pertinent to my enterprise here, though, is that there is a phenomenon
that we typically use the word “anger” to describe, which does involve
some type of thought of wrongfulness, however inchoate, however
inarticulate.
What about “irritation”? This is an interesting case, because it refers
to phenomena of two distinct sorts, which are difficult to distinguish
for the reasons given in Appendix A. On the one hand, the term “irrita-
tion” may mark a case of genuine anger in which the consequences for
well- being are not thought to be terribly severe. But “irritation” may also
designate a persistent mood that does not rest on a judgment of wrong-
fulness, and indeed that may altogether lack an intentional object. We
would call the person in such a state “irritable,” but we might call the
264 Appendix C
state one of “irritation,” just as we would use the term “depression” for
a mood of a different sort. As I argued in Appendix A, only a prolonged
inspection of a particular case can inform us whether there is an inten-
tional object or not. “Annoyance” seems ambiguous in a similar way,
though perhaps it is more likely to denote a mild state of anger that has
an intentional object.5
Two other terms, “rage” and “fury,” clearly characterize cases of
anger, usually indicating that the anger has either unusual intensity or
unusual suddenness, or both. There is no reason to think that the terms
designate a phenomenon without cognition, and in fact the desire for
payback often fuels anger of this intense sort. (One locus classicus is Aeneas’ slaying of Turnus at the end of the Aeneid, furiis accensus.) I conclude that it is best to operate, as I have, with generic term
“anger,” defining its species by description of specific cases and
types of case. A rare exception, the borderline phenomenon that I call
Transition- Anger, is best designated by a technical term, since the
natural- language terms are used imprecisely with regard to the key
issue at stake.
Notes
FrontMatter
1. My translation. Preumenōs, the word I translate as “with a gentle- temper,” is from the same word- family as the adjective praos and the noun praotēs, Aristotle’s terms for gentleness of temper in the quote below and elsewhere. (The word is usually translated “mildness,” but that suggests context- neutral lack of affect, whereas Aristotle is talking about a way of treating people that aims at situational appropriateness, and is not incompatible with strong affect.)
Chapter 1
1. Aeschylus, Eumenides, translation and commentary by Hugh Lloyd-
Jones
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice- Hall, 1970), 76.
2. Translations mine, with influence from Lattimore. Remarkably, she pauses long enough to mention that she knows what Gorgons look like, since she has seen
them in a painting by Phineas.
3. He mentions various cruel punishments that are associated in Greek lore with Persian despotism.
4. On the various species of the genus anger, see Appendix C.
5. Wild dogs feed their puppies by chewing and swallowing the kill, then vomiting it up again in a more digestible form.
265
266
Notes to Pages 2–10
6. I write this after many hours of unfortunately close observation of wild dogs in Botswana. Strictly speaking, “African wild dogs” are not actual dogs, if we mean members of the genus Canis: their biological name is Lycaon pictus; they are thus canids but not canines.
7. See Allen (2000) and Allen (1999).
8. See Gewirtz (1988). Gewirtz rightly emphasizes that Athena has already gone ahead without them. The question is not whether the law courts will exist: they do exist. The only question is whether they will join or oppose.
9. I typically follow Lloyd- Jones’s excellent and very faithful translations, unless I want to bring out a point by greater literalness.
10. She exempts foreign war, which they are permitted to encourage.
11. See note 1 above. The term surely suggests that they have put their anger to one side, although it doesn’t clearly connote complete renunciation of anger.
12. Of course “Eumenides” is, in real Greek life, a cautious euphemism as used by citizens of these goddesses, but Aeschylus is doing something else with it. The ex- Furies are explicitly called metoikoi, resident aliens, and the group of escorts is said by Athena to be composed of those who guard her shrine— thus priestesses of the cult of Athena Polias.
13. For the general shift in attitudes to punishment that occurred in the fifth century, see Harriss (2001). This important and remarkable study provides an
extremely convincing argument that the Greeks and Romans came to criticize
the spirit of payback, and anger seen as involving it. Harriss documents the
shift in speaking of punishment from the timor- word- family, denoting payback, to the kolazein family, denoting punishment without implication of payback. The shift Harriss documents, as he emphasizes on p. 26 and elsewhere,
involves non- intellectuals as well as intellectuals, although intellectuals play a prominent role.
14. In this regard, the opera is the exact inversion of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, in which every phrase, even those of the “bad” characters, is illuminated by love.
Strauss wrote his own Figaro— in Der Rosenkavalier.
15.
Suggnōmē: sometimes this is translated “forgiveness,” but it just means “thinking- with,” i.e., participatory understanding, and its connection to forgiveness is added by modern theorists and translators. See below note 29, and further in
chapter 3. Aristotle’s position is not mine, because he still recommends revenge in some cases, particularly in connection with family bonds.
16. For the place of the Eumenides in the evolving Greek critique of anger, see Harriss (2001, 162).
17. As Harriss argues, this position becomes gradually more common in Greece
and Rome.
18. See also Konstan (2010), to be discussed further in chapter 3.
19. See Griswold (2007, xxiii). Griswold does not unequivocally endorse this development. His first- rate, subtle, and carefully argued book is an indispensable starting point for any further work on these questions, especially work like mine, which disagrees with some of his main contentions.
20. Murray (2010). The book itself is actually a great deal better than its title, and, not coincidentally, has nothing to do with forgiveness: the author’s generous and nonjudgmental attitude toward her parents is evident throughout. She does not even contemplate forgiving them, because she simply loves them.
21. Murphy (2003, viii).
Notes to Pages 10–14
267
22. See chapter 7.
23. Griswold’s book is the best example, in its detail and thoroughness, and it gives a balanced discussion of many other people’s views and a full bibliography.
24. Leading examples are Murphy (2003) and Miller (2006).
25. See Murphy (2003, ix and 19).
26. See Griswold (2007) and Konstan (2010). Konstan refers to this form of forgiveness as capturing “the strict or ample sense of the English word” (57), and as forgiveness “in the full sense of the word” (57).
27. From the Dies Irae, incorporated in the Requiem Mass: Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus iudicetur (A written book will be brought forth, in which everything is contained from which the world will be judged). For full text, see appendix to chapter 3.
28. The hymn continues: Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis: gere curam mei finis (I implore, bent down, a suppliant, my heart as contrite a
s ashes, show concern for my end).
29.
Suggnōmē, often wrongly associated with forgiveness (above n. 15), and even translated that way: see the Oxford translation of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IV.5, 1126a1– 3. Griswold’s discussion of the Greeks also goes too far at times in this direction: see p. 4 and note 5. I used the term “forgiveness” loosely in part of my discussion of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in Nussbaum (1999a, 161), and hereby withdraw that sentence! An important point made by Konstan (2010) is that suggnōmē, unlike forgiveness, often involves denial or diminution of responsibility: see pp. 28– 33, and the similar point made about Latin ignoscere, p. 55.
30. I agree here with Konstan (2010) and Konstan (2012, 22). The impressive emotion study of Robert Kaster comes to the same conclusion: see Kaster (2005, 80– 81).
Another interesting contrast is that between transactional forgiveness and ancient supplication: see Naiden (2006), discussed in Konstan (2010, 13).
31. As we’ll see in chapter 3, this tendency even influences translation: the Greek term charizesthai, which means simply “to be gracious to,” often gets translated
“to forgive” in the New Testament, where, however, a very different word, aphies-thai, is the canonical term for forgiveness.
32. Tutu (1999).
33. Segal (1970). Segal, a Classics professor, was an expert on ancient comedy, known for Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (1968) and The Death of Comedy (2001).
34. Here I shall be agreeing with Griswold, who distinguishes political apology from forgiveness.
Chapter 2
1. Strawson (1968). Strawson does not say that resentment is an emotion, and he does not identify it as a type of anger— although he does treat it as something one can “feel.” He just is not interested in the emotions as a philosophical category.
R. Jay Wallace, summarizing Strawson’s views, does, however, treat the “reactive attitudes” as emotions: “On P. F. Strawson’s view, emotions such as guilt, resentment, and indignation— what Strawson calls the reactive attitudes— provide the key to understanding moral responsibility and its conditions.” See Wallace (1994, 18). I think Wallace is right about Strawson, but this interpretive issue plays no role in my own argument. On my view about the relationship between resentment and anger, see Appendix C.
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Notes to Pages 14–19
2. See for example Hieronymi (2001).
3. See Allen (2000; 1999).
4. See Vlastos (1991).
5. Butler (1827).
6. See Santideva (1995, 45– 62).
7. Strawson (1968). Strawson does mention items, including resentment, indignation, gratitude, and “moral disapprobation” (87 and elsewhere). He does not
define them or investigate their internal structure, however.
8. Wallace (1994).
9. Thus a valuable recent discussion of therapy in prisons, linking that question to discussions of blame and responsibility, speaks of a long list of “hostile, negative attitudes and emotions that are typical human responses to blameworthiness: …
for instance, hatred, anger, resentment, indignation, disgust, disapproval, contempt and scorn” (Lacey and Pickard [2013, 3]). Hieronymi (2001), similarly,
emphasizes the importance of studying specific emotions before approaching the topic of forgiveness, but she really does not do this: she does not dissect different elements in anger or differentiate it from other “reactive attitudes.”
10. Especially Lazarus (1991), Averill (1982), and Tavris (1982); see below.
11. For a short summary of the overall view of emotions for which I have argued in earlier work, see Appendix A.
12. I introduce this term in Nussbaum (2001).
13. See Batson (2011); Smith (1982), discussing an earthquake in China and the reaction of a “man of humanity” in Europe. I discuss this issue in Nussbaum (2013, chs. 6, 9, 10).
14. Lazarus (1991).
15. Meaning that they are token- identical to neurochemical changes in the brain.
16. On all these claims, see Nussbaum (2001, chs. 1, 2); on the role of feelings, see also Nussbaum (2004b).
17. Aristotle’s project is to show orators what anger’s distinctive content is, in order to help them learn how to produce it or to take it away. Thus his whole procedure assumes that anger is in large part constituted by cognitive appraisals; the orator does not light a fire in people’s hearts.
18. Here I am following later versions of Aristotle’s definition, which substitute wrongful injury for down- ranking, which I consider too narrow: see below.
19. The grasp may be rudimentary: Paul Bloom’s research shows that babies as young as one year old have an inchoate sense of fair play and an inchoate approval of retribution. See Bloom (2013), and Appendix C.
20. Lazarus (1991, 219).
21. Arnim (1964, III.478). Compare Lazarus (1991, 224).
22. It does appear to be a male phenomenon, at least in this study. Or perhaps women who reacted angrily did not kick or rock the machine enough to topple it. Or perhaps they did not want to ruin their shoes and other clothing.
23. Tavris (1982, 164, cf. 72). See also Averill (1982, 166).
24. Butler (1827).
25. And if we accept psychoanalytic ideas of infantile omnipotence of the type expressed in Freud’s “His Majesty the Baby,” we can go further: the infant expects to be waited on and to be the center of the world, and considers all deviations from that state of affairs to be wrongful damage. In other words, the real and full existence of other people, with lives of their own and not just slaves of the baby, is itself a wrongful damage— a terrible problem in human development.
Notes to Pages 19–28
269
26. See Appendix C.
27.
De Ira I.2. Unfortunately this part of the work has a gap, which editors fill up from quotations of the work in later Christian authors. It appears that Seneca is mentioning a number of common philosophical definitions, rather than giving
his own.
28. Arnim (1964, III.397): in Greek, ēdikēkenai dokountos, in Latin qui videatur laesisse iniuria. On this shift, see also Harriss (2001, 61).
29. Lecture by Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, University of Chicago Law School, May 14, 2013.
30. See Hossain (2013).
31. See for example Tavris (1982, 72 and 94).
32. Lazarus (1991, 221). See Tavris (1982, 152– 53).
33. See also Lazarus (1991, 225), who argues that this goal is essential to differentiate anger from anxiety.
34. On different accounts of compassion in the tradition, see Nussbaum (2001, ch. 6).
35. I heard this interview on the news while in a gym away from home and cannot document it. But it happened. Jordan, Sr., was murdered in 1993. A suspect, Daniel Andre Green, was convicted in 1996 and given a life sentence. (A jury
opted not to assign the death penalty. A second suspect, Larry Demery, agreed to a plea deal in exchange for testimony implicating Green. Demery will be eligible for parole in 2016.) In April 2015 Green requested a new trial, claiming that false evidence was presented during the original trial. An FBI audit found that the State Bureau of Investigation erred in a total of 190 cases in handling blood evidence, including this case.
36. See the similar critique of payback in Brooks (2012).
37. On this see Mackie (1982). Mackie agrees with my claim that payback thinking makes no sense, calling this the “paradox of retribution.” Bloom’s research (2013) with young infants purports to show that the idea of fair play is present in infants under the age of one, but what it really shows is that such infants like seeing someone get a painful punishment when they have done something
unfair (for example, taken something from someone else): so it shows the deep-rootedness of payback pain- for- pain ideas, as well as those of fair play.
38. See Vermeule (2011), a Darwinian account of our interest in certain story
patterns.
39. Compare Mackie (1982, 5): “It should be clear beyond all question that the past wrong act, just because it is past, cannot be annulled… . The punishment may
trample on the criminal, but it does not do away with the crime.”
40. See the similar analysis in Murphy (1988, ch. 1) and in Murphy’s other writings on this topic.
41. Hampton and Murphy (1988, 54– 59).
42. See Averill (1982, 177), reporting a survey in which subjects were asked about their motives in becoming angry. The two most common were “To assert your
authority” and “To get back at, or gain revenge on, the instigator.”
43. For my own view about the concept of dignity and its political role, see Nussbaum (2008), summarized in Nussbaum (2010a).
44. When the Stoics said that animals are not rational, their opponents pointed to an ingenious dog allegedly belonging to Chrysippus, who came to a three- fork cross-ing, following a rabbit. He sniffed down the first path; no scent. He sniffed down the second; no scent. Without sniffing further, he galloped off down the third path— thus showing, they said, that he had mastered the disjunctive syllogism.
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Notes to Pages 29–44
Anger and Forgiveness Page 47