What is praise? I argue that we can make progress by examining what praise does. Functionalist views of praise are emerging, but I here argue that by foregrounding cases in which expressions of praise are rejected by their direct target, we see that praise has a wider, and largely overlooked, social function. I introduce cases in which praise is rejected, and develop a functionalist account of praise that is well placed to make sense of the contours of these cases. My claim is that praise functions to affirm and entrench values, exerting pressure in praise's audiences to affirm the values expressed. I show how my account overcomes some of the limitations of recently developed accounts of praise.

中文翻译：

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预防性赞扬：社会功能分析

什么是赞美？我认为我们可以通过研究表扬的作用来取得进步。关于赞美的功能主义观点正在兴起，但我在这里认为，通过突出赞美表达被直接目标拒绝的案例，我们看到赞美具有更广泛且在很大程度上被忽视的社会功能。我介绍了表扬被拒绝的案例，并提出了一种功能主义的表扬解释，可以很好地理解这些案例的轮廓。我的观点是，表扬的作用是肯定和巩固价值观，对表扬的受众施加压力，要求他们肯定所表达的价值观。我将展示我的帐户如何克服最近开发的赞美帐户的一些局限性。