6.

Seneca, On Anger [de Ira], 41 CE

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Anger
• Three books, addressed to his brother Novatus, a judge.
• Apparent disorder of structure, again.
• The above Stoic doctrines on passions don’t appear until late in Book
II.
• French critic, Bourgery laments de Ira’s “extraordinary disorder,
exceeding truly all license”; concluding “One can make of it what one
likes, [but] one cannot succeed in bringing order and clarity to it”.
• For Cupaiuolo, the book “obeys only a single necessity, that of filling
the blank page, without considering whether a question should be
treated in a different place or whether it has already been introduced.”
• Book I: Seneca addresses roughly Aristotelian opinions
• Book II: Seneca addresses roughly Stoic opinions on anger.
• Book III: examples, further Stoic opinions, practical illustrations
• Cf. Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, pp. 405-6.
 Structure responds to addressee

• Novatus has written to Seneca, with urgency, on how anger can be modified
(i.e. not avoided completely), and Seneca knows Novatus is particularly prey to
this emotion. (I.1; Cf. 3.1)
• Novatus, a high ranking Roman, is convinced that anger is good under some
circumstances as a manly response to evils, necessary to the dignified
punishment of wrongdoers, military vigor and honor.
• Anger in Hellenistic-Roman culture: opening lines of the Illiad: “Sing, O
goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon
the Achaeans …”
• How to respond to someone with these opinions, who will be very unlikely to
accept Stoic theory straight out?
 An argument unfolding around Novatus’
resistances, not pure reason
• I.6 start: “What, then? Is not punishment sometimes necessary?”
• I.7 start: “May it not be that, although anger be not natural, it may be
right to adopt it, because it often proves useful?”
• I.8: “But some people control themselves in anger … angry people are
consistent and self-controlled …”
• I.11: “But anger is necessary against the enemy …”
• I.12: “What are you saying? Will a good man not be angry, if he sees
his father slaughtered and his mother raped?”
• I.13: “Anger is useful, because it makes better fighters”.
The therapy unfolded, book I: gently overcoming resistances
• Opening: Novatus in fear of anger, wishes it to be moderated
(Aristotelian idea)
• Anger is useful in war, and necessary in response to wrongdoing.
• Seneca hence treads carefully, starting from points he hopes Novatus
can agree upon (elenctic procedure)
• Eg: Seneca stresses I.3.3 closeness of his idea of anger to Aristotle’s:
“Aristotle's definition differs little from mine: for he declares anger to
be a desire to repay suffering. It would be a long task to examine the
differences between his definition and mine …”
• I.5: views on natural inclination of people to goodness is something
Aristotle shares
 The therapy unfolded, book II.1-11.17:
winning Novatus’ assent
• By book II, Novatus has softened: he is now ready to engage
in some more direct discussion of Seneca’s Stoic positions
• Now we get arguments against the Aristotelian-Platonic idea
that the passions come from a separate, irrational part of the
psyche.
• We get Seneca distinguishing propatheia or “first impulses”
from emotions proper, which enforces the Stoic opposition to
the Aristotelian-Platonic claim.
• Grammatically, the interjections go from third person to first
person.
• Interjections slow, although recur at II.17: “An angry person is
sometimes better …”, but this is the last resistance
 The therapy aunfolded, II.18 onwards:

• From II.18, Seneca moves from theoretical description (“that we should

show what anger is” II.2) to therapeutics.
• Last, quite significantly hedonic, outbreak of resistance is at II.32: “But
anger has some pleasure, and it is sweet to return pain for pain”.
• Then Novatus confesses his deep sense of honor, undergirding the
attachment to anger: “We shall be less despised, if we avenge a wrong”.
(II.33)
• After these deepest psychical resources have been plumbed, Novatus in
Book III now longs to have anger removed from his soul, as per the Stoic
claims.
• “there is no doubt it is a great and pernicious force: therefore show how
it can be cured.” (III.3)
• In what follows, only now do we get Stoic doctrine about value of
externals, the desirability of being above fortune, fortuna’s fickleness
(III.5, II.6, III.11, III.25, III.30, III.34)
Second Hour: mourning, love, and benevolence:
the Stoic and others
“That cannot be a great mind which is disturbed by injury.
He who has hurt you must be either stronger or weaker
than yourself. If he be weaker, spare him: if he be stronger,
spare yourself.” Seneca, On Anger III.5 end.

1. The arguments of On Anger

(a) diagnostic (b)
(b) prognostic-prescriptive
2. The fundamental criticism of the Stoa: is the Stoic sage
inhuman(e)?
3. Three ways the Stoics can respond:
3.i. Not indifference, equanimity and benevolence
3.ii. Stoic cosmopolitanism and the natural law
3.iii. Questioning the loves of the sage
 Seneca’s arguments against anger

Seneca needs to define what anger is, and show that

i. Anger is not natural:
ii. Anger is subject to our control, through training
iii. Anger is not useful, or needed to motivate certain good deeds (eg
punishing wrongdoers)
For iii., he needs to stress
iv. Anger is never moderate, but itself already immoderate;
v. Anger once enflamed threatens self-control, which is a virtue
needed even to fight well and avenge foes, i.e. the very things anger’s
advocates recommend it for.
 Anger is not natural (i.1)

• Four different arguments here

1. Appeal, highly rhetorical, to the optimistic Stoic claim that we are by nature social
animals, shared with Aristotle:

“I.5: …what is more cruel than anger? What is more affectionate to others than man? Yet
what is more savage against them than anger? Mankind is born for mutual assistance,
anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement. The one loves to
do good, the other to do harm ; the one to help even strangers, the other to attack even its
dearest friends. The one is ready even to sacrifice itself for the good of others, the other to
plunge into peril provided it drags others with it. Who, then, can be more ignorant of
nature than he who classes this cruel and hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most
polished work …”

See i.4 below

 Anger is not natural (I.2): it’s an avoidable, and
then uncontrollable, pathos
2. Stoic cognitivism about the passions speaks against the idea that anger
wells up within us (our bodies?) like a force of nature
• It involves judgment and requires assent, which can be withheld.
• There are three stages (II.4)

i. propatheia: first impulse which may become anger: upon perceiving

something, almost like instantaneous bodily reactions/reflexes. (cf. II.1;
II.3)
Stages ii-iii anger proper
i. Anger proper: involves assent to a judgment that we’ve been harmed, and that
it is appropriate or desirable to return the harm.
* anger as a species of desire: “to avenge one whom we believe has done
harm/acted unjustly: (epithymia timōriãs tou ēdikēkenai dikountos).

iii. Anger ascendant:“an already controlling motion, which does not only want to
take revenge if it is right, but in any way at all, and conquers reason.” (II.4)

• The Stoic cylinder: once it has started rolling down hill, it has a momentum of its
own;
• The Stoic “running man”: if we walk, we can stop at will; if we are running fast,
not straight away …
i.3. So: can the propensity to anger really be
suppressed?
• It is not possible," says [our adversary], " to remove anger
altogether from the mind, nor does human nature admit of it."
(II.12)
• Seneca: difficult, yet not impossible:

“Yet there is nothing so hard and difficult that the mind of man
cannot overcome it, and with which unremitting study will not
render him familiar, nor are there any passions so fierce and
independent that they cannot be tamed by discipline. The mind
can carry out whatever orders it gives itself: some have
succeeded in never smiling: some have forbidden themselves
wine, sexual intercourse, or even drink of all kinds.” (II.12)
 i.4: anger as dark side of attachment to externals

• For the Stoics, anger reflects the sense of having lost something
essential to one’s happiness.
• It reflects avoidable attachments to things beyond one’s control.
• The more externals we become accustomed to having and
expecting, then, the more prone we become to anger.

“II.21: Do you not observe how a man's anger becomes more violent
as he rises in station? This shows itself especially in those who are
rich and noble, or in great place, when the favoring gale has roused
all the most empty and trivial passions of their minds. Prosperity
fosters anger, when a man's proud ears are surrounded by a mob of
flatterers, saying, "That man [?] answer you! you do not act according
to your dignity, you lower yourself." And so forth …”
 OK, but is anger not just and useful? (ii)

“I.12: “What, then," asks our adversary, "is a good man not to be angry if he
sees his father murdered or his mother outraged?” …You may as well say —
"What then? When a good man sees his father or his son being cut down, I
suppose he will not weep or faint ...”
Ie. Anger is sometimes surely just, humane, and also useful in restoring
justice, and motivating its achievement.

Eg: Nussbaum’s moving example in Therapy of Desire recounted by Elie

Wiesel, a shoah survivor: an American soldier who began storming and
shouting in uncontrollable anger when he entered a camp: this for Wiesel
restored humanity to that place.
 iii. Anger is not just or useful, punishment is

• Wrongdoing should be punished, Seneca agrees.

• But we can separate the need for just retribution from anger as a
passion.
• reason (ratio) or a sense of justice alone is able to motivate the
good person:

I.12: “The good man will do his duty without disturbance or fear, and
he will perform the duty of a good man, so as to do nothing
unworthy of a man. My father will be murdered: then I will defend
him: he has been slain, then I will avenge him, not because I am
grieved, but because it is my duty.”
 the danger of anger-overload
• If we anger at every wrong in the world, we shall soon be motivated only to
despair and misanthropy (II.6-9).
• The flipside of Seneca’s principled optimism, a practical pessimism (remember,
this is Rome just after Tiberius and Caligula):

III.9:“The wise man will never cease to be angry, if he once begins, so full is every
place of vices and crimes. More evil is done than can be healed by punishment:
men seem engaged in a vast race of wickedness. Every day there is greater
eagerness to sin, less modesty. Throwing aside all reverence for what is better and
more just, lust rushes whithersoever it thinks fit, and crimes are no longer
committed by stealth, they take place before our eyes …
Add to these, public acts of national bad faith, broken treaties, everything that
cannot defend itself carried off as plunder by the stronger, knaveries, thefts, frauds,
and disownings of debt such as three of our present law-courts would not suffice to
deal with. If you want the wise man to be as angry as the atrocity of men's crimes
requires, he must not merely be angry, but must go mad with rage.”
 Hence, iv., stress on anger as always excessive

• Seneca: “Now this is untrue; for if it listens to reason and follows

whither reason leads, it is no longer anger, whose characteristic is
obstinacy: if, again, it is disobedient and will not be quiet when ordered,
but is carried away by its own willful and headstrong spirit, it is then as
useless an aid to the mind as a soldier who disregards the sounding of
the retreat would be to a general.”

• Anger by its nature is prone to outstrip reason (stage iii above): “violent
and lacking in foresight” I.10.1
• Develops own momentum, like a rock cast from a height which cannot
be stopped, but will itself be broken by its fall. (I.1)
• Backed by example upon example of “ferocious inhuman bloodthirsty”
nature of anger (III.40)
--egs of crimes of Caligula, still fresh in memory: I.20; II.23; III.18-19; III.21;
egs of horrific tortures III.17-18, and many more.
 v. anger threatens self-control, hence even achieving the desire
for revenge that called it forth
• self-control is needed even to exact revenge, punish the wicked—which
Aristotle, Theophrastus et al suggest anger is needed for.
• To bring any task to completion in practical situations, responsiveness to
particular features and needs is required.
• Yet anger is fickle, and never dependable: so to rest the achievement of
justice or the safety of others on it is folly. (I.10.1; I.11.1; I.12.1; I.13.3 etc.)
• Indeed, anger is excessive or obstinate by nature (above; cf. II.34), never
subtle, and over-rides the patience etc. needed to respond well to
changing, complex situations.

• Hence, at most, the sage will pretend to be angry, when he feels it will help
to motivate other, more feeble souls—but he will have no need for anger.
(III.17 = end of theoretical descriptions of anger)
 From diagnostic to prognostic: Therapies for anger i.
education of the young against anger(II.18 ff)

• Prevention is better than cure: the best prevention is early

education, when the character is being formed: II.19-21.
• “it is our duty to be careful neither to cherish a habit of anger in
them, nor to blunt the edge of their spirit.” (II.21)
• How to do this?
• Praise but not excessive praise or flattery (which leads to arrogance);
• rewards for achievement, not “begging”;
• competitions, wherein anger and sulkiness is to be checked, as well as
tendency to be a “sore victor”;
• Tests of endurance, to harden the mind against difficulties (II.25)
• leisure without luxury, since luxury is the school of anger (II.21; II.25) (see
above);
• “let him attain nothing by flying into a passion …” (II.21)
 ii. Preventative measures for adults

• Since anger is only stoppable at its beginnings, we should check ourselves against its
first causes. As in Marcus, then:

”… the cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be
lightly entertained…”

The Stoic caution against imagination: “we are influenced not merely by calumnies but by
suspicions, and at the very look and smile of others we may fly into a rage with innocent
persons because we put the worst construction upon it…” (II.24)

• Often anger is based on fictional grounds, not the truth, so sometimes it is better to be
possibly deceived, than certainly full of premptive anger:

“Readiness to believe what we hear causes very great mischief; we ought often not even
to listen, because in some cases it is better to be deceived than to suspect deceit” II.24
Practices in aproptosia (not jumping to conclusions)

• ”The greatest remedy for anger is delay” (II.29 start)

“We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the
truth. Let not our ears be easily lent to calumnious talk …” (II.24)

• Practices of caution: knowing our tendency to jump to conclusions: “…

let us know and be on our guard against this fault of human nature, that
we are willing to believe what we are unwilling to listen to ... (II.24)
“… let us believe nothing unless it forces itself upon bur sight and is
unmistakable [the kataleptike phantasia], and let us reprove ourselves
for being too ready to believe, …: for this discipline will render us
habitually slow to believe what we hear.” (II.24)

• internal advocacy for the other, assuming the best:

“We ought, therefore, to plead the cause of the absent against ourselves,
and to keep our anger in abeyance: for a punishment which has been
postponed may yet be inflicted, but when once inflicted cannot be
recalled.” II.22
 Magnaminity: true strength of soul as above anger

• Isn’t anger the most courageous, manly response? Here Marcus:

“And let this truth be present to thee when anger arises, that to be
moved by passion is not manly, but that mildness [prąon] and
gentleness [hēmeron] … are more agreeable to human nature,
…[and]more manly; and he who possesses these qualities possesses
strength, nerve, and courage, and not the man who is subject to
fits of passion and discontent … as the sense of pain is a
characteristic of weakness, so also is anger …” cf. IX.9.2

Cf. On Anger III.5: “… a man must be inferior to one by whom

he thinks himself despised, whereas the truly great mind,
which takes a true estimate of its own value, does not
revenge an insult because it does not feel it.”
View from above
III.6 then opens with our friend the “view from above” (cf. III.32):

“There is no greater proof of magnanimity than that nothing which

befalls you should be able to move you to anger. The higher region of
the universe, being more excellently ordered and near to the stars, is
never gathered into clouds, driven about by storms, or whirled round
by cyclones: it is free from all disturbance.... In like manner a lofty
mind …