On Anger

The Pyrrhonist approach to anger, with a comparison to the Stoic, Epicurean, Aristotelian, and Platonist approaches.

In the ancient Greek wisdom traditions, excessive anger was seen as a form of temporary madness, and its cause was a failure of rationality. Curing the madness requires correcting the error in rationality. This part seemed universally agreed upon. Many of the techniques one might use for controlling anger were likely also universally approved, such as putting off taking any action while being angry. However, there was disagreement about what the error was and how to correct that error. There was also disagreement about what counted as excessive. 

This article will focus on the Pyrrhonist approach to anger, but it’s useful to begin this with a quick overview of the Platonist, Aristotelian, Epicurean, and Stoic approaches to bring into focus their similarities and differences.

The Greek Philosophies on Anger

Plato did not present any particular theory of anger, but he recognized that anger needed to be controlled, moderated, and sublimated. Platonists were concerned with approaches and techniques for achieving this. A good example is Plutarch’s On the Control of Anger. 

Aristotle took a more systematic view of anger, giving anger a role in his theory of virtue. In this theory, each virtue is a mean between two vices. Anger is a vice only in excess or deficiency. So, in addition to excessive anger, one needs to be concerned about insufficient anger, as insufficient anger results in apathy towards injustice, which is also a vice. 

The Epicureans have a different system for understanding and dealing with anger. Unlike with Plato and Aristotle, their system is not centered on anger being a vice, but is instead concerned about avoiding pain and displeasure. The Epicureans see anger as natural in cases of voluntary threats and damage to one’s safety, health, or happiness. These are painful and unpleasant, and, hence, it is only natural to be angry about such things. Epicureans should use the rational means of Epicurean hedonic calculus to determine how to respond to such situations.

“Voluntary” is of key importance. Anger is inappropriate towards inanimate objects and events that occur simply due to bad luck. Like other philosophers, the Epicureans were concerned about treating anger that was irrational and excessive, as anger is not only unpleasant, excess anger can risk one’s future happiness and safety. More detail on the Epicurean approach can be found here. 

The Stoic view of anger differs sharply from these. The Stoics find no good whatsoever in anger. For the Stoics, anger is among the passions - the unhealthy emotions that have no redeeming qualities. The reason the Stoics think anger is unhealthy is that it overrides reason. In other words, unlike Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus, there’s no reasonable amount of anger and no being fully rational while being angry. The Stoics attribute the cause of anger to false beliefs. More detail on the Stoic approach can be found here. 

Pyrrhonism and Anger

For the Pyrrhonists, as with all the other philosophers (considered here) except the Stoics, the key problem with anger is excessiveness. However, like the Stoics, the Pyrrhonists attribute excessive anger to erroneous beliefs, but the Pyrrhonists attribute all excessive anger to one specific erroneous belief: that something is truly evil. The Pyrrhonists observe that we do not have access to firm knowledge about what is truly evil. 

What is evil is disputed. Acts considered by some as evil are considered by their perpetrators as good. (For current examples of this, compare the views of those supporting Hamas with those who support what Hamas considers to be Zionism). 

Our ideas about good and evil are relative and conventional. They are relative in the sense that whether one judges an action to be good or bad depends on who it happens to and their circumstances. They are conventional in the sense of whether one judges an action to be good or bad is heavily influenced by one’s society. For these reasons, the Pyrrhonists say that good and evil do not exist in a way that would be called in ancient Greek, “by nature.” “By nature” refers to things that we would call “physical” or “objective”: things that exist outside the minds of people. 

This phrase “do not exist by nature” seems to confuse some people. They mistakenly interpret it as meaning that good and evil have no existence. That’s not what it means. It means only that they have no physical existence. They have a man-made existence. In more modern terms, it means there are no moral facts, but that term confuses people, too. For example, someone confused by this will say that it surely is a moral fact that murder is wrong. The problem is that the term “murder” contains a judgment about it being wrong. It’s a moral tautology, not a moral fact.

Once one recognizes that there are no moral facts, only opinions and perspectives, one sees that all anger is just a matter of opinion and perspective. It’s not grounded on anything substantive. You can change your perspective and your opinion. For example, a thing that just happened may seem bad to you right now, but what will be your perspective on it later? People commonly talk about seemingly bad things that happened to them that turned out to be blessings in disguise. 

The treatment for excessive anger is to get rid of the excessive belief. A belief that something is evil is excessive because it is unprovable. Good and evil do not exist by nature; it’s all relative and circumstantial. Something only seems bad from the perspective one is taking. Circumstances constantly change. What seems harmful in the short run can turn out to be beneficial, and what seems beneficial in the short run can turn out to be bad.

An excellent example of this can be found in a famous Zen or Taoist story of the Chinese Farmer. Here’s the story as told by Alan Watts:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

Alan Watts’ story emphasizes how circumstances change. Plutarch tells a story about the conventional basis of morality involving an interaction between Alexander the Great and the philosopher Anaxarchus, who was Pyrrho’s teacher (Life of Alexander 50-52). 

In the anecdote, Alexander’s friend Cleitus, who had saved Alexander’s life at the Battle of the Granicus, taunts Alexander into a drunken exchange of insults that eventually enrages Alexander such that he grabs a spear from one of his bodyguards and kills Cleitus. His anger suddenly departs, replaced with self-loathing. He would have killed himself if his guards had not prevented him. Over the next several days, Alexander cannot shake his self-loathing. He stays in his room and loudly laments what he has done.

Two philosophers are called in to try to reason Alexander out of his state. The first is Callisthenes, a relative and a student of Aristotle. Callisthenes tried by considerate and gentle methods to alleviate the king's suffering, employing insinuation and circumlocution so as to avoid giving pain. He failed to have an effect. (While Aristotle’s theories about anger are well-known, have you ever heard anyone provide an example of how they helped solve someone’s problem?)

Anaxarchus, the Democritean philosopher, then presented sharp arguments targeting the conventions that underlaid Alexander’s thinking. He shouted out as soon as he entered Alexander’s room:

Here is Alexander, to whom the whole world is now looking, but he lies on the floor weeping like a slave, in fear of the law and censure of men. He should be their law and measure of justice, if indeed he has conquered the right to rule and mastery, instead of enslaving himself to the mastery of empty opinion. Don’t you know that Zeus has Justice and Law seated beside him, so that everything that is done by the master of the world may be lawful and just?

Alexander’s philosophical counseling worked. Alexander recovered his composure and was able to resume leadership.

Good?

Maybe, but the cure came with an undesired side-effect: it rendered Alexander’s disposition in many ways to be more vainglorious and lawless.

In any case, it was not good for Callisthenes. From then on, Alexander was increasingly displeased with Callisthenes, who ended up being involved in a plot to assassinate Alexander. Callisthenes was found guilty of treason. He died in prison. 

For me, these words of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus were life-changing:

For the person who believes that something is by nature good or bad is constantly upset; when he does not possess the things that seem to be good, he thinks he is being tormented by things that are by nature bad, and he chases after the things he supposes to be good; then, when he gets these, he fails into still more torments because of irrational and immoderate exultation, and, fearing any change, he does absolutely everything in order not to lose the things that seem to him good. But the person who takes no position as to what is by nature good or bad neither avoids nor pursues intensely. As a result, he achieves ataraxia. (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book 1, Sections 27-28).

Shortly before reading them, I had been ruminating about something that happened to me that I had decided was bad. By applying Pyrrhonist thinking to my situation, I could no longer conclude that what had happened to me was bad. My anger lifted like the morning fog on a hot day. 

Alexander kills Cleitus, André Castaigne, c. 1898–1899