Abstract
Anger is arguably one of the most important emotions in a human being’s life. An array of contemporary studies show that, far from being detrimental, anger can foster one’s self-esteem, improve their social interactions, and even benefit physical and mental health. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), David Hume explicitly recognized the importance of anger. And yet, few topics have been so neglected in the Hume scholarship as his account of this passion. The following chapter aims to fill the gap in the literature by showing that Hume’s analysis of anger is worth studying and strictly connected to some of the most intriguing problems in his philosophy.
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Notes
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I shall quote Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature as T followed by book, part, section, paragraph. All emphases are Hume’s (unless otherwise indicated). In this work, two sections are devoted to an analysis of the complex composition of anger (including its cause, object, and end): T 2.2.6 and T 2.2.9, whose titles are respectively “Of benevolence and anger” and “Of the mixture of benevolence and anger with compassion and malice.” The text I quote is from the standard edition (Hume 2007).
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Hume never classes the passions according to their importance, but he does analyze in details a certain number of emotions (esp. pride, humility, love, hatred, hope, fear), while he tends to give lesser importance to others, which he brings up but does not fully develop.
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Hume declares that he will not examine the physiology of the passions in T 1.1.2.1 and T 2.1.1.2.
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On this point, Hume follows Descartes’ late philosophy. With his last book Les Passions de l’Âme (1649), the French philosopher had brought the debate on emotions to a striking change of direction, to “a scientific rather than moral or rhetorical approach to the passions” (Giacomoni 2017, 19).
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Some interpreters simply assume anger to be a direct passion. Henderson for example writes “The direct passions, for example, joy and anger, are also simple according to Hume. In calling the passions simple Hume seems to be referring only to the impression we experience by itself, isolated from any antecedent cause” (Henderson 1990, 35). This claim is not supported by any textual evidence. A closer inspection of Hume’s discussion will lead me to uphold the view that anger – different from resentment – is an indirect passion.
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On the story of hatred and its connection to anger, from Aristotle to contemporary discussion, see Paola Giacomoni’s chapter in this book. As will be clear as my paper proceeds, Hume’s account of the interaction between these two passions is puzzling. In spite of the long-standing association between hatred and anger in philosophical analysis of the passions, Hume’s discussion is unprecedented.
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Many examples of a similar common sense usage of the term are to be found in the History of England, such as: “The pope and cardinals entered into the consistory enflamed with anger” (Hume 1983: History of England, Vol. 3, Ch. 30, par. 51); “Her anger, naturally prompt and violent, rose at this provocation” (Ibid., Vol. 4, Ch. 43, par. 45), etc.
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For a wider discussion of the beneficial effects of anger see Giacomoni (2014).
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Concerning the passions as original existence see the brilliant discussion in Radcliffe (2018, 89–111).
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I take Hume to say he would also go for the simplest way, when he affirms: “When a philosopher, in the explication of his system, is obliged to have recourse to some very intricate and refined reflections, and to suppose them essential to the production of any passion or emotion, we have reason to be extremely on our guard against so fallacious an hypothesis” (EMP App2.7).
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As a foil for this difference, I want to take the case of envy. We do associate this passion with hatred, which is often an effect of the former. For us it is difficult not to hate someone we feel envy for (a hater-free envy is simply an emulative esteem). On the contrary, for Hume, we can hardly feel hatred and envy towards the same person. Since the former emotion presupposes the other person to be inferior and the latter needs her to be superior to us, hatred and envy will hardly be passions one can feel for the same “object.” “[E]nvy is excited by some present enjoyment of another,” (T 2.2.8.12) while hatred arises from the interaction with a person who has no “beauty, force, swiftness, dexterity,” no “virtue, knowledge, wit, good sense, good humour,” no good “family, possessions, [or] cloaths” (T 2.2.1.4).
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Hume’s uses the phrase “angry passions” three times in his whole work, two times in the Treatise (T 3.3.3.7; and T 3.3.3.8), one in the Second Enquiry (EMP 7.21). When he does so, he seems to have in mind a loose definition of “angry.” As a quick reading of the text shows, Hume does not offer a consistent list of the “angry passions”, but rather uses the expression as a hypernym, an umbrella term including many other unspecified passions.
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Interestingly, this feature brought Rachel Cohon (2008) to uphold the view that these instincts are not direct passion, but give sometimes rise to them.
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This seems to be the interpretation of Baier, who writes: “Resentment can turn to disorderly anger, when, as it often is, it is in conflict with other desires.” (1991, 167) Resentment can be violent, but this is not enough to say that it turns into anger. For a discussion concerning the relations between calm and violent passions in Hume’s account see Immerwahr (1992).
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T 2.2.6 (title); T 2.2.6.3; T 2.2.6.6; T 2.2.9 (title); T 2.2.9.5.
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Annette Baier commenting this passage remarks that “Hume gives little space to discussing resentment, but significantly he does include it in the list of basic passions, ones which produce good and evil, and proceed not from them, like the other affections.” (1980, 137) She saw that there is a difference between resentment and anger. Nonetheless, I think that this difference should be articulated further, before jumping to the conclusion that “[r]esentment [...] is the form anger takes when it is provoked by what is seen as a wrong, and when the striking back which is desired is seen as punishment” (Baier 1980, 138).
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For a brilliant scrutiny of some differences between Hume’s Treatise and his mature moral account see Taylor (2009) and (2015).
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For Hume’s conception of punishment (and capital punishment) see Mazza (2019, 128–129)
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This should be clear from Hume’s description of hatred as something closer to our idea of contempt. However, a quick analysis of love can help me to make a further case for the idea that we can love (and hate) in a Humean sense someone who has not done anything unfair against us. While discussing love, Hume lists no less than three apparently very different circumstances for love to arise. (1) Love can be the high consideration we have of another person, due to her possession of a positive thing and/or quality; (2) There is also a form of romantic love, “that tender emotion, which is excited by a friend or mistress” (T 2.2.1.2); (3) Love is also appreciation, the feeling of affection we direct to someone who “can find the means either by his services, his beauty, or his flattery, to render himself useful or agreeable to us” (T 2.2.3.2). One has no doubt that high consideration, romantic love and appreciation are very different from each other, but they all have in common the fact they are directed to others and they produce pleasure. In the same vein, hatred, generally speaking, is in Humean terms the feeling we have towards people which are for us a source of pain. This does not mean they personally have to harm us in any particular way.
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It is worth adding that anger and hatred require by definition to be directed to another person, a “sensible being external to us” (T 2.2.1.2). This is a further reason in support of my view that anger is an indirect passion. However, this poses a serious issue concerning the fact that resentment – which also makes reference to another self external to mine – seems to be direct. Direct passions, such as joy, grief, hope, etc., do not need the presence of another human being to arise. Resentment is not like that. I therefore tend to share Rachel Cohon’s point of view that the “instincts” generate some of the direct passions but are not direct passions themselves (Cohon 2008). This would mean that human beings are naturally social, because they have implanted in their very nature some impulses referring to other people.
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For interesting anecdotes concerning Hume’s temper see Mazza (2012, 29–33).
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A previous version of this paper has been presented at the Oxford Brookes Postgraduate Research Seminar, Oxford, UK, 11th December, 2018. I am grateful to Dan O’Brien for inviting me to present in that occasion and to all the participants in the Seminar for the lively discussion. I also had fruitful debates about some of the ideas above with Lorenzo Greco, Shamsa Khan, Emilio Mazza, and Gabriel Watts. Finally, I am indebted with the editors of this volume, Paola Giacomoni, Sara Dellantonio, and Nicolò Valentini for comments on a previous draft of this paper. A special word of thanks goes to Ruth Boeker and Jacqueline Taylor for their steadfast support to my research on Hume.
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Galvagni, E. (2021). Where Is the Fury? On Hume’s Peculiar Account of Anger and Resentment. In: Giacomoni, P., Valentini, N., Dellantonio, S. (eds) The Dark Side: Philosophical Reflections on the “Negative Emotions”. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55123-0_9
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