Moral Psychology of Anger

Myisha Cherry is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. Her other books include UnMuted: Conversations of Prejudice, Oppression, and Social Justice (2019). Her TEDx talk on anger has been viewed thousands of times. Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He is the author of Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism (1991), Consciousness Reconsidered (1992) and The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility (2016).

• Introduction: The Moral Psychology of Anger, Owen Flanagan / 1. Anger and Approbation, Lee A. McBride III / 2. Anger as a Political Emotion: A Phenomenological Perspective, Céline Leboeuf / 3. Valuing Anger, Antti Kauppinen / 4. The Errors and Limitations of Our "Anger-Evaluating" Ways, Myisha Cherry / 5. You Oughta Know: Defending Angry Blame, David Shoemaker / 6. Anger and Patience, Bryce Huebnur / 7. Anger and Oppression: Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Perspectives, Emily McRae / 8. The Reason to Be Angry Forever, Agnes Callard / 9. The Berserker Rage, John Protevi / Bibliography / Index / Notes on Contributors

In this timely book Cherry (Univ. of California, Riverside) and Flanagan (Duke Univ.) offer an array of valuable insights about the moral importance of certain kinds of anger. Most of the essays address philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s view that anger is at heart an irrational desire for revenge that offers no benefit. One also finds more nuanced approaches to understanding anger, such as Aristotle’s view that anger at the right time for the right reasons is virtuous. Others hold that anger is a necessary reaction to the violation of valued norms. Anger is also seen to be a demand for respect and recognition denied to oppressed people—a demand that perpetrators acknowledge that their acts are not acceptable. Contributor Emily McRae points out the extra moral and psychological effort oppressed people must make when trying to control anger against countless daily transgressions of their dignity. Anger is in part communicative: when uptake is refused by those in power the burden increases. Negative judgments about anger only add to the self-depreciation of the oppressed. Yet ideals of racial and economic equality are notoriously threatening to the privileged, who construct so-called empathy walls so as to avoid taking seriously the moral demands in question. Summing Up: Recommended.Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.