Abating Anger

A posting in peasoup by Antti Kauppinen suggests that rage might be a moral emotion. Rage is uncontrollable anger. This posting will, for the most part, be concerned with more moderate anger and whether such anger can be justified and when it can ever serve any useful purpose. I will argue that whilst anger is dangerous that nonetheless controlled anger can sometimes serve some useful purpose. 

To the Stoics anger was a harmful emotion. Seneca describes the mischief anger does as follows,

“no plague has cost the human race more dear: you will see slaughterings and poisonings, accusations and counter-accusations, sacking of cities, ruin of whole peoples, the persons of princes sold into slavery by auction, torches applied to roofs, and fires not merely confined within city-walls but making whole tracts of country glow with hostile flame. See the foundations of the most celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant: they have been desolated.” Sophia-project, Anger book 1.

What sort of anger was Seneca talking about? There is uncontrolled anger and anger that has been tempered or abated some degree. I would suggest that Seneca was talking about uncontrolled anger which I believe could be better characterised as rage. I will consider whether rage might be regarded as a moral emotion as suggested by Kauppinen at the end of this posting. I now want to consider whether tempered or controlled anger can ever be a useful emotion. 

Let us accept that anger has evolutionary roots. It might be argued that because of these roots anger must retain some purpose. However such an argument seems to be unconvincing. Evolution has given us a taste for sweet and fatty things. Such a taste might have been an advantage to a hunter gatherer but is a disadvantage to anyone living in an affluent city. Similarly anger might of advantage to a hunter gatherer but might be a disadvantage to a city dweller. Human progress may now be too rapid for evolution to keep pace with. Let it be accepted that emotions in general are useful to us. Hume argued that reason is slave of the passions. Nonetheless as suggested above the specific emotion of anger might no longer remain useful to us. It might be argued that in practice we cannot simply eliminate a single emotion which has ceased to be useful to us, such as anger, without damaging our capacity to feel the emotions which remain useful to us. If we eliminate all anger then perhaps we will damage our capacity to feel empathy, see anger and empathy. I will now offer two examples which suggest that it might be wrong to eliminate anger in all circumstances. Each example will suggest further reasons as to why we shouldn’t eliminate all anger because our anger can be useful in some circumstances.

My first example concerns anger at Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, his lying together with his underlying racist and misogynist views. Should we simply transmute our anger into useful actions aimed at combatting these evils as suggested by Martha Nussbaum? (1) I would suggest that we shouldn’t because if we do so our actions might be interpreted as a sign of weakness, this is especially true in the case of Trump. Sometimes when faced by wrongdoing we must signal our determination to fight that wrongdoing and perhaps retaining some anger helps in this signalling. A further example might be provide by those who lived under apartheid in South Africa and were unjustly disenfranchised perhaps their anger signalled their determination to oppose the apartheid. However caution is needed as excessive anger can damage rationality and degenerate into hate. In spite of this need for caution I would suggest that when fighting injustice that retaining some controlled anger is useful in this fight by signalling our determination to continue in this fight.

My second example comes from the Vietnam War. In this war Hugh Thompson’s anger helped him, to courageously save others from being massacred at My Lai. Was Thompson’s anger was justified? Was his anger useful in helping stop the massacre? Might not a calm rational moral person also have helped to stop the massacre? Intuitively his anger seems both to have been justifiable and useful.  However our intuitions are not always reliable and I will now attempt to show his anger was useful. Some emotions such as sadness don’t seem to have a clear focus or target. Some might class such emotions as moods and moods are hard to justify. Other emotions such as anger are intentional and are focussed on some target. Let us accept that morality matters. I will now argue intentional emotions can be justified by moral concerns and my argument will focus on anger. Intentional emotions can be seen as sending a signal that something is wrong and needs attending to. If I see someone forcefully pushing into a queue I might feel angry at the perceived injustice. If this person is unjustly trying to displace other members of the queue then my anger is justified because my anger focusses my in attention on the injustice. However if this person is attempting to join her partner in the middle of the queue then no injustice is taking place and my anger is unjustified. Let us accept that anger can be justified by focussing our attention moral concerns. However when anger focusses our attention we must ensure that we focus accurately on those whose wrong actions are the cause of our anger. Hugh Thompson accurately focussed his anger on the wrong actions of the perpetrators of the massacre at My Lai. The perpetrators of the massacre were also angry but their focus on the cause their anger was inaccurate. The villagers massacred were mere bystanders and did nothing wrong, did not cause the situation which lead to the perpetrators anger. The perpetrators anger was inaccurately focussed, resulting in them unjustly targeting innocent women and children. Let us accept anger can be justified by alerting us to some moral wrong. Let us also accept that once anger has alerted us to some wrong that our anger should be translated into actions which alleviate the wrong when this is possible targeting those who cause the wrong. However does translating our anger into action mean our anger should cease completely or continue at some lower level?

I have argued that anger can be justified by alerting us to some moral wrong. At this point I want to compare my position to that of the stoics. Stoics argue that because the cause of someone’s anger is some event in the past and because the past cannot be changed anger is irrational. More generally the stoics argued that emotions are irrational and that we should seek to master them. What do stoics mean by mastering anger? I have argued above that anger isn’t irrational because it alerts us to some wrongdoing. Some stoics might be prepared to accept that anger sometimes alerts us that to the fact that something is wrong. After all if they refuse to accept the above, are they prepared to accept that anger simply occurs at random without any meaningful reference to the context in which it takes place? In response to the above a stoic might suggest that emotions such as anger and rationality occupy completely separate domains and that we should only pay attention to reason and seek eliminate our anger. Plato also believed emotions and reason occupied separate domains and used the example of a charioteer controlling unruly horses as a metaphor for reason controlling the emotions. My stoic might argue whilst hunter gatherers found anger useful in alerting them to wrongdoing in the tribe that nowadays reason alone can alert us to wrongdoing, anger has become a redundant emotion. Stoics believed in cultivating virtue, but if reason alone can detect wrongdoing stoics might also have made good deontologists. A stoic might proceed to argue that reason always alerts us to wrongdoing and does so more reliably than unreliable anger. In the light of the above she might suggest that we should try to eliminate any anger because reason offers a better way to alert us to wrongdoing and anger might interfere with our rationality. To her mastering anger means eliminating anger. One response to the above might to suggest that emotions and reason do not occupy completely distinct domains, I will not pursue this response further here. A second response is to point out that whilst we are no longer hunter gatherers we are human beings and human beings cannot simply eliminate emotions such as anger. My stoic might concede that we cannot simply eliminate anger but argue that when we experience anger we should move on using reason and try to suppress our anger with reason. Mastering our anger now means suppressing it. Such a position is similar to that of Martha Nussbaum who argues we should transmute our anger into useful actions. I have some sympathy for such a position. However it might be better if we sought to control our anger rather than simply suppress it. If we merely suppress our anger rather than control it then our anger might suddenly reappear, indeed it is feasible suppressed anger might fester and grow. When we eliminate or suppress our anger we do not experience anger, the same is not true of controlling anger. To control anger we must retain some anger. However we must stop simply being angry and realise we are angry. Once we stop simply being angry and become aware we are angry we can reflect on and monitor our anger. Is our anger justified? Is our anger excessive? Is it useful? I would argue mastering our anger should mean controlling our anger. It seems that my stoic would argue that we should try not to become angry and if we do become angry we should suppress it, Nussbaum would argue that once we have become angry we should transform our anger into useful actions aimed at correcting the injustice which caused it, whilst I would argue that once we have become angry we should control our anger and use it to enable us to carry out useful actions aimed at correcting the injustice. In the above I have considered eliminating, suppressing and controlling anger from a purely theoretical viewpoint, it is possible that empirical research might mean my views should be amended.  My stoic and Nussbaum believe maintaining anger is both counterproductive and wrong, I believe maintaining some limited form of anger is justified because doing so helps in controlling anger.

I now want to argue that we have a further reason to maintain some anger. What sort of signal is an emotion sending? It is sending a signal that something needs attending to. Emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. According to Michael Brady emotions facilitate understanding. They do so by facilitating,

“reassessment through the capture and consumption of attention; emotions enable us to gain a “true and stable” evaluative judgement. (2)

I accept that anger requires that we should reassess the situation. However I would argue anger not only captures our attention but in some circumstances help us to retain our attention, helps us to retain our focus. Let us assume that someone is angry because she has been bypassed for promotion due to sexism. Perhaps if she attends to the circumstances of her being bypassed for promotion she finds that the person selected really was better qualified for the position than her. In this scenario her anger might be judged to be inappropriate and should cease.  However let us assume her anger was justified but her employer tackles the injustice. A stoic would argue all her anger should be abated. It seems to me that by simply suppressing her anger she deprives herself of a useful tool for focusing on the injustice of more general sexism. At My Lai Hugh Thompson’s anger helped him maintain his focus on stopping the massacre. Perhaps if he hadn’t maintained his anger his attention might have wandered and he would have considered the dangers to himself, his future or the damage making the public aware of the massacre would do to the US army. Blind anger is never useful, but it seems plausible that some form of controlled anger might be useful in maintaining our focus on some injustice.

I have argued that anger is a useful emotion when it is controlled. However there are dangers associated with the use of anger. It has been suggested that emotions are somewhat analogous to alarms. Alarms are meant to be attended to and switched off. Anger should be attended to and if unjustified should cease. However I have argued that if anger is justified it should be attended to and controlled rather than simply suppressed. Nonetheless if someone simply remains angry and does not reassess her situation on becoming angry then her anger serves no purpose and is damaging. I would suggest there is some mean to anger in much the same way as Aristotle suggested there was a mean to the virtues. Someone might be excessively prone to anger causing her to focus her attention on trivial matters. She might also be very slow to anger and this slowness might deprive her of a better understanding her situation.

 Lastly I want to return to my starting point and consider Kauppinen’s suggestion that rage might be a moral emotion. Kauppinen suggests rage is a negative feeling that is a cousin of anger and hate. He argues rage motivates you to destroy, to get physical, preferably destroying what you see as the obstacle to justice. I have suggested that rage is simply unabated anger. According to the Cambridge Dictionary rage is a period of extreme or violent anger. According to the Oxford Dictionary rage is violent anger, fury, usually manifested in looks, words, or action. It would seem that rage is not a cousin of anger but an uncontrolled form of anger. I am quite happy to agree with Kauppinen that rage might be justified in some circumstances. Rage against apartheid, Trump’s policies and the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre can be justified. However I am not so happy to believe such rage is a useful emotion. I have argued above that anger needs to be abated and controlled it follows that if rage is a form of uncontrolled anger that rage is unproductive. Anger helps someone reassess her situation and take action. If rage is simply uncontrolled anger then whilst rage may be justified it is not a useful emotion. Indeed rage may be counterproductive because the enraged simply rages and fails to reassess her situation.

1. MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM, 2015, Transitional Anger. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, page 53.
2. Michael Brady, 2013, Emotional Insight; The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press, page147.