I wonder what readers make of an article by the author of the introduction to the volume, Prof. Amia Srinivasan?
I only read about half the article and skimmed the rest, but as far as I can see basically every example of anger she mentions is anger that is allied to a political cause she (and likely her readers) support. This seems like cherry picking to me. There are plenty of examples of morally wrong anger, from the petty—the violent drunkard—to the grand—a Hitler or Stalin inciting people to hatred based off perceived historical injustice. Any reasonable evaluation of anger has to take into account the pretty high ex ante probability that anger is clouding your judgement and your cause is unjust. On average I would guess that historically angry people have more typically been in the wrong morally, and the mere fact that someone is angry doesn’t seem like it should be evidence to third parties that they are in the right.
Anger also seems generally harmful because it leads to nursing grievances. At a personal level these seem psychologically unhealthy—my understanding is the most scientifically supported form of therapy, CBT, in part encourages people to stop dwelling on issues, and at a civilization level, we have gained enormously from the triumph of Bourgeois Virtues and productive collaboration over honour culture and endless cycles of vengeance.
All these arguments seem especially true when doing philosophy—maybe anger is appropriate when a burglar breaks into your house, but it is not at all helpful when trying to make a logical argument. Logical arguments are good because there is a strong reason they should tend to push us towards the truth; if we instead reward anger, we encourage an arms race of escalating rage with only negative consequences for the world.
Srinivasan is not focused on the question of whether anger is counterproductive, harmful, or has bad consequences. Srinivasan is explicitly focused on cases where anger may be counterproductive, and asks whether it would be apt.
I only read about half the article and skimmed the rest, but as far as I can see basically every example of anger she mentions is anger that is allied to a political cause she (and likely her readers) support. This seems like cherry picking to me. There are plenty of examples of morally wrong anger, from the petty—the violent drunkard—to the grand—a Hitler or Stalin inciting people to hatred based off perceived historical injustice. Any reasonable evaluation of anger has to take into account the pretty high ex ante probability that anger is clouding your judgement and your cause is unjust. On average I would guess that historically angry people have more typically been in the wrong morally, and the mere fact that someone is angry doesn’t seem like it should be evidence to third parties that they are in the right.
Anger also seems generally harmful because it leads to nursing grievances. At a personal level these seem psychologically unhealthy—my understanding is the most scientifically supported form of therapy, CBT, in part encourages people to stop dwelling on issues, and at a civilization level, we have gained enormously from the triumph of Bourgeois Virtues and productive collaboration over honour culture and endless cycles of vengeance.
All these arguments seem especially true when doing philosophy—maybe anger is appropriate when a burglar breaks into your house, but it is not at all helpful when trying to make a logical argument. Logical arguments are good because there is a strong reason they should tend to push us towards the truth; if we instead reward anger, we encourage an arms race of escalating rage with only negative consequences for the world.
Srinivasan is not focused on the question of whether anger is counterproductive, harmful, or has bad consequences. Srinivasan is explicitly focused on cases where anger may be counterproductive, and asks whether it would be apt.