Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-07T07:54:02.354Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Aristotle, the Stoics, and Kant on anger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2011

Lawrence Jost
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
Julian Wuerth
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Get access

Summary

VIGNETTES

Consider three cases to help focus intuitions.

First, vengeful anger Iranian style. I quote from an article in the Scottish Daily Mail of March 17, 2005:

Justice took a long time to catch up with the man they called the vampire of the desert. Death came just as slowly. Under the blazing hot sun, in front of a baying crowd, Mohammad Bijeh paid a very public price yesterday for his catalogue of wicked crimes.

In a grossly barbaric execution ceremony, the serial child killer was flogged at the stake, stabbed in the back by the 17-year-old brother of one of his victims and stoned by the chanting mob.

Then, to shouts of “make him twist,” he was hoisted up on a crane by a noose that had been placed around his neck by the mother of another victim.

It took more than five minutes for him to choke to death, while he was taunted and spat at …

His corpse was then left dangling for another 20 minutes.

We can think of the scene as one of vengeful anger where the legal punishment system facilitates private revenge through public, barbaric punishment.

Next, consider classic vengeful anger within war: I refer to the warrior rage of Homer's Achilles. Achilles is the angriest, “most violent man alive,” proclaims Agamemnon, himself famous for the vindictiveness that sets the Iliad in motion and that provokes Achilles' rage.

Type
Chapter
Information
Perfecting Virtue
New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue Ethics
, pp. 215 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×