Is There a Difference Between Disappointment and Expectation?

Some of our emotions are bad – unpleasant to experience, reflective of dissatisfactions or even heartbreak – but nonetheless quite important to express and, more basically, to feel. Grief is like this, for example. So, too, is disappointment. Amy Olberding explores how our current social practices may fail to support expressions of disappointment and thus suppress our ability to feel it well. She draws on early Confucian philosophy and its remarkable attention to everyday social interactions and their power to steer our emotional lives. She makes the case that although there are losses to our moral lives where we are socially encouraged to emotions such as anger, outrage, or cynical resignation, we must struggle to find a place for disappointment.

Amy Olberding is the Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma Her research is largely concentrated on the ethical aspects of ordinary life, especially as these feature as prominent concerns in early Confucianism. Her most recent book, The Wrong of Rudeness, considers just what might tempt us to rudeness and incivility, and reflects on the moral, social, and political reasons we shouldn’t be easy and free with rudeness and incivility.