Question I think that anyone who knows how to hold a grudge knows what it's like to wish to remain angry at someone. I mean something like the following: 1. You're angry at someone. 2. Since you're angry, you'd like to punish or otherwise get back at this person. 3. But you know that this can't happen if your feelings cool and you lose your edge. 4. So part of your plan for revenge consists precisely in remaining angry. 5. In this way, anger takes itself as an objective. Accordingly, there is an odd feeling of disappointment you get when you inevitably calm down ("Don't give up! Stay mad!"). Is there something irrational about thinking this way?

Accepted:
December 16, 2010

Comments

Fascinating line of reasoning! One thing to question is premise two. Granted if you are angry at someone, it follows that you are judging that the person has done something wrong (wether to you or to someone or something you identify with or value). But it does not follow that you would like to see the person punished or seek to "get back at this person." Imagine you love the person you are angry with and all you really want is an apology or a request for your forgiveness or perhaps you desire a material compensation (the person smashed your car and you want compensation plus replacement of the car). Also, the link between 2 and 4 may need some re-considering. We typically distinguish between revenge and retributive justice. The latter is measured and impersonal: so, in retributive justice when someone wrongfully causes a given harm, there is a proportional penalty (so, assault may call for one year of incarceration and lots of communiity time afterward). But revenge is often personal and without proportion: in a case of revenge, someone who has been midly wronged may actually desire to torture and kill the wrong-doer and his family and maybe even his villiage. So, I suggest that you can wind up with your conclusion that it is good to stay mad only if revenge is good. But revenge seems to not at all be a virtuous or good.

But perhaps two qualifications need to be added: Maybe a commitment to justice requires anger, though not one that seeks revenge. We might think a people are not at all deeply committed to justice unless injustice makes them angry or passionate about the wrongs done. In that sense, maybe we do have a reason to sustain anger. Another time we might see value in sustaining anger is in the case of a victim who has so low a view of her or himself that they are constantly being taken advantage of, even violated in a criminal manner. I am thinking of the abused wife or child who submits to the abuse without resistance. It may be good for that person to sutain anger as part of their sustaining their self-respect and integrity. Perhaps the anger will lead them to report the abuse to police or to otherwise escape the trap they find themselves in.