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On Anger
Is anger eternal? Righteous? Reflections on the causes and consequences of an phenomenon critical to our intimate and public lives.From Aristotle to Martha Nussbaum, philosophers have explored the moral status of anger. We get angry for a we feel wronged. That reason can be eternal, some argue, because not even an apology or promise that it won't happen again can change the fact of the original harm. Although there are pragmatic reasons for ceasing to be angry and moving on, is eternal anger moral? Is anger righteous? In this collection, contributors consider these and other questions about the causes and consequences of anger.Leading off the debate, philosopher Agnes Callard argues that anger is not righteous rage; it is not an effort to solve a problem. Instead, it reflects a cry for help—a recognition that something shared is broken. And only in acknowledging the value of that shared project, she argues, can we begin together to repair it. Anger, then, is a starting point. But could there ever be the end of anger?Bringing together today's leading thinkers on anger, this volume raises questions critical to our intimate and public lives.ContributorsRachel Achs, Paul Bloom, Elizabeth Bruenig, Judith Butler, Agnes Callard, Daryl Cameron, Myisha Cherry, Barbara Herman, Desmond Jagmohan, David Konstan, Oded Na'aman, Martha C. Nussbaum, Amy Olberding, Whitney Phillips, Jesse Prinz, Victoria Spring, Brandon M. Terry
158 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 17, 2020
65 people are currently reading
1434 people want to read
About the author
Agnes Callard
6 books131 followersAgnes Callard is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on public philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 26, 2021
http://bostonreview.net/forum/agnes-c...
Boston Review Forum provides a platform for academics to delve deep and debate varied topics. For this issue philosopher Agnes Callard plays devil's advocate and insists that anger is rational and necessary. I found her essay thought provoking and impassioned. She argues that both Stoics and sentimentalists (those who oppose anger and those who consider it necessary) try to use euphemisms like indignation to separate the irrational aspects of anger from the moral righteousness it promises. Callard's point is simple - that sort of divide is a theoretical pursuit, in reality they are ensconced together.
It leads to her next premise holding onto grudges and striving for vengeance makes complete sense. A sense of justice is enshrined in morals, justice demands retribution ergo revenge is rational. She is quick to admit being vengeful can be morally corrupting but it is the price we pay for living in an imperfect world. The graver the harm done, the more the need for revenge making restitution tougher still. Because living with that sort of anger just keeps on kindling our bloodlust making it appear even more justifiable. It is a vicious cycle. Callard does offer the other option. She essentially defines being wronged as someone imposing their morality on you. If you don't protest that, you become a willing accomplice to your own degradation which is a worse fate than the moral corruption that a thirst for revenge brings.
Another group of scholars try to argue against Callard's hot takes. Most try to posit that Callard's position is extreme but as Callard notes in her rebuttal it is easy to suggest drawing lines, much more difficult drawing them. Desmond Jagmohan and Myisha Cherry find Callard's judgment of victims as 'morally corrupted' harsh. I find again for Callard, her tone is not judgmental she is more interested in chronicling anger in all its forms. I enjoyed Jesse Prinz and Rachel Ach's criticique. Prinz warns how quickly anger can become destructive. Ach acknowledges that in a system where retribution is generally accepted as the optimal answer, the things it communicate can't be established with a different alternative.
The essays were a wonderful concoction of philosophy, psychology and practicality to explain anger. A must read for anyone who feels disenfranchised or oppressed. More personal anecdotes would have helped me to relate better and it is a scholarly essay, so it demands reflection and won't reward casual readers. It does not offer easy answers, it helps you relate your experience, understand, own and grow with them. I thought the different essayists were dealing with different stage of anger. Maybe Callard's rage was vicious and immediate while some of the others approached it from a distance. Anyway I enjoyed it and look forward to reading another one of these forums. Rating - 4/5
Boston Review Forum provides a platform for academics to delve deep and debate varied topics. For this issue philosopher Agnes Callard plays devil's advocate and insists that anger is rational and necessary. I found her essay thought provoking and impassioned. She argues that both Stoics and sentimentalists (those who oppose anger and those who consider it necessary) try to use euphemisms like indignation to separate the irrational aspects of anger from the moral righteousness it promises. Callard's point is simple - that sort of divide is a theoretical pursuit, in reality they are ensconced together.
It leads to her next premise holding onto grudges and striving for vengeance makes complete sense. A sense of justice is enshrined in morals, justice demands retribution ergo revenge is rational. She is quick to admit being vengeful can be morally corrupting but it is the price we pay for living in an imperfect world. The graver the harm done, the more the need for revenge making restitution tougher still. Because living with that sort of anger just keeps on kindling our bloodlust making it appear even more justifiable. It is a vicious cycle. Callard does offer the other option. She essentially defines being wronged as someone imposing their morality on you. If you don't protest that, you become a willing accomplice to your own degradation which is a worse fate than the moral corruption that a thirst for revenge brings.
Another group of scholars try to argue against Callard's hot takes. Most try to posit that Callard's position is extreme but as Callard notes in her rebuttal it is easy to suggest drawing lines, much more difficult drawing them. Desmond Jagmohan and Myisha Cherry find Callard's judgment of victims as 'morally corrupted' harsh. I find again for Callard, her tone is not judgmental she is more interested in chronicling anger in all its forms. I enjoyed Jesse Prinz and Rachel Ach's criticique. Prinz warns how quickly anger can become destructive. Ach acknowledges that in a system where retribution is generally accepted as the optimal answer, the things it communicate can't be established with a different alternative.
The essays were a wonderful concoction of philosophy, psychology and practicality to explain anger. A must read for anyone who feels disenfranchised or oppressed. More personal anecdotes would have helped me to relate better and it is a scholarly essay, so it demands reflection and won't reward casual readers. It does not offer easy answers, it helps you relate your experience, understand, own and grow with them. I thought the different essayists were dealing with different stage of anger. Maybe Callard's rage was vicious and immediate while some of the others approached it from a distance. Anyway I enjoyed it and look forward to reading another one of these forums. Rating - 4/5
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April 21, 2025Muy interesante poder leer esta compilación de ensayos que dialogan entre ellos, muchas veces oponiéndose, para hablar sobre un tema tan complicado como el enojo.
Mis favoritos fueron Righteous uncivility y Victim anger and its costs. Con algunos no estuve de acuerdo para nada, pero justamente por eso valió mucho la pena leerlos a todos.
Mis favoritos fueron Righteous uncivility y Victim anger and its costs. Con algunos no estuve de acuerdo para nada, pero justamente por eso valió mucho la pena leerlos a todos.
May 22, 2021
A deep dive on the nature of anger and how we can, should, and historically have used it for both good and bad, broken down into digestible and thought-provoking essays, moving from a theoretical philosophical discussion to real-world and concrete examples of what anger costs us and why it might be necessary to pay that price.
A fascinating read for a perpetually angry person like me.
A fascinating read for a perpetually angry person like me.
April 10, 2022
"They would say that you ought to take into account how the wrongdoing that prompted your anger has been addressed, via restitution, compensation, apology, and a promise. I have made amends for my wrongdoing in every possible way; if you continue to be as angry as you were, it must be, they would argue, because you are being irrationally insensitive to those amends. The tendency to cling to anger through apologies and recompense, for years sometimes and to the detriment of all parties concerned, is routinely dismissed as irrational...But this idea ignores the fact that there are reasons to remain angry. And the reasons are not hard to find; they are the same reasons as the reasons to get angry in the first place. Apologies, restitution, and all the rest do nothing to cancel or alter the fact that I stole, nor the fact that I ought not to have stolen. Those facts were your reasons to be angry. Since they are not changed by my forms of redress - apology, compensation, what have you - then you still have, after the deployment of these amends, the very same reasons to be angry. Anger, after all, is not a desire to fix something but a way of grasping the fact that it is broken. You are angry about something that is now in the past, and there is nothing to be done about that. What I did will always diverge from what I ought to have done, no matter what I do next."
"The absence of resentment and rage in her words and deeds says nothing about her self-respect."
"...when someone has wronged you, it changes your fundamental relationship with that person. One of the more compelling features of this argument is the idea that being wronged carries psychological costs for the self; it forces you to to 'remodel your psychological landscape' to focus on managing the other person...According to one theory of moral judgment, much of morality is about regulating relationships, deciding what kind of relationship model you have with another person and whether they've violated its implicit norms."
"One can, I admit, imagine a funny case in which my anger is not aroused by your betrayal of me - I'm fine with you betraying me! - but simply by the fact that that betrayal has gone unregretted and unapologized for. Once you regret and apologize, you have indeed 'addressed' my grievance, and I no longer have any reason to be angry with you. But usually what I'm angry about is not the absence of measures to rectify a wrong but the presence of wrongdoing. And my claim was: because that doesn't change, it cannot be 'addressed'." Me tho
"...Barack Obama warned that being judgmental to strangers on the Internet should not be confused with serious activism...his remarks were more focused on the political ineffectiveness of saying harsh words without following them up with meaningful action. Superficial wokeness, in other words."
"Popular rhetoric often depicts the righteously uncivil person as the brave iconoclast, one who heroically refuses the dissembling and pretense that stand between ourselves and the true, the right, and the good. The uncivil person will be lauded for 'keeping things real,' exercising a gritty rejection of polite fakery in order to say exactly what he thinks. He might be praised as 'politically incorrect,' resolutely free from any forced and false consensus to which the cowardly rest submit. Or perhaps he valiantly 'speaks truth to power,' audaciously defiant of what power can do...Where others cushion criticism with softening tact, he 'takes the gloves off' to deliver truth bare-knuckled...He plainly 'punches,' though always in a noble way, 'punching up' but never 'down,', ever sure that he can sort the 'up' from the 'down.' When I am righteously uncivil, I can cast myself in any of these ways. I become a fierce combatant righting all that's wrong. And I have unappealing stories I can tell about any who object."
"The absence of resentment and rage in her words and deeds says nothing about her self-respect."
"...when someone has wronged you, it changes your fundamental relationship with that person. One of the more compelling features of this argument is the idea that being wronged carries psychological costs for the self; it forces you to to 'remodel your psychological landscape' to focus on managing the other person...According to one theory of moral judgment, much of morality is about regulating relationships, deciding what kind of relationship model you have with another person and whether they've violated its implicit norms."
"One can, I admit, imagine a funny case in which my anger is not aroused by your betrayal of me - I'm fine with you betraying me! - but simply by the fact that that betrayal has gone unregretted and unapologized for. Once you regret and apologize, you have indeed 'addressed' my grievance, and I no longer have any reason to be angry with you. But usually what I'm angry about is not the absence of measures to rectify a wrong but the presence of wrongdoing. And my claim was: because that doesn't change, it cannot be 'addressed'." Me tho
"...Barack Obama warned that being judgmental to strangers on the Internet should not be confused with serious activism...his remarks were more focused on the political ineffectiveness of saying harsh words without following them up with meaningful action. Superficial wokeness, in other words."
"Popular rhetoric often depicts the righteously uncivil person as the brave iconoclast, one who heroically refuses the dissembling and pretense that stand between ourselves and the true, the right, and the good. The uncivil person will be lauded for 'keeping things real,' exercising a gritty rejection of polite fakery in order to say exactly what he thinks. He might be praised as 'politically incorrect,' resolutely free from any forced and false consensus to which the cowardly rest submit. Or perhaps he valiantly 'speaks truth to power,' audaciously defiant of what power can do...Where others cushion criticism with softening tact, he 'takes the gloves off' to deliver truth bare-knuckled...He plainly 'punches,' though always in a noble way, 'punching up' but never 'down,', ever sure that he can sort the 'up' from the 'down.' When I am righteously uncivil, I can cast myself in any of these ways. I become a fierce combatant righting all that's wrong. And I have unappealing stories I can tell about any who object."
June 3, 2022
The first thing that sticks out to me about this book is the format. It starts with a roughly 18 page essay from Agnes Callard and follows with a series of direct responses, interviews, and essays that branch off on the theme of the central questions of the book:
To these three questions, Agnes says yes, yes, and yes and lays out pretty compelling arguments as justification. Her Argument for Grudges refers to the fact that if I have reason to be mad at you once, I have reason to be mad at you forever. Her Argument for Revenge extends from this fact, holding that anger is the primary means with which we hold each other morally responsible.
Overall, took away a lot from this book but the pieces that resonated with me the most were:
--More Important Things by Myisha Cherry
--Accountability without Revenge by Rachel Achs
--Victim Anger and it's Costs by Martha C. Nussbaum
--Whose anger Counts by Whitney Phillips
Suppose that you are angry on Tuesday because I stole from you on Monday. Suppose that on Wednesday I return what I stole; I compensate you for any disadvantage occasioned by your not having it for two days; I apologize for my theft as a moment of weakness; and, finally, I promise never to do it again. Suppose, in addition, that you believe my apology is sincere and that I will keep my promise.
Could it be rational for you to be just as angry on Thursday as you were on Tuesday? Moreover, could it be rational for you to conceive of a plan to steal from me in turn? And what if you don't stop at one theft: could it be rational for you to go on to steal from me again, and again, and again
Agnes Callard, On Anger Pg. 11
To these three questions, Agnes says yes, yes, and yes and lays out pretty compelling arguments as justification. Her Argument for Grudges refers to the fact that if I have reason to be mad at you once, I have reason to be mad at you forever. Her Argument for Revenge extends from this fact, holding that anger is the primary means with which we hold each other morally responsible.
Overall, took away a lot from this book but the pieces that resonated with me the most were:
--More Important Things by Myisha Cherry
--Accountability without Revenge by Rachel Achs
--Victim Anger and it's Costs by Martha C. Nussbaum
--Whose anger Counts by Whitney Phillips
June 28, 2021
A Painful Sometimes Misguided and Reductive Reminder Must Read
I hated reading parts of this book. It felt so reductive and flawed, especially the lead author / editors perspective on anger. But Callard aside, spending a couple of hours doing nothing but thinking about anger and all it’s forms triggers and justifications reminded me of where I fall shirt of who I want to be. Few books if any can hold up such a mirror, intended or not. We can do better and righteous incivility is our most dangerous crutch.
I hated reading parts of this book. It felt so reductive and flawed, especially the lead author / editors perspective on anger. But Callard aside, spending a couple of hours doing nothing but thinking about anger and all it’s forms triggers and justifications reminded me of where I fall shirt of who I want to be. Few books if any can hold up such a mirror, intended or not. We can do better and righteous incivility is our most dangerous crutch.
October 9, 2022
The format of this book is so good. It takes one argument and then has a number of short essays that analyze that initial argument. The opinions were varied and all interesting. I learned so much about anger and how nuanced the discussion around it is.
February 20, 2021
This is a really lovely collection of essays, obviously on anger, but also questioning what anger is what it causes. There's also discussion of violence that comes from anger, who's anger counts, what violence is justified or not justified. Really illuminating with stuff from Martha Nussbaum and Judith Butler to boot, if you've ever wanted to talk about anger this is a really good place to start.
March 26, 2022
A firm collaboration. Dissection. Ideas parsed to expose the nature of a difficult thing.
Prose: 7
Style: 7
Thesis: 9
Accessibility: 7.5
Credibility: 9
Cohesion: 8
Motive: 8
Effect: 8
Rating: 7.9/10
Prose: 7
Style: 7
Thesis: 9
Accessibility: 7.5
Credibility: 9
Cohesion: 8
Motive: 8
Effect: 8
Rating: 7.9/10
April 21, 2021
This is the biggest P.O.S I’ve ever read. It’s like someone asked Jeeves about misinformed hyper-liberal anger and just put the first few results into a “book.” Don’t waste your time. Read this for a book club with 25 people of mixed ages and we all hated it. If I could give this negative stars, I would. This biased attempt at nothing immediately went into the trash.
May 12, 2021
Unless you’re dealing with a hard-line Stoic, most philosophers tend to consider anger a morally justifiable response to being wronged—though too much anger, for too long, they might say, could start to hurt you or your community. In the explosive essay that kicks off this anthology, Callard writes that such caveats defang the very point of anger. If anger is a valid response to being wrong, she argues, and if none of the ways we hold people accountable for wronging us—apologies, restitution, etc.—actually erase the original act, doesn’t it follow that “once you have a reason to be angry, you have a reason to be angry forever”? Cue the clamour of dozen-plus philosophers debating the cause, function, and value of our most jagged emotion. There’s Myisha Cherry, whose work is always so marvelously elegant, on the irrelevance of virtue to the anger that fuels the anti-racist struggle—anger she describes as “Lordean rage,” after the poet and writer Audre Lorde. Elsewhere, we get Judith Butler on anger as a medium: “[W]e view rage as an uncontrollable impulse that needs to come out in unmediated forms. But people craft rage, they cultivate rage, and not just as individuals. Communities craft their rage. Artists craft rage all the time.” I’m resistant to the idea that moral philosophy is just self-help dressed in tweed, but as this year lurched from one outrage to the next, and as I found myself becoming hoarse (metaphorically, but often literally) from what felt like shouting into a void, this collection became something of a workbook: a tool for parsing the more unwieldy parts of myself, and my loved ones, and the world
March 31, 2021
Anger is a complex emotion — a manifestation that is hard to rationalize. Reading Agnes Callard's philosophical take and the forum responses by other academics was interesting and constructive to my personal point-of-view even if I had a hard time coming to terms with some of them. When are anger and vengeance justified? Is it an emotion that's essential to our lives? How do we tame it? Is there a way to morally and righteously respond to wrongdoing without causing more destruction than it already has, or is that the role of anger? How and when are holding grudges rational? To what end do we use violence to pay for goodness? These are some of the questions addressed in this collection of essays, containing different case studies so there may be a little something for everything. Personally, having no philosophical background, I think it was a little hard to distinguish these scholars' stances. It's challenging. I learnt a lot but it's probably not something I'd go back to in a long while.
March 2, 2021
The book, in my opinion, isn’t easy to digest. You’ll find yourself losing in the philosophical debate (not in a good way) and having to read them again and again. It can get quite frustrating. That’s not to say it’s a bad book. It’s interesting to have various scholars argue against Agnes Callard’s stance on anger. That is, and forgive me if I’m wrong, anger is immoral, vengeful, and grudge-bearing; and the world would be a better place without this negative emotion.
So I guess this two-star rating may come across harsh and unfair. Especially when it could be my limited knowledge hampering my ability to grasp the responses.
So I guess this two-star rating may come across harsh and unfair. Especially when it could be my limited knowledge hampering my ability to grasp the responses.
April 15, 2022
An odd sort of book, gathering not only contributions to a Boston Review forum, but also some other stuff of which the editors were aware that more-or-less fit the theme. The BR pieces were generally too brief to develop or defend their ideas satisfactorily; but there was the compensation of getting a smorgasbord of interesting and sometimes unexpected ideas about anger. Elizabeth Bruenig's piece, and Callard's response to her critics were the most instructive, suggesting together the view that there is something at once morally necessary and morally damaging about anger.
April 20, 2021
Unexpectedly amazing
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when starting a collection of essays on anger- but I’m extremely glad that I picked it up. Many authors disassemble the societal norms of anger, righteous forms of anger, motivations and permutations of anger and the societal change anger can drive or hold back. There were several essays that I found myself chewing on and using to examine my own anger in new lights. Everyone should read. ❤️
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when starting a collection of essays on anger- but I’m extremely glad that I picked it up. Many authors disassemble the societal norms of anger, righteous forms of anger, motivations and permutations of anger and the societal change anger can drive or hold back. There were several essays that I found myself chewing on and using to examine my own anger in new lights. Everyone should read. ❤️
November 4, 2021
i think this started off pretty well but soon enouugh devolved into a repetitive and frustratingly convoluted jumble of philosophy. it wasnt bad, it was really insightful at times and the essays i enjoyed, i enjoyed immensely. but i just wish there had been some more editing and clearing up done in terms of content and form in some of the essays. got to brood and see whether this is a 3 or a 3.5, more thoughts later :)
March 12, 2021
A really great collection of essays on the role anger has/should have in our private and public lives. It's something I've been chewing on for a long while and this was a good (re-)introduction to current and historical thinking on it.
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March 22, 2022
A collection of essays about anger from a philosophical and sociological view point. Explores the role of anger in modern society as well as the morality of anger. As with any collection, some essays resonated more than others.
January 12, 2021
Illuminating. Good collection of essays.
April 24, 2021
Would give negative! Bias with no citations- go ahead and pass on this bad boy.
November 30, 2021
Relevant, challenging, and I'm sure to be revisited many times in the future. A point off for uneven editing across the collection.
January 10, 2022
The first essay, and the responses, are very nice and thought provoking. The rest just weren't quite as interesting to me.
August 15, 2022
Some essays in this collection stood out to me more than others, overall it was okay.
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