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Paper short abstract

The paper examines irritation as an entry point into everyday moral reasoning in Brazil. Focusing on figures of the unreasonable and the ungrateful, it shows how irritation operates as emotion, cognition, and recognition to probe judgments about fairness, rightness, and justice in interaction(s).

Paper long abstract

This paper approaches irritation as an entry point to explore how people in Brazil navigate the uneasy boundaries between what is fair, what is right, and what is just. Drawing on ethnographic and experimental material, it looks at two recurring tropes that emerge in people’s moral reasoning, namely, the ungrateful and the unreasonable. The analysis identifies three registers through which irritation operates: as emotion, as cognition, and as recognition. As sign of moral discomfort or instrumentalized to show (or conceal) distinct forms of interpersonal hierarchies and misalignments, irritation becomes not only a social emotion but also a way of knowing — a method through which people identify, test and redefine the boundaries between fairness, rightness ,and justice in everyday interactions. Engaging critically with the figure of the homem cordial, the paper challenges interpretations that position Brazilians as operating outside normative frameworks. Instead, it argues that fairness in Brazil is relational and situational, shaped by notions of proportion, context, and the ongoing effort to render justice and interpersonal relations simultaneously intelligible and livable.