Anger is never useful

Seneca c. 4 BC · c. 65It is not that we have little time, but that we waste much.

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What it claims

Anger is never useful: it must not be moderated, it must be got rid of.

Why

Anger does not obey reason and does harm; whatever it might bring, reason can achieve alone.

In short

"Anger is never useful" is an argument by Seneca (On Anger, I, 1; I, 9-12) on the question "What makes something right?" (answer: virtue). Its claim: Anger is never useful: it must not be moderated, it must be got rid of. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 4 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

On Anger, I, 1; I, 9-12

Valid

Can righteous anger be good? Aristotle thought so: one must know how to be angry when one should, with whom one should, as much as one should. Seneca says no. Anger is a "short madness": either it obeys reason, and then it is no longer anger; or it does not obey, and then it is dangerous. Everything good it claims to do (fighting, defending one's own, punishing), reason does better, without it.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.

Valid with no hidden premise. P1 and P2 form a dilemma: either anger obeys, and it is no longer anger; or it does not obey, and it does harm. P3 and P4 add that we do not need it. Everything rests on P1, which is almost a definition: Seneca calls "anger" only the impulse that escapes reason. Aristotle also calls "anger" an impulse regulated by reason. So part of the disagreement is about words; the other part is about P3: does reason alone really move us to act as strongly?

Analogy. A driver has an engine that speeds up by itself, even when braking. Some say: "let's keep it, it helps with overtaking". Seneca replies: an engine that does not obey the pedal does not help with overtaking, it causes crashes; and for overtaking, an engine that obeys is enough.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Aristotle (according to Seneca) 330 BC · attacks premise 1

Anger is necessary: no fight is won unless it fills the mind and kindles the spirit. One must only use it not as a general, but as a soldier. Well regulated, it obeys.

Sénèque replies

Sénèque

This is false: if it listens to reason and goes where reason leads, it is no longer anger, for the mark of anger is rebellion. If it resists and does not stop when ordered, it is as useless to the mind as a soldier who ignores the signal to retreat.

Seneca A little further on (On Anger, I, 10)

"Anger is useful if it is moderate." No: only if it is useful by nature. If it refuses the authority of reason, moderating it only makes it do less harm. So a moderate passion is nothing but a moderate evil.

The debate goes on (our summary) Seneca himself admits that the debate is partly about words: if the impulse accepts limits, "it must be called by some other name". In the Nicomachean Ethics (IV, 5), Aristotle praises the one who is angry "at the right things, with the right people, as he ought": he describes exactly what Seneca refuses to call anger. The real disagreement is whether the emotion itself, and not only the judgement, is needed in order to act.

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics) and his pupil Theophrastus 330 BC · attacks premise 3

Someone who is never angry is thought a fool, unable to defend himself. To endure being insulted, and to let one's own be insulted, is slavish. Good people are angered by wrongs done to those close to them, and rightly so.

Sénèque replies

Sénèque

The good man will do his duty without disturbance or fear, and will do nothing unworthy of a man: "My father will be attacked: I will defend him; he has been struck: I will avenge him, because it is my duty, not because I am pained."

The debate goes on (our summary) Seneca accuses Theophrastus of appealing to the crowd rather than the judge: everyone approves of the anger they feel themselves (I, 12, 3). The factual question remains: does a sense of duty alone move us to act as quickly and as strongly as indignation? Seneca asserts it; he shows it only with examples of patient generals (Fabius, Scipio).

Amia Srinivasan ("The Aptness of Anger", 2018) 2018 · attacks premise 4

Judging anger only by its usefulness forgets that it can be fitting: it recognises that an injustice has happened, even when it achieves nothing. Asking the victims of injustice to stay calm in order to be effective imposes a second wrong on them: giving up feeling what is true.

no reply

summary: their text is not yet in our corpus

No reply possible: objection raised in 2018, after the author's death (65).

The debate goes on (our summary) Seneca distinguishes the involuntary "first movement", which seizes even the wise man (one shudders reading of Cicero's murder), from anger proper, which consents to that movement and wants to punish (book II, 2-4). He keeps the judgement "this is unjust" and rejects only the passion. Srinivasan would answer that such an emotionless judgement is not a real recognition of the injustice suffered.

What today's voices say

Defend it

Martha NussbaumShe follows Seneca that anger is a poor guide: an angry army is a bad army. She adds that anger is neither necessary nor sufficient for violence.