Thinking Our Anger :: Philosophy Religion Papers

Thinking Our AngerThe events of September 11th pose occasioned a wide variety of responses, ranging from calls to turn the other cheek, to calls to nuke half(a) the Middle East and every imaginable shade of opinion in between. At a time when emotions run high, how should we go about deciding on a morally appropriate response? Should we allow ourselves to be guided by our yellow bile, or should we put our anger aside and subscribe an unemotional finding? D. H. Lawrence once wroteMy great religion is a judgement in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a topographic point and a bridle. What do I c atomic number 18 about knowledge? both I want is to answer to my blood, direct, without fribbling intervention of mind or moral, or what not.At the other extreme, the Roman philosopher Seneca argued that we should never make a stopping point on the b asis of anger or any other emotion, for that matter. In his treatise On Anger, Seneca maintained that if anger leads us to make the decision we would make made anyway on the basis of cool reason, consequently anger is superfluous and if anger leads us to make a different decision from the one we would have made on the basis of cool reason, then anger is pernicious.This disagreement between Lawrence and Seneca conceals an underlying agreement both writers are assuming an opposition between reason and emotion. The idea of such a bifurcation is challenged by Aristotle. For Aristotle, emotions are part of reason the rational part of the brain is further divided into the intellect or commanding part, and the emotional or responsive part. Both move are rational and both parts are needed to give us a proper predisposition to the moral nuances of the situations that confront us. Hence the wise person will be both intellectually rational and emotionally rational. Emotional people whos e intellectual side is creaky tend to be reluctant to accept valid constraints on their behaviour they are too aggressive and self-assertive for civil society too Celtic, Aristotle thinks. They answer directly to their blood, without fribbling intervention of mind or moral, and much hewing and smiting ensues. But intellectual people whose emotional side is weak are often too willing