Philosophy Colloquium
Abstract: Moral philosophers have defended the value of anger on the grounds that it is intimately related to our sense of justice. According to arguments like these, feelings of anger can alert us to injustice, stand as testimony to injustice, and help motivate us to address it. But what should we make of feelings of anger that have nothing to do with injustice—cases of what I call boring anger? Boring anger is the anger we experience at all of life’s little irritations: being put on hold when you call your insurance company, getting stuck behind people with complicated orders at the coffee shop, or missing the train trying to get to work. It’s typical to think that there is no value in boring anger, and that we would be calmer, more well-adjusted people if we just let it go. I argue that boring anger can still be valuable even if it’s not about injustice. Boring anger is part of our emotional attachment to our lives and we wouldn’t be better off without it.
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