The Philosophy of Anger
bostonreview.net
bostonreview.net
If someone stole from you a little, the underlying fear could be that it is a trend, your subsistence is directly in danger, and/or that your social status is becoming such that others feel comfortable stealing from you[0]. Payback desire is the desire to reaffirm your status and deter future occurrences.
If you feel angry because of something your spouse has done, there may be a hidden fear of losing control, or losing them. Being angry is probably going to be the least optimal response, and the need for control could be something worth working on.
If someone physically attacked you, what kind of fear lies behind your anger is obvious. (Anecdotally, I get a brief flash of irrational anger if I accidentally and suddenly hit my head, e.g. at some low-hanging feature. I think somehow this triggers the same response as if I was physically attacked. Lasts milliseconds.)
The more confident, relaxed, and non-controlling one is, the less cause there would be for anger.
[0] It doesn’t have to be, depending on circumstances: if you are an affluent tourist with a fat bank account and real estate, and someone snatches your wallet while you are walking down a night market in a developing country you are visiting, you have not much reason to be angry: sure, it’s an inconvenience to call your bank and block credit cards, but objectively you are not in trouble, and you are detached from society in which the theft took place. A local resident could have a radically different response in the same scenario.
I get the most angry when I can't control something, can't wait it out, can't avoid it. Then I feel cornered. "This isn't my fault, I can't escape it, and it's just going to _keep happening to me like it always does_."
As soon as I think of any way to deal with something, or even if someone else says "Yeah this sucks, let's never do this again" I feel relieved.
Like the time I bought some cheese sauce packets, not realizing they had been cut by a box cutter at the store and were leaking. I was angry until I realized I could just take them back to the store and exchange them.
So the hard part is suppressing my anger until a solution appears. I don't know the trick to that yet.
Personally, reframing anger as a manifestation of some variation of instinctive fear seems to help me dissolve it. (Fear has none of the perceived ‘righteousness’ of anger, so when I apply it to myself I think “what am I afraid of? I’m better than that”, and when I apply it to someone being angry at me I may almost feel pity for them and better resist escalating the situation by being angry in response.)
Unfortunately, too often I fail to reframe quickly enough and still get hit by the initial anger, but I think it helps nevertheless.
I believe those host nations that (as far as I could tell) harbour no hatred towards immigrants could be separated into two categories: countries where locals tend to feel broadly confident, and countries where locals tend to feel innately superior to non-locals.
In the former countries, immigrants indeed seem to be perceived simply as a bunch of differently-looking people with quirky customs.
In the latter countries, feeling of superiority seems to preclude anger or hate, but contempt seems to be possible in some circumstances (I suspect contempt might be fear in presence of superiority).
Thesis is that anger is the result of a cascade.
Expectations -> Disappointment -> Resentment -> Blame -> Anger
(From memory, will update if needed.)
So the trick is update one's expectations, short circuit the cascade before it can even start.
Separately, I learned that we can only replace habits with new habits, vs unlearn habits. Completely out of ideas, I faked being happy. One day I woke up, said to myself "Phenomenal!", and truly meant it. I was shocked that it worked. My whole transformation took about three years. YMMV. (Maybe having a life coach would work faster.)
Not to mention strength follows anger, you need to be angry to handle a physical situation.
Honestly I think you're trying to fit the cylinder in the square hole.
> In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says that the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones committed out of anger: which is good philosophy. The angry man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self indulgent, less manly in his sins.
> Theophrastus is right, and philosophically sound, to say that the sin committed out of pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of wrongdoing, provoked by pain to anger. The other man rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by desire.
Quite a few of these movies end with the protagonist, after having kicked his way through countless henchmen, deciding that the bad guy “isn’t worth it”, which is to say that after it’s clear that the protagonist has won the fight and could kill the villain if he wanted, masters his emotions and walks away. Sometimes followed up by the villain destroying himself via suicide by police, falling off a cliff, or some other means of dying that isn’t the protagonist’s fault.
These movies strike me as the crystallization of one of our predominant societal ills: the idea that it’s morally good to feel anger, and morally bankrupt to not feel anger. The righteous path is to be angry; where to direct the anger is of secondary concern, and we need not even understand what we’re mad about, and the thing we’re mad about need not even be real.
I’m finding a deeper respect as I age for people who are able to respond to the world with zen-like empathy.
In many ways it is like the doomsday device in dr strangelove... the fact that it is not rational, and will be carried out even if it is not in the continuing best interest of the person enacting revenge, acts as a stronger deterrent than a proportional response.
It changes the game theory to know a person will enact revenge forever.
A gene for anger is a pre commitment.
In this case, anger is a loss response. Sadness is also a loss response but it looks back in time and works to reduce one's activity level, while anger is forward looking and tends to drive one towards more action. (Unrelated, but fear is also a loss response, but a response to a potential loss).
Anger also generally (but not always) requires that the one experiencing anger recognizes the perceived cause of anger as an agent with free will. We don't feel angry, for example, when we get caught in the rain (unless it is at ourselves for not bringing an umbrella). However, we have seen animals (such as chimpanzees and dogs) on occasion expressing what look like anger at inanimate objects that have hurt them.
Perhaps there are other intelligent species out there with a different evolutionary path that has a larger number of primary emotions. And perhaps there are others who only possess one emotion in place of both anger and sadness. It is a subject worth examining from an evolutionary and neurological angle, rather than philosophical.
There are a lot of false dichotomies in the article, especially the idea that it isn’t possible to disincentivize or even punish evil without embodying evil yourself, therefore confusing evil and good. There is too much to write, it seems foolish to even have to explain. Thousands of years of (mostly) successful criminal justice assumed that dispassionate, fair judgment is at least possible.
Most importantly, building on this twisted logic to say that to be wronged makes you immoral (by either unjustly ignoring evil, or through grudge and retaliation becoming evil), is not only hurtful to victims, but justifies a world that forever echoes and amplifies pain and evil. I steal from my enemy because he has done me wrong. I steal from you because my enemy has made me evil. All evil for everyone is justified.
> There are a lot of false dichotomies in the article, especially the idea that it isn’t possible to disincentivize or even punish evil without embodying evil yourself, therefore confusing evil and good. There is too much to write, it seems foolish to even have to explain. Thousands of years of (mostly) successful criminal justice assumed that dispassionate, fair judgment is at least possible.
I don't think he was advocating for evil as the only way to combat evil, in all circumstances but only in some.
And as much as the development of a impartial judicial can regulate certain cases of amoral behavior, there are still many more situations where a compromise of our morals is nesseacary to correct some situation at hand.
Cases that come to mind range from insulting someone for insulting you back, lest they continue in this behaviour after thinking you are an easy target, to allied intervention to Hitler's aggression
> Most importantly, building on this twisted logic to say that to be wronged makes you immoral (by either unjustly ignoring evil, or through grudge and retaliation becoming evil), is not only hurtful to victims, but justifies a world that forever echoes and amplifies pain and evil. I steal from my enemy because he has done me wrong. I steal from you because my enemy has made me evil. All evil for everyone is justified.
Again, my interpretation of the authors views is not that the totality of every victim of injustice is themselves an example of moral failure, only in some. I think a strong case for this is in the two examples I gave above, where your retaliatory behaviour will act as deterrence towards the trangressor, barring them from further transgressions. When the aggressor perceives that you are constrained by a set of morals or behaviors that prevent you from retaliating to their aggression, then there is nothing stopping them from infringing on you further. Therefore in this case, I believe you have the responsibility to act in retaliation, and the charge of immorality could be reasonably levied against those who fail to do so.
> I believe that, when faced with injustice, we should sometimes get somewhat angry. Such anger is not “pure” and entails submitting oneself to (some degree of) moral corruption, but the alternative, acquiescence, is often even worse. The point I want to emphasize, however, is this: just because the moral corruption of anger is our best option doesn’t mean it is not corruption.
> The consequences of acknowledging this point are sobering: victims of injustice are not as innocent as we would like to believe. Either these victims are morally compromised by the vengeful and grudge-bearing character of their anger, or they are morally compromised by acquiescence. Long-term oppression of a group of people amounts to long-term moral damage to that group. When it comes to racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, classism, religious discrimination, anti-neurodiversity, elitism of any stripe, this argument entails that the oppressors have made the oppressed morally worse people.
While I actually don't disagree and I think the conclusion (and the piece) has value and is even novel, and am utterly scared of how this can be twisted if it becomes widely discussed.
For me, the correct/helpful implications go as such: when it comes to oppressors and the oppressed, this is a very compelling argument that tone policing revolution from the oppressed is only doing further harm, and that we must see anger (and its resulting symptoms) as a natural and blameless response to said oppression. If you want to help people who are being oppressed, you need to be constructive to a message, not in pursuit of making it perfectly moral and clean when oppression literally becomes an attack on the morals of those being oppressed. I don't think it's hard to imagine how this extends to hot button issues like racial equality and policing in the US today.
What I am scared of is that this will only embolden the crowd that is morally policing revolution and activism today to point and be like "look see, you aren't perfectly moral, fix it so we can stop your oppression!", missing the entire point and putting more ideological, emotional, and literal labor back onto oppressed groups. I only hope others can highlight this distinction if/when this idea gains notoriety.
> Revenge allows you to turn the principle of my action into a rule for your conduct toward me: you make my bad your good. This is the opposite of trying to undo or reverse my action. You hold me accountable by holding onto my theft, refusing to forget it, turning its one-off opposition between our interests into a rule to which I am now subject. [...] Angry people sometimes describe their vengeance as "teaching someone a lesson," and this is quite literally true: you make my wronging of you into a general principle and then "educate" me by imposing it on me.
This is an important lesson for those more naturally inclined toward forgiveness (though I would say it's important because it says something about what successful rehabilitation or education more often look like, or at least involve, in real life).
Speaking personally, it's a principle that it took me quite a lot of experience to understand.
> Educating me in this way is not easy on you: making my evil your good has psychological costs, among them the fact that you divert yourself away from what would otherwise be good for you. You must remodel your psychological landscape into one devoted to regulating mine. [...] I've colonized your fantasy life.
I find this to be false. You need a diversity of responses.
E.g, I am an ecclesiastical stoic that gets angry about twice a decade. My wife is not, and that makes us a great team in various circumstances.
tl;dr you need communities of individuals to approach anger differently.
I think I've managed to get more mature and strategic about revenge than "tit-for-tat", because I've noticed that this is usually calculated for by abusers, so I look instead for a combination of getting myself to safety(thus avoiding the self-inflicted trauma) while creating a subtle barrier or danger zone for the other party, a place where they spend more energy than I do to get less results.
I’m interested in some examples of these strategies? I’ve found this works eg in the workplace but not so much with family
The author talks about the connection of anger with memories of past wrongdoings. In my personal experience, it's hard to forget past wrongdoings when the person who did wrong seems like they haven't changed or aren't capable of changing. Then, any restitution seems less meaningful because the harm might very well happen again. In that case, I do agree that a grudge is rational. That's because forgiving and/or forgetting actually might expose you to further harm. However, I don't recall the author really mentioning this take on it. I may be mistaken, but it seemed that their argument was that the simple fact that any wrongdoing occurred to begin with is reason enough to hold a grudge and that this could somehow be considered rational. That doesn't make much sense to me.
That being said, I believe Trump is the reason we're seeing such angry cultural trends. In him, we have a person who has posed a constant psychological (or even not just psychological) threat to maybe as much as half the population of the US over the past four years. He is a man who has done real harm to many people. I also believe many people look at him and see someone who feels no remorse about any of his actions and, indeed, may even seem fundamentally incapable of remorse.
It's completely rational to hold a grudge against a person like that and he has been inescapable for almost half a decade. I think he's been acting as a sort of psychological vortex that's driving everyone towards the angry side of the spectrum. I'm sure the effect has even bled outside the political sphere into other parts of society. In my own life, I've often seen the way in which an unpleasant experience or emotion can sit in the back of my mind and color my perception of everything. I'm sure everyone has experienced something similar.
It's been telling to watch the way in which the world has taken on his pathologies. As much as modern society has chosen to de-emphasize the importance of king-like figures, we humans are still psychologically programmed to take queues from people in positions of power. In that sense, we've all unwittingly become members of one big, broken family with an abusive father.
"Anger treats its target as someone capable of recognizing that she has done wrong... "
This is true in some cases, but not all. Had a girlfriend once who used anger to get what she wanted. It was like cash to her - a simple means to an end.
When I pushed back it spiraled into abuse. She became ever more hurtful instead of being conciliatory tory. Blew my mind.
I'm firmly in the camp that seeks to eliminate all anger from my life, and avoid it in others. Like the plague.
I am pretty certain there’s a huge log of people with the kindest faces who gladly closed their eyes on the abuse happening to someone else for a simple example.
With that said, an exception to a case doesn't invalidate an entire article or philosophical argument. In this case, I think it mainly narrows the application, if anything. This premise is a side piece at best to the argument, so I would pause before even going that far. Specifically here, I think it is important to distinguish between anger at a person and anger directed at larger injustices.
Philosophers tend to generalize in order to get to conclusions in the same way that macro-economists work at a high level. Without either, neither field would be able to arrive at anything meaningful.
I see another person in this thread already who must be as self-deluded as I am! Perhaps there are more.
I believe Buddhist monks are rarely angry. That's where I would start.
And what’s wrong with being angry anyways? The world is shit, there’s a lot that’s worth being angry about. When someone insults you, get angry! When someone bullies your kid, get angry. When hitler marched on France, get angry.
There is a blanket of guilt about anger on the internet, and I find it childish.
These things happen to you, but you don't identify with them, you merely recognize them as feelings and thoughts. The result is the glide path from that emotion or thought to homeostasis (where you were prior to the occurence) is much faster than it would be otherwise.
I believe that anger is a signal. But anger can be really dangerous and addictive. However, it does have a place in the human experience, but you should learn to listen to your anger when it really matters.
I do agree with you though, that for me personally, I could try to get rid of angry reactions until the day I die and I know I will never be successful. I have settled upon finding better outlets for my anger and conditioning reactions that are less destructive than, say, lashing out at someone.
There's value in specificity but I think you jumped pretty quickly to "delusional" in response when as you've seen you both share a decent deal of middle ground. The questions that arise to me from reading this exchange:
1. At what point is anger "practically" removed from someone?
2. What methods can achieve that? Which are healthy to the longterm mental state of a human being?
Personally, my greatest tool against anger is understanding + my belief in determinism. You can't be angry with a person for something they did not choose, and understanding how it happened leads to a larger issue or trend that you can then decide if it is worth spending time correcting or not. That understanding transforms anger into macro frustration, which I find is less harmful to others and I can constructively process into problem solving, which I find to be pretty healthy.
Did I literally eradicate my anger? Not even close. Does anyone see or experience anger as we practically recognize it? Nope! So in terms of the actual world we live in, I very much did remove anger from my actions.
My larger point here being that you have to bring practical readings to the table, even in the comments section of a philosophy piece :)
Not everyone is like you.
If I want an emotion I have to cultivate it, otherwise I'll get no emotions. People don't like that, so I've learned to fake emotions, but that doesn't mean I actually feel them.
For example I never bother actually cultivating real anger. But sometimes anger is useful so I'll act like I'm angry. But it's just an act, there is no actual anger there.
When I actually (and rarely) get an actual emotion I'll examine it like it's a stranger "wow that's so cool how it's making me feel, that's such a strange thing to experience".
If it helps: My "I", and my "mind" are two different things. And sometimes my "I" watches my "mind" and wonders "why did it do that?".
For example, in the case of #1, I usually separate 'frustration' from 'anger', but I could see someone else bundling them together. They share a lot of physiological effects, but I generally think of anger as a more focused and directed feeling. I could be frustrated while failing to debug something, but not meaningfully angry, because the bug is not an agent with malicious intent (or other common target of anger).
And for #2, I've known people who get mad and have an extremely hard time controlling it. Someone or something slights them, it ruins their mood, and then sustains. And they're aware of it the whole time, wishing they weren't mad, because they hate feeling that way. But they're still mad.
In comparison, I seem to be lucky. I have gotten genuinely mad before, but exceedingly rarely- maybe a few times in my entire life, and only then mostly in response to years of sustained bad behavior, and only when I was much younger. I wasn't trying to be a paragon of stoicism, I just don't get angry very often by default.
Stack a little bit of effort on top of a baseline like that, and it's pretty easy to go beyond merely not acting on anger to smoothing away even the subjective experience of it. Maybe a short and mild response, here and there, but it almost always immediately fades.
I strongly doubt I'm the most placid person in the world, so there are probably people out there who are even less angry by default. I bet others have put more effort into controlling their anger, too. It seems likely that "eradication" of anger is within the realm of possible for some.
I know it's a bit nitpicky but I would imagine that what you've done is become excellent at managing anger rather than banishing it entirely. (Which is an impressive accomplishment that you should feel very pleased and proud of nontheless.)
My understanding from modern psychology as well as buddhism that one never really gets really of anger, but rather, can develop excellent control of it. It might also be your life situation is such that people don't really try to take advantage of you or mistreat you very often.
I don't really feel "anger" though. I think I know what it feels like: uncontrolled, fuming, yelling, on the verge of physical expression.
It's as if I have trained my subconscious anger is useless effectively enough that it doesn't even really attempt it anymore. It channels into either resignation or frustration or problem-solving instead.
Being human, I of course still get momentary bursts of anger now and then. But I don't hold on to it.
After a few minutes, that impulse has passed, and I get back on even keel.
I also try to remember that when I'm in that anger state, I am stupid and should not do or say anything rash. That usually, but not always works.
This is a false premise. If you control your anger you will train yourself enough to not get angry in the first place. After a long time of practicing this you will even forget how to get angry.
Once you fully internalize this, it's hard to get angry about trivial things like "someone at the office started claiming your work as your own". Now extend that to everything else in your life you can't control and might get upset about. Everything is trivial once you realize that you only have one life to live.
I'd be more incredulous than angry. The vast majority of my work is well tracked in VCS and easily shown to be my work - such claims of... what, insecurity? Greed? Fear? Are typically self-defeating, easily disproven, transparent, and rather pitiable. They merely invite closer scrutiny and undermine themselves, the value of their word, and destroy the trust people have in them. They're probably not even smart enough to claim just my work as their own, but probably that of several people. It's worth speaking up to try and nip the problem in the bud, but everyone probably already knows they're an untrustworthy braggart.
They're not hurting me, they're hurting themselves, and they're often too trapped in their maladaptive coping patterns from previous toxic relationships and environments where such actions were perhaps not only effective - but perhaps even necessary to succeed within those environments - to stop.
Maybe they'll recover.
Maybe they'll get fired.
Maybe they'll be able to get stuff done while being rendered harmless. Yes bob, good job doing the entire project A while simultaniously fighting off both godzilla and mothra (eyeroll). By the way, you can do project B all by yourself, right? Since you're so awesome? No no - we're sure you can handle it. I wouldn't want to step on your toes.
Maybe I'll get a better job.
> It might also be your life situation is such that people don't really try to take advantage of you or mistreat you very often.
You can control that life situation a lot.
If someone consistently mistreats you, remove them from your life, because you can do better than that. Repeat to taste.
If your "customer is always right" job tells you to smile in response to verbal abuse, find another that lets you ban them from the store instead. Where anger might focus on "getting even", instead focus on "preventing this from becoming a pattern."
If you can't quit your job yet, discount their verbal lashing out as the angry adult temper tantrum that it is. Discount their tirades as the worthless ventings that they are - targeted at the world, not you specifically - and pity them for their failure to become a worthwhile adult. Or perhaps they're screaming because their dog just died, and they don't know how to process that. Perhaps they just learned they have cancer. Perhaps they don't know about their brain tumor yet. Perhaps they fear. That doesn't justify their frothing spittle, but one can pity and sympathise with a person unable to properly express their emotions in a constructive and healthy way - because we've all been there, and so many of us are fortunate enough to not live there like some of these poor bastards do.
Which isn't to say it's never worthwhile to get properly angry, but often the biggest victim of the angry and the cruel is themselves. They push away friends, family, coworkers, opportunities, and kindness - and are often left with only mindless hedonism and misery themselves. No wonder they're such a miserable prick.
I also realize much of this is easier said than done.
I like your comments. But on one point ...
Decades ago, reading Seneca’s “On Anger” changed my life overnight.
I went from feelings of anger every 3 or 4 weeks to maybe once a year.
And those occasions always concern those dearest to me, of whom I hold such great expectations.
That’s because anger to me is one of disappointment of expectation.
I would never feel ‘incredulous’ if someone stole or claimed credit for my work. I’d more feel “inevitability”. When you work with hundreds of people over time it will happen.
And anger just doesn’t come into it at all. I do t avoid it, I haven’t eradicated it, I don’t control it. I’ve found a way of living where it very rarely arises.
So aligning lived experience with an expectation model means anger isn’t something I avoid, it just doesn’t arise. When it does, it’s because my mind refuses to incorporate into any expectation model that my child will die, or my spouse will cheat. Perhaps in others minds, they can’t incorporate the expectation colleagues will steal work.
It’s interesting that I am perfectly happy with my partner being someone who does get angry. It washes through her like a cleanser. There are many paths to happiness.
Without anger, I might never have the agency to quit a job that makes me miserable, or put up with emotional abuse.
It is often easier to excuse or not even see unfair treatment. You matter too, and pushing back against unfairness or injustice does not make you a bully. Sometimes you have to raise stand tall and raise your voice.
It is a real challenge to harness anger but also not take it too far, and I think you are just giving up if you forgo anger completely.
This article goes into some more detail about this: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/value-of-anger-16-reasons-i...
As someone who has left anger a long time ago as well, I have to say, I do miss it sometimes and I also look with envy to ones who can express their anger. To be angry is to feel alive. But yes, overall you're better off not being angry.
I notice that you keep describing people's actions, not their internal emotional state. Seeing how irrational and terrible angry people could be was why I tried eradicating anger. You can still let yourself experience anger without being a monster though. It is possible to be in touch with your anger without being enraged or being bad.
How is anger good? I don't have time to find the sources now, but I read that people in a state of anger are more capable of discerning if they are being deceived or treated unfairly, which I have found to be true. Letting yourself experience anger can enable you to assert yourself.
If you spend most of your time around reasonable people you trust, you should almost never get angry. But unfortunately sometimes you encounter people who deserve your anger.
I can think of many instances where I was taken advantage of, and I regret that I had trained myself to completely suppress anger. And I can think of many more recent times when my anger has given me agency that I would not have otherwise had. The important thing is to treat your sense of anger as a call to action, and when you start to resolve your problem, your anger can quickly fade.
(That's not the same thing as saying you actually did wrong. Just that if you couldn't imagine having done wrong, her anger wouldn't have been effective, and she would have chosen a different manipulation tactic. Or alternatively, your ex's manipulative behavior may be distinct from anger - perhaps she found the appearance of anger to be useful, and so she acted angry.)
This ties into a bigger picture: should we choose to be someone who can be victimized? I was cheated on and lied to, and in examining what I could have done differently, I concluded that yes, I would rather be someone trusting than someone with their defenses fully up.
Anger's neurological function is to motivate action. It originates in the unconscious parts of the brain, and like all emotions it can arise involuntarily. It sounds like your girlfriend was putting her anger to use in a way that it's neurologically well adapted for (though absolutely in an immoral and unhealthy way).
Most individuals possess some degree of ability to consciously regulate their emotions (brain damage reduces this ability, many other factors like genetics or past trauma can too). So after you experience anger you can influence what you do next.
Modern psychology generally recognizes that like most emotions, anger has value but how you process it is key. Rationally examining the roots of your anger can defuse or redirect it and is the principle behind cognitive behavioral therapy and similar modern therapies.
Repression isn't a healthy way of handling anger, it only builds up, becomes internalized, and resurfaces later in ways that are harder to understand. I think it's better to express your anger (there are limitations of course, we don't get a free pass to run around punching people, but venting to a friend is healthy).
In my opinion as someone who buried his anger for 20 years, the key to handling it is to understand where it really comes from, and then harness the energy it generates to act in a way which addresses the root cause. To use the article's example of theft, if you get really angry because someone stole from you, maybe your emotion originates from a history of financial distress. If so then you may be able to change your actions, channel that energy into building financial security, and not experience this distress in the future. Anger in this situation becomes a force for clarity, good and purpose because you acknowledged, channelled and examined it. I think as a society we're in a place where we allow ourselves to be angry all the time, but couch it in superficial righteousness instead doing the uncomfortable processing work and owning our own role in it.
The author also seems only interested in the moral corruption of anger in so much as it draws the judgement of others. The other moral corruption brought on by anger, which I would say constitutes a greater harm, is the burden of having to carry it around with you. Living a life burdened with ever increasing levels of anger is most certainly a moral corruption, and one much more likely to harm you than the opinions of others.
//> Anger is a primary emotion; its opposite is Fear.
//> Ager is triggered by "an obstacle to the satisfaction of needs" - not feeling Anger when you encounter an obstacle is problematic, your chances of survival decrease.
//> we experience Anger in many forms, depending on intensity - from mild annoyance to red hot rage
//> the behavioural response to Anger can be productive or not for us: if you hit back the table corner you just hit, there is nothing productive in that
//> the big problem with Anger is the type of behavioural response we use: intrinsic/instinctual - that is usually violent - or intentional - such as setting limits, being firm, withdrawing, etc.
The whole point of justice in society stems from this intentional management of Anger at scale.
Anyway, it's disappointing to see a psychology subject tackled by a philosopher where from the first sentences is clear that they are not familiar with the subject. But that doesn't stop them from talking about it. But I guess knowing something and thinking that you know something feels the same.
First of all, there is no such thing as "morality". It's just a way for elites to control commoners so that they behave in predictable ways.
Emotions are responses that help us learn and survive.
Anger is one such emotion. It helps us destroy enemies. But it can also make us short-sighted and do things that are not good in the long run, so when it happens, we need to take our time before we do something... but that's a different discussion.
There is no "morality" on stealing or anything. What if the thing you're stealing from me today was something I stole from you yesterday? Would it still be "immoral"? What if my great grandfather stole from your great grandfather many years ago and you steal it back today? What if the transactions aren't that simple? What if the stealing happened in a much more complicated structure thoughout many generations in a network of billions of people?
Nothing belongs to nobody. People take whatever they can get away with. There are rules you have to make up and enforce if you're in the business of benefiting from mass compliance. For everyone else, you follow those rules because otherwise the elites will come for you. There's no reason to complicate this (except of course you are among the elites, in which case you have to, to make sure the masses are predictable).
There is absolutely a solid sense of morality baked into (at the very least) primate brains.
Give this a read. The science is solid:
Or this if you're impatient:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg
> Nothing belongs to nobody. People take whatever they can get away with.
What kind of unhinged philosophy are you smoking? Objectivism? Marxism? Freebasing Solipsism?
Not OP but I assumed this was a version of nihilistic error theory that led to the "no such thing as morality" and then from there erases all idea of ownership or rights or anything. From there it's all just a dog eat dog jungle view of all of the world and maybe you sprinkle in some Hobbesian views of the social contract.
I'll pass but there's at least potential consistency in this morbid view of the world!
Only Stirner and "moral abolitionists" believe we should stop talking in moral terms. Once the moral error theory is accepted, it's only a matter of practicality as to what one should do with moral statements and sentiments.
As such, there's plenty of room for other statements not based in morality - ones from practicality, and normative statements which are not facts, but personal opinions.
I can still think murder is wrong; I can still argue for there to be laws against murder, and I can still be horrified by it. What I can't say is that murder is wrong (in the moral sense) for everyone everywhere, and that by murdering you are contrevening a universal law. There is no commandment (says the moral error theorist), moral, religious, or otherwise, that we must obey.
FWIW, my personal way forward is something like determinism + moral psychology + Rawls theory of justice if that makes any sense.
Based on this thread plus your bio Spinoza quote I'm guessing we likely align on a good deal :)
Why "unhinged"? I don't know philosophy and English is not my language but I'll try to generalize:
Living organisms take resources that they can, specially if there's a net positive gain from it. This happens because those that gain the most net positive tend to reproduce more and hence these traits (i.e. tendency to take resources which are a net benefit) gets passed on. Does evolutionary theory disagree with this?
Humans are just a special (as opposed to general, I don't believe there's anything "special" special about humans) case of it.
Let's say that there were just two human tribes. If the tribes are not equally powerful, the powerful one will kill most of them and take all the resources and the women.
Let's imagine a case where they are almost equally powerful. Then, conflict would cause mutual destruction and it makes it worth it to have an understanding between them... in which they don't kill each other and not take each others' stuff.
You could argue such cost benefits between families in tribes or individuals in families from the same framework.
None of this needs "morality". You could argue that the very set of rules which make for an optimal balance between individual, family, tribal and inter-tribal interests is in fact "morality"... but when the resources and the power balance changes, whatever "morals" people thought existed will disappear and will be replaced by new set of "morals".
This simply doesn't describe humanity, nor many species of animals.
Yes, humanity is selfish and will do many things for self preservation. But we also have a large capacity for empathy and collaboration. Not everything traces back to those either even if you try to just say the modern world is a more complex version of this. Love is a classic example people point to of selflessness being instinctually in humans.
At its core, you are getting downvoted because you have a very negative view of humanity that is both inaccurate and harmful if applied. To extend that "no morality, nothing belongs to anybody" mindset just ends up with a worse world for no reason. This "you follow those rules because otherwise the elites will come for you" idea also just seems like conspiracy type handwaving, and I say this as someone who's plenty anti-imperialist and the like myself.
Would you also not be concerned to be around someone who implies they would do whatever they please even it it harmed you but the thing stopping them is society? To me, that seems like someone who is neither empathetic or social and I, as a social and empathetic person, would avoid that and hope they don't harm others. You may not have meant to imply that, but it kinda reads that way.
When you ask questions like:
> What if the thing you're stealing from me today was something I stole from you yesterday? Would it still be "immoral"? What if my great grandfather stole from your great grandfather many years ago and you steal it back today? What if the transactions aren't that simple? What if the stealing happened in a much more complicated structure throughout many generations in a network of billions of people?
You aren't showing that morality doesn't exist, you're pointing out its complexity. Moral questions are at the center of nearly all social and political debate. It's hard to get agreement!
But going back to your latest post:
> You could argue such cost benefits between families in tribes or individuals in families from the same framework.
Okay, why don't we? What about the tribe of all humanity, or of all living things? One big flaw in your logic is that life is not a zero sum game, and that's one thing that makes collaboration worthwhile.
Why do you think so many people would be guilty after killing someone? Because again, humans have empathy and other capacities that make them care about certain things. Yes, some humans like sociopaths/psychopaths can lack this, but that doesn't invalidate that its present in most, though it can create a wrinkle in the rules being so straightforward.
> You could argue that the very set of rules which make for an optimal balance between individual, family, tribal and inter-tribal interests is in fact "morality"
See, I actually more or less agree here. I think that set of rules is more or less an objective set you can derive from human psychology (see moral psychology above) and that if you change what humans are, you also change morality. Most renditions of human civilization and history support that - we didn't all, across the globe, just magically agree that senseless murder is bad - it was baked into humanity.
> but when the resources and the power balance changes, whatever "morals" people thought existed will disappear and will be replaced by new set of "morals"
You're mixing law and morality here. Laws can change or come and go, but morality (at least an objective view of one) is true or false regardless of the circumstances it exists in (again, beyond changes to human nature). That's one option. Some ascribe to subjectivism instead, which you might. But that's still morality!
This is a decent basic overview starting point of meta-ethics (what grounds ethics/morality) if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOoffXFpAlU
PS: Sorry about talking about you but not engaging. It was frankly hard to tell if it was an actual belief or a troll at first, and addressing all of this takes some energy. I don't mean to condescend either so know that's not my intention if it reads like that!
The way you talk makes you sound like someone who would be an awful pain in the ass to be around. Pedantic and half baked.
While technically correct your analysis is only half formed.
You have much more reading to do.
Start with these books to get a clearer idea of why you're getting a negative response to your honestly held beliefs:
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman
And some extra credit:
Maps of Meaning by Jordan Peterson
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I'm aligned with you in principle but perhaps you could phrase this in a kinder way.
Certainly any comment could be phrased in a kind way. That's the thought behind Non Violent Communication from Marshal Rosenberg (may he rest in peace). Which, is great when the stakes are high and good faith abounds. But, online with anonymous users with dubious motives, the method falls apart.
Additionally not everyone subscribes to the "Prevent any and all possible harm." moral philosophy. I certainly don't. Prevent unnecessary bodily suffering, sure. But protect the possible feelings of a bold misguided fellow. Not so much in this context.
No, there isn't.
>Give this a read. The science is solid:
"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion?". Hmm...
So, from your comment, I'm guessing that the answer in the book to the question in the subtitle is that there is some baked in "morality" in us, that evolution gave us? If so, that's extremely misguided.
If there was such a thing, it would be at least somewhat similar across all human tribes and cultures. That's not the case at all. It's vastly different throughout history and across cultures because these things have everything to do with power dynamics and resource distribution.
And? Monkeys have hierarchies. If they repeated this experiment but swappped the monkeys, it would turn out differently. The experiment is designed and orchestrated to show some sort of "equal pay" nonsense. What is happening is that the monkey on the left is socially higher than the one on the right... and hence it is used to claiming better food for itself first. When it sees the other one gets it, it gets pissed off. When these higher ups get injured, get sick or get old, someone else claims the status. It's all power dynamics and fight over resources. It has nothing to do with "morality".
> What kind of unhinged philosophy are you smoking? Objectivism? Marxism? Freebasing Solipsism?
I don't know what your western intellectuals call it but if I were to translate it to English, it would roughly translate to "reality".
Objective reality includes negotiated sapient constructs like morality, money, ownership, and hierarchies. They're tools. Tools are real.
You might be thinking of Nihilistic Materialism, or something like that which thinks that material objects are the only reality.
Babies also display moral intuitions.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/us/baby-lab-morals-ac360/inde...
Don't give up on acquiring knowledge. It seems like you think you have all the answers. That's just your low resolution view of the world. And it's sad to see such an obviously motivated and excited child with such an impoverished perspective of the world.
People have been struggling for thousands of years with the very topics you say to have already mastered. This is the ignorance you're getting down voted for.
> If there was such a thing, it would be at least somewhat similar across all human tribes and cultures.
It is. Read the book. Look into his data.
How can you even jump to conclusions without reading the source?
Do you see how it looks like you're trolling?
You might also want to read Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker.
I'm only somewhat subscribe to one of those philosophies and none of them are treated very charitably by you. Besides that, as much as I disagree with the statement you're replying to, it's not a philosophy, it's an empirical statement. Whether people take whatever they can get away with is irrelevant to whether they should do so.
By the way, none of those philosophies assume GP's argument.
>There is absolutely a solid sense of morality baked into (at the very least) primate brains.
Moral anti-realists will tell you this isn't a very convincing argument. The fact that people believe in morality does not mean we have access to the world of moral facts. Moral facts are supposed to motivate us inherently, which is a perculiar quality for a fact to have.