with multisystemic involvement characterized by general laxity. Patients find it difficult to secure a diagnosis of one of its types—hypermobile EDS—due to a lack of awareness among physicians, the multiple changes that the diagnostic criteria undergo, and their increasing restrictivity. Consequently, several patients are intermittently let in and out of the diagnostic label, which leads some members of family, friends, administration, working environment, and healthcare professionals to view these patients with a skeptical gaze. This article argues that the ambiguity and contradictions surrounding the diagnosis of hEDS partially result from and reflect two philosophical controversies on the nature of disease. First, the debate between naturalists and normativists. Second, the discussion on the line-drawing problem. It concludes by urging healthcare practitioners to tell patients the implications of these contradictions—mainly, that medicine can work, and does work, without definitive diagnostic criteria.

At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several countries declared “states of exception,” that is, authorized legal devices that, in the face of circumstances deemed catastrophic, permit the implementation of extraordinary measures and the temporary suspension of some rights in order to restore the previous state of affairs as soon as possible. This paper offers a comparative textual analysis of the different states of exception declared in the USA, France, and Spain. I argue that these texts constitute a privileged site to explore how prevalent global political logics and mainstream discourses on illness are interwoven. Regarding the global political logics in play, I hold that these declarations constitute an instantiation of democracy’s autoimmune character; it attacks itself in order to protect itself. Regarding mainstream discourses on illness, I explore how illness is regarded as a threat to one’s self (by something seemingly other) and the notion that therapy must consist of securing the self’s triumph over anything seemingly other. This twofold analysis reveals that an aporetic dialectic between self and other—as regards politics and illness—operates in these declarations, most likely because it is, in fact, one and the same dialectic, upon which Western epistemology rests. Furthermore, I suggest that these texts reflect and promote these dominant logics, contributing to shape human relationships around the globe in a certain dangerous way.