Stoic philosophers described anger as a temporary madness and argued that we should eliminate it wherever possible. More recently Martha Nussbaum has argued for keeping anger out of political debates. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, in contrast, Myisha Cherry makes the case for rage in some specific circumstances. She discusses rage with Nigel Warburton.
This is philosophy bites with me, Nigel.
Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
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Perhaps it's just twitter, but there seems to be an epidemic of anger out there at the moment.
Relax, listeners.
It's not worth it.
Getting angry is an entirely destructive emotion that does nobody any good and which you would do well to suppress.
Or would you?
Here's myisha Cherry calmly putting the case for getting angry, at least about some things.
Myesha Cherry, welcome to philosophy bites.
Thank you so much for having me.
The topic we're going to talk about today is rage.
Now, is rage different from anger?
Well, if we're being careful with distinctions, it is, right.
Philosophers are very careful about the words that we use and distinctions that we make.
There is a distinction, right?
So one might say rage is just a more intense form of anger.
And so when you are outraged or enraged, you feel anger more deeply.