Desmond Jagmohan
WHILE ANGER IS A COMPLEX EMOTION that has both cognitive and visceral properties, philosophers have long argued that there are morally right and morally wrong ways for us to express our anger. As Agnes Callard outlines, most philosophers view anger as a moral response to injustice while a smaller camp, stemming from the Stoic tradition, consider the emotion a wellspring for spite. Martha Nussbaum, for example, worries that anger often leads to narcissism and vindictiveness —behavior bent on “payback.” Malpractice and divorce litigation are among her favorite examples of such moral conceits: a retributive attitude that revives neither life nor love.
Though Nussbaum says a lot about anger in private life, she seems primarily interested in its place in politics, especially in contexts of persecution. In Anger and Forgiveness (2016), she concedes that anger can be a valuable political emotion: when the oppressed get angry, it signals that they recognize the wrong done to them. Anger can also motivate protests of such wrongs. Still, in response to retaliatory rage, Nussbaum argues for transitional anger, a mental pivot away from seeking payback to “more productive forwardlooking thoughts, asking what can actually be done to increase either personal or social welfare.”