Aquinas on Anger, Part 2: What Causes Anger – Injury, Being Slighted, Excellence and Weakness (Summa I-II, Q. 47)

Orientation #

He says the consideration of anger is extended like that of love: anger in itself, then its cause (with the remedies joined to it), then its effects; he also says “I mentioned the last pass” the advice of St Alphonsus on the dying. Verified sources place the class in q. 47 aa. 1-4. The previous class finished q. 46 (aa. 6-8, gravity of anger, Damascene’s threefold division); the next takes q. 48 on the effects of anger.

The class, in order #

1. The effective cause and remedies; the four articles (“consideration of anger is more extended”) #

He introduces q. 47: the effective cause “is the mover or maker” of anger, and Thomas joins its remedies to it. He lists the four questions: (1) whether the motive is always something done against the one angered; (2) whether only parvipensio (one word in Latin: thinking little of, despising) is a motive; (3) the cause on the side of the one getting angry; (4) on the side of the one against whom one is angry (he notes this looks like “needless repetition” of the first, but is a different side). The first two are about what someone else is responsible for.

• Aside: Ethics IV order: money virtues (liberality, magnificence), then the two honour virtues (magnanimity before philotimia), then the virtue about anger; the connection is that anger is about being dishonoured, “think little of me”. Mozart’s 36th and 41st symphonies (the two C-major) as presentations of magnanimity, “which does great things in all the virtues”.
• Aside: Thomas chasing the woman out with the burning brand from the fire, sent to make him reconsider his vocation.

2. Article 1, objections: are we angry only at what is done against us? (“not always is someone angry”) #

Four objections read:

1. A sinner can do nothing against God (Job 35:6, “if your iniquities are multiplied, what do you do against him”, “the invulnerable one”), yet God is said to be angry “with furore” against his people (Psalm 105 as he cites it).
2. Anger is desire for revenge, but we desire revenge for things done to others: someone beating up a little kid; the judge.
3. Rhetoric II: men get angry most at those who despise what they are most studious in, e.g. philosophers at those who despise philosophy; yet this harms no one. Illustrations: the DC philosophy students “if they get enough beer in them on a Friday night”; the Chinese shop lady laughing at “philosophy” when he and his brother Mark bought presents for their mother; Socrates in the Phaedo on his last day: how can inquiring whether the soul is immortal be “irrelevant” on the day one dies (he links it to Aristotle at the start of the De Anima wanting to know this).
4. The silent man provokes the one insulting him more (Chrysostom), yet does him no harm. Illustrations: Thomas More; his son at West Point, and the Oriental cadet who just smiled at the officers and could not be insulted; his missionary brother in Africa, where the natural reaction to someone’s anger is a bigger smile. Sed contra: Rhetoric II, anger always comes from things “towards oneself”; when we regard a man as simply such (a thief) we hate him rather.

3. Article 1, body and replies (“desire of harming another under the aspect of something just”) #

Argument as he reads it:

1. Anger is the desire of harming another under the aspect of something just, i.e. vindicating an injury.
2. Vengeance has no place unless an injury has preceded.
3. Not every injury provokes revenge, only those that pertain to the one desiring it; for as each naturally desires his own good, so he naturally repels his own harm.
4. An injury does not pertain to someone unless done in some way against him. Conclusion: the motive of anger is always something done against oneself. Replies:

• (1) Anger in God is not a passion but “the judgment of justice”, willing vindication of sin. The sinner cannot effectively harm God, but from his own side acts against him in two ways: contempt of his commands (Adam and Eve, “don’t eat of that tree”), and harm to himself or another, who is under God’s providence and guardianship, so the harm opposes “not God himself, but what is under his care”.
• (2) We are angry for harm to others insofar as they pertain to us: by affinity, by friendship, or at least by communion of nature. “A friend is another self” (he attributes the phrase to Shakespeare). The closer, the angrier: own family, own citizens more than foreigners, yet even the North Korean people (pity them, anger at the government); “the blowing there in New York, too close for comfort”.
• (3) What we most strive in we regard as our good; when it is despised we regard ourselves as despised and wounded. “Love me, love my dog”; “love me, love my occupation, unless I hate my occupation”: tell ballplayers baseball is a waste of time; Warren’s students taking criticism of their papers as attacking them; the sensitive painter told his painting is junk. “We’re not so affected by anything quite so much as our love for ourselves”: hence praising the hostess’s food; brother Richard overpraising a dish at his mother-in-law’s and being stuck with it thereafter. Contrast: criticism from someone with no experience rolls off easier. Austin at Laval, De Koninck on his first draft: “I think we’d better just start over entirely”. A student’s story: his freshman essay on Grace marked as plagiarizing Father Hardon’s Catechism when he had never opened it, “just for listening”. Berquist: explaining Euclid’s theorem step by step is following, not plagiarizing; Aristotle says we should say some things better than our predecessors and others as well as they said them; “friend is another self” cannot be said better; Empedocles, “what is worth saying can be said more than once”; Pope St Pius X encouraging church architects to imitate the masters rather than “reinvent the wheel”. The modern philosophers’ attitude to earlier ones: “destroy it all, throw it all away, start over.”
• (4) Silence provokes when it seems to come from contempt, “as it were that he thinks little” of the other’s anger; this thinking little is an act. His example: ignoring something absurd someone said, and they take it seriously.

4. Article 2, objections: is only thinking little a motive? (“not only parvipensio”) #

1. Damascene: men are angry on undergoing injury or estimating so; one can be injured without being despised. His counter-example: the little boy who knocked over and smashed the plant at his friend’s house, yet there “seemed to be a certain despising of him”.
2. Desiring honour and being saddened by contempt belong to the same one; brutes do not desire honour, yet anger is provoked in them by injury (Ethics III as cited): the bull in Spain provoked with pins.
3. Rhetoric II gives many other causes: forgetfulness (the high-school friend who pretended to forget his friends’ names when introducing them to girls, and proposed on the roof with a tin ring), exultation in misfortunes, announcing bad news, impeding one’s will. Sed contra: Rhetoric II defines anger as desire with sadness of punishment on account of an apparent parvipensio not suitably made.

• Aside: Aristotle “really thought a lot about anger”; maybe one should begin Aristotle with Rhetoric II, “things I experience every day”.

5. Article 2, body and replies: three species of thinking little (“all causes of anger are led back”) #

Three species from Rhetoric II: despising; blocking the will (epereasmos, “from the Greek word”, impeding fulfilment of one’s will); contumelia (“kind of like insulting”). All motives reduce to these, for two reasons. Reason 1:

1. Anger desires harm under the aspect of the just, so seeks vindication only as it seems just.
2. Just revenge only for something unjustly done; so the provoker of anger is always under the notion of the unjust (“I didn’t deserve that”); Rhetoric II: those who think they were injured justly do not get angry. Illustration: the Brutus-Cassius quarrel in Julius Caesar, Brutus “taking parvipensio for Cassius”.
3. Harm is inferred in three ways: from ignorance, from passion (anger causing anger), from choice; one does injustice most from choice, industry or malice: Iago. So we are most angry at those who “labored” to harm us; harm from ignorance (“I didn’t mean to”) or passion produces no anger or much less, since these diminish the notion of injury and provoke mercy and forgiveness (he compares venial sin). Illustration: putting up with people with a temper who “can’t help it”; Cassius pleading his inherited temper to Brutus. Those who harm from industry seem to sin from contempt, hence maximal anger. Reason 2: parvipensio is opposed to excellence; we think little of those we think unworthy; from all our goods we seek some excellence, so any harm pertains to us insofar as it goes against our excellence.

• Reply 1: any other cause of injury than contempt diminishes the notion of injury; contempt alone increases it, so it is the per se cause of anger.
• Aside: Thomas, “the most reasonable man”, must have been calm, yet understands the emotions marvellously. Student exchange on modern psychology: probably it despises this; Father Hebert (and possibly Paul Vitz, via Father Owen Bennett) said any psychologist serious about caring for souls must read St Thomas on the passions, since the abnormal is judged from the normal. Senator Moynihan’s “Defining Deviancy Down”: society lowering its threshold, “that probably goes with jettisoning Thomas”.
• Reply 2: the brute does not desire honour as honour but naturally desires a certain excellence, and is angry at those who dare against it. Turf: the dog when you step on his turf; two cats and the courtyard, one chasing the intruder out and the other submitting; mother cat displacing the daughter from the soft spot; cats plopping in the dog’s bed; Washington Irving on Sir Walter Scott’s cat ruling the dogs with her paw. A student: cats less social than pack-animal dogs, so their notion of superiority differs. Churchill: the dog fawns like a slave, the cat looks down on you, the pig treats you as an equal.
• Reply 3: Aristotle’s other causes are all signs of thinking little: forgetfulness is a sign of it, since we fix our memory on what we esteem great (“I forget everybody’s names now”, a different cause, old age); not fearing to sadden by announcing sad things; showing hilarity at others’ misfortunes shows little care for their good (even among friends one laughs at something ridiculous “and can’t help yourself”); impeding someone’s aim with no utility to oneself shows one cares little for his friendship. All provoke anger insofar as signs of contempt.

6. Article 3: does excellence make one more easily angry? (“excellence of someone is not a cause”) #

Objections:

1. Rhetoric II: those most saddened are most angry, the infirm, the needy, those lacking what they desire; all these are defects. Illustration: Mark’s shock at a restaurant with no wine list, “we’re a family restaurant”.
2. Rhetoric II: men are most angry when despised in what they suspect they lack or hold weakly; where they clearly excel they do not care; suspicion arises from defect. Aside on the etymology of “suspicion” (looking under?) and the Greek hypolepsis, “a taking up”, sometimes translated suspicion; Ethics VI: opinion (doxa) and hypolepsis cannot be virtues because sometimes right, sometimes wrong; one pertains to dialectic, the other to rhetoric. Left unresolved whether the etymologies match.
3. Excellence makes men joyful and of good hope, and Rhetoric II says in play, laughter, festival, prosperity, pleasure that is not base, and good hope men are not angry. Sed contra: men are indignant on account of excellence. Body: the cause in the one angered is taken two ways. (a) In relation to the motive: since the motive is unjust thinking-little, the more excellent, the more unjustly he is thought little of in that in which he excels; so the excellent are most angry when despised there: the rich in money, the orator in speaking, the dialectician (aside: Augustine was a teacher of rhetoric). (b) From the disposition left by the motive: nothing moves to anger but what saddens, and defects sadden most, since those subject to defects are more easily injured; so the infirm are more easily angry because more easily saddened. This answers objection 1. Illustrations: “kick a man when he’s down, it’s easier” (the comedian); the sick short-tempered; St Alphonsus advising priests not to annoy the dying with loud prayers and hymns (“leave him alone”).

• Reply 2: one despised in what he manifestly excels does not regard himself as having suffered, is not saddened, so from that side less angry; but from the other side he is more unworthily despised, so has more reason to anger, unless he thinks the despiser acts from ignorance rather than contempt. (A student: “that’s a boast, isn’t it?”)
• Reply 3: those states impede anger insofar as they impede sadness, but from another side provoke it insofar as they make a man unsuitably despised. Illustration: the Pope visiting a country and a “crazy nun” protesting, “treating him as of little concern”; John Paul II defused it (Miami?) with a joke, which “probably made her really angry”, since it despised her protest.

7. Article 4: does the defect of the one we are angry at increase anger? (“defect of someone is not a cause”) #

Objections:

1. Rhetoric II: we are not angry but mild towards those who confess, repent and are humble (“dogs do not bite those who sit down”); this pertains to smallness.
2. No greater defect than death, yet anger ceases toward the dead.
3. No one regards a friend as small, yet we are more offended by friends who harm or fail to aid us; Psalm 54, “if my enemy had cursed me, I could have sustained it, but you, my friend” (“Et tu, Brute”; Cassius and Brutus again). Sed contra: Rhetoric II, the wealthy are angry at the poor who despise them, the prince at his subject. (Student aside: what if the rich despise the rich? “Obama.”) Body: unworthy despising is most provocative; the smallness of the despiser increases anger insofar as it increases the unworthiness: the greater the one despised and the lesser the despiser, the more unworthy. So nobles are angry at rustics, the wise at the foolish, lords at servants. But if smallness diminishes the unworthiness of the despising, it diminishes anger: the penitent who confess, humble themselves and ask forgiveness mitigate it (Proverbs 15, “a soft response breaks anger”), since they are seen not to despise but to regard greatly those before whom they humble themselves. This answers the first.

• Reply 2: anger ceases toward the dead for two reasons: they cannot feel the pain the angry chiefly seek in their objects; and they are seen to have arrived at the last of evils, so anger also ceases toward the gravely injured, whose evil exceeds just retribution.
• Reply 3: despising from friends seems more unworthy, so we are angrier at them when despised by their harming or not aiding, just as at inferiors (“minors”).
• Closing student remark: people commonly say a wife is angry at her deceased husband who died suddenly of a heart attack; left open as the recording ends.

His words #

• effective cause: “the mover or maker” of anger.
• parvipensio: “one word in Latin”, thinking little of, despising; the one per se motive of anger.
• philotimia: the honour virtue Aristotle takes after magnanimity (Ethics IV).
• vindicta: vengeance or punishment, which has no place unless injury preceded.
• “a friend is another self” (attributed by him to Shakespeare).
• “love me, love my dog”; “love me, love my occupation”.
• epereasmos: “from the Greek word”, blocking or impeding the fulfilment of one’s will.
• contumelia: “kind of like insulting”.
• ignorance / passion / choice: the three ways harm is inferred; choice (industry, malice) is contempt.
• hypolepsis: “a taking up”, sometimes rendered suspicion; contrasted with doxa (Ethics VI).
• unworthy despising: the measure of anger in a. 4.
• “a soft response breaks anger” (Proverbs 15).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 47, a. 1 (objections, sed contra, body, four replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 47, a. 2 (objections, sed contra, body, three replies)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 47, a. 3 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 2-3)
• Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 47, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, body, replies 2-3)
• Job 35:6; Psalm 105 (as cited); Psalm 54; Proverbs 15 (as quoted within the articles) Mentioned
• Aristotle, Rhetoric II (cited throughout as source of Thomas’s premises)
• Aristotle, Ethics IV (order of the virtues); Ethics III (brute anger); Ethics VI (doxa and hypolepsis); De Anima, beginning
• Plato, Phaedo (Socrates on the immortality of the soul)
• Damascene; Chrysostom (within the articles)
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Brutus and Cassius); Othello (Iago)
• Empedocles (“what is worth saying can be said more than once”)
• Pope St Pius X on church architects; St Alphonsus on attending the dying
• Washington Irving on Sir Walter Scott’s cat; Churchill on dog, cat and pig; Moynihan, “Defining Deviancy Down”; Father Hardon’s Catechism

His questions #

• If God can be angry with us but we cannot harm him, is anger always about something done against oneself? In God anger is not a passion but the judgment of justice; the sinner acts against God by contempt of his commands and by harming what is under his providence.
• Why are we angry when someone beats up a child, or a tyrant abuses his people? Those harmed pertain to us by affinity, friendship, or at least communion of human nature.
• Why do philosophers get angry at those who despise philosophy, when it harms no one? What we are most studious in we regard as our good, so we regard ourselves as despised and wounded.
• Is explaining Euclid step by step “plagiarizing”? No; you follow him, and some things cannot be said better than the predecessors said them.
• Is a boy smashing a plant an injury without despising? There seemed to be a certain despising in it; all causes of anger reduce to thinking little.
• Why are we less angry at harm done from ignorance or passion? They diminish the notion of injury and provoke mercy and forgiveness; harm from choice is contempt.
• Does the dog or the cat desire honour? Not honour as honour, but a natural excellence: turf.
• Are the excellent or the defective more easily angered? Both, in different ways: the excellent are more unjustly despised; the defective are more easily saddened.
• Why does anger cease toward the dead? They cannot feel the pain the angry seek, and they have reached the last of evils.
• Why are we angrier at friends who fail us? Despising from friends is more unworthy.