The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the APA Newsletters

One such emotion that we often ignore or reject in this fashion is rage. Even more than anger, society has neglected and disparaged rage as a "flawed" emotion. Moral actions, as defined by "popular" normative standards, rarely, if ever, are described as encompassing rage. Additionally, as Diana Tietjens Meyers points out, historically, men relabeled anger felt by women as "hysterical rage," a move designed by men to infuse the legitimate anger of women with the notion that these women lacked the self-control to be "properly" angry.² While men could be angry, and this anger could be acceptable, women could only possess a "lesser," "illegitimate" emotion. Combined with the fact that this move devalued the legitimate anger of women, it also served to "ghettoize" rage. Given that society thought that only women predominately felt rage, it became an emotion that was somehow "lesser" when compared with the other emotions.

Yet, just as women’s anger can be legitimate, their rage can be also and to neglect to include rage in discussions of outlaw or negative emotions only serves to reinforce distorted stereotypes of rage. Additionally, since repressed groups and individuals often possess rage, to neglect rage only serves to increase their repression. Nevertheless, rage does seem prima facie wrong because of the potential for harm to others. Consequently, I will focus on two components of the justification of rage as a reaction to unjustified wrongs, namely, that the object of rage is deserving of rage and the potential consequences of reacting with rage.

Presently, while rage is not necessarily synonymous with hysteria, there is often a negativity attached to rage that is usually lacking from descriptions and discussions of anger. For example, Elizabeth V. Spelman, while acknowledging the historical "conflation" of anger and rage, appears to agree with the Aristotelian definition of rage as "excessive" anger.³ By incorporating the notion of excess within its description, rage becomes by definition problematic.

Yet, the notion of excess is not the only definition of rage that we can employ; instead, there are richer notions of rage that do not possess exclusively negative connotations. For example, definitions of rage exist that outline rage as "intense" anger⁴ or as "violent, explosive anger."⁵ While these definitions may not appear to some to be automatically positive, they do offer a conception of rage that has more depth than the relatively simple notion of rage being anger that is inappropriate or unjustified due to its excess.⁶ Intensity and explosiveness are qualities that have the potential to be adequate and appropriate responses to particular situations.⁷ The description of rage as "violent," if interpreted as physical violence, would be less often appropriate, but we need not interpret this definition in this manner. We could view this description of rage as "violent" as similar to the notion of intensity in that rage is an emotion that its possessor cannot simply ignore; instead, its possessor must acknowledge it. Under this definition rage is different from a "twinge of envy" in that it possesses much more power.

What these alternative definitions presuppose is that rage can be a justified emotion, yet this presupposition is not yet firmly supported. Part of what makes anger justified is its proper use, in that, the object of the anger deserves the anger and the consequences of reacting with anger are acceptable. For example, anger, at times, might need to be tempered when the subject realizes that her anger is excessive or uncalled for in the situation under consideration. Although anger must not be excessive, different situations call for differing amounts of anger with some requiring more, some less and others none at all. Given this description, it seems likely that the same principle would hold for rage. Namely, if there are situations of injustice in which rage "fits," then the experienced rage would be a justified moral response. By "fitting," I mean cases in which rage is an appropriate response, given the situation in which the subject finds herself.⁸ This is not to say that rage would be either always justified or the only justified response; instead, what I am claiming is that rage does have the potential to be a justified response.

For example, we often see rage as unjustified in a situation such as spouse battering. Often we can describe these situations as those where a minor injustice by one spouse, the battering victim, causes the other spouse, the batterer, to become consumed by rage. In such cases because the response of the enraged, battering spouse does not fit the harm, this spouse would have acted out unacceptably when we explore the question of desert. Since the injustice was a minor harm, an enraged response will be an inappropriate response because the battering victim is not deserving of such a powerful reaction. The emotion of rage itself may be a justified response when considered separately from enraged actions, although a careful consideration of past harms to the batterer would have to be undertaken to determine if the rage was justified. For example, the minor injustice inflicted on the batterer could be one in a long series of such actions undertaken with the ultimate goal of slowly undermining his or her humanity or autonomy.⁹ If the injustice falls under such classification, the batterer would be justified in feeling rage at such systematic undermining of his or her well-being, although acting upon that rage would be questionable.

While the above case is not an adequate example on its own to illustrate the justification of enraged actions, there are situations in which the injustice done to the subject is so horrendous that rage is an acceptable response. To illustrate this point, I will examine several different examples. First, there are situations in which responding with rage can save the life of another or one’s own life. One such case would be responding with rage when your jogging companion, who has fallen behind the pace, is attacked. Here the rage might be considered vicarious rather than personal, but acting in violent anger or rage in such a situation is an acceptable response nevertheless.¹⁰ The attackers, by attempting to inflict bodily harm on your companion, deserve the potentially violent response of rage. Moreover, the consequences of responding with rage will potentially save the life or prevent the violation of your friend because otherwise you might not have had the strength or motivation to confront the attackers. A second case involves a more personal sense of rage. For example, if a robber confronts and attempts to kill you while seeking to escape your house because you unwittingly are blocking her escape route, then this is also a situation in which your rage would be a fitting response. Rage within a group can also be appropriate in cases such as the Holocaust or in Rwanda where political factions sought entire groups out for extermination. Rage, in response to an offense such as involuntary slavery, is also potentially justified.

In all these cases, rage is a proper response to the situation because the object of the rage deserves the potentially violent response that rage can have and the consequences of rage will cause no more harm than what the original harm would have caused. To speak of the subjects as appropriately entitled to respond only with anger, and no other emotion, in the above cases seems slightly strange because it is not evident that anger possesses the proper weight and motivation for these extremely serious and life-threatening situations.¹¹ In others words, anger is simply not the fitting response in these situations.

Rage is also capable of motivating the subject to a greater extent than anger. In cases of justified anger, a subject might be justified, depending on the situation, in hitting or slapping the object of the anger. For example, a lecherous drunk could very well deserve to be slapped, depending upon how vigorous the drunk’s advances were. In the situations of justified rage, where the subject is fighting for the life and liberty of herself or another subject, the stakes are much higher.¹² Rage, and not anger, is necessary to motivate the subject so that he or she can engage in the necessary actions. Anger would not "fit" these cases simply because it would not motivate strongly enough.

While there are cases in which rage is the proper response and is justified, there are also cases in which rage is unjustified. For example, if you respond with rage when your child has crumpled the fender of the family car, the experienced rage would be unjustified. Or if you respond with rage when your spouse burns the evening meal, the rage experienced again is unjustified rage. In both these cases the reaction is simply too vigorous for the harm committed, namely, the objects of the rage are not deserving of the potential harm caused by enraged actions. A recent popular example is that of "road rage" where drivers, when faced with a minor irritation in traffic, use their cars as weapons to avenge their supposed wrongs and frequently cause injury or death both to other innocent drivers and to themselves. Again, in such cases the drivers are experiencing unjustified rage for two reasons. First, the experienced rage is unjustified because the situation is most likely not one that is serious enough to merit enraged actions. For example, responding with rage to someone driving for miles with her turn signal on is excessive because, while the blinking turn signal is a hazard, it is likely not a malicious action designed to inflict harm. Second, while the driver may be justified in feeling rage and could respond with enraged cursing of the other driver, if he or she takes action against the driver, the potential for harm becomes too great due to the risk of causing harm to innocents. I could cite numerous other cases in which responding with enraged actions would be unjustified simply because it seems that there are many more cases where rage is unjustified than cases where rage is justified.

The reason for this fact is tied to the type of information rage provides. Just as anger can potentially provide the realization that the subject is in an unjust situation, rage also provides similar information. Rage allows the subject to believe that she or someone else is in an unjust situation that could be life or liberty threatening.¹³ Through rage, the subject can become aware of the severity of the situation in which she is involved. Where anger can point toward an injustice, rage can point toward an injustice of much greater magnitude. At the same time, rage provides the tools with which to deal with the situation. The subject can become aware of the severity of the situation through rage and rage gives her the motivation to deal with the situation. By allowing the subject to realize that the situation could become deadly, rage provides the subject with the ability to recognize and deal with the potentially deadly situation.

Unfortunately, when the subject misjudges the situation or has an overprotective sense of self, rage becomes unjustified and can lead to harm. Additionally, given the intensity of rage, the subject could often find it difficult either to control her rage once she realizes that there has been no harm or to limit her response. While there is the potential for these negative outcomes, there is no reason to view rage as exclusively falling within this domain of negativity. For example, in a rage brought on by a threatening obscene telephone call, I can forcefully slam the telephone receiver into its cradle and perhaps describe my caller with colorful swear words to those around me. While such an action is in some sense violent and intense, I have not caused anyone harm.

Although unjustified rage can and frequently does occur, this should not trump the good that can arise out of moral or justified rage. While it is true that rage can lead to harm, the other emotions can also lead to harm. The subject can over identify through empathy or can be overcome with guilt until these emotions paralyze her. All of the emotions can potentially be problematic and, consequently, none should be singled out for "boycott." We can focus emotions such as anger and rage on the range of injustice that we feel on a daily basis, spanning from a minor mistreatment to attempts on our lives. Although these emotions may be less responsive to our judgments than we would sometimes like, this is not a failing; instead, it can be our failing to ignore these emotions. These emotions can serve our most basic instincts, namely, the self-preservation of ourselves, our goals or those that we value and to dismiss them as emotions that we must "get beyond," is potentially dangerous for these items of value.¹⁴

1. For a discussion of "outlaw" emotions, see Alison Jaggar, "Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology," in Ann Garry & Marilyn Pearsall (eds.), Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 129-155).

2. Diana Tietjens Meyers, "Emotion and Heterodox Moral Perception: An Essay in Moral Social Psychology" in Diana Tietjens Meyers (ed.), Feminists Rethink the Self (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996, pp. 197-218), p. 205.

3. Elizabeth V. Spelman, "Anger and Insubordination," in Ann Garry & Marilyn Pearsall (eds.), Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 263-273), p. 271.

4. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, "Anger and Hate," Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (Fall 1992): 85-110; p. 88.

5. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d ed., s.v. "rage."

6. These definitions also illustrate that while rage is usually quite intense, it tends not to have the duration that anger can possess. For example, an individual can be angry at a particular moment and lose that anger the next moment. Additionally, we can also describe an individual as "an angry person," in that anger is a quality or character trait that she possesses. While such characterizations often occur regarding anger, we do not attribute the same description to rage. We do not often describe individuals as "enraged persons" with rage describing a character trait or quality of that person. Usually such descriptions of rage as a character trait only describe people who are considered seriously deviant by the majority of society.

7. I provide examples of cases when the situation calls for intensity and explosiveness below.

8. For example, a situation where there was violent injustice could be a case where rage is a justified response. Yet, there could very well be other cases where rage is an appropriate response.

9. Certainly, under such conditions of mutual abuse the referents of the terms "batterer" and "battering victim" are not perfectly clear. To a certain extent, both spouses are playing both roles.

10. The distinction between vicarious and personal rage is the same type of distinction as can be drawn in the cases of vicarious and personal anger. For a discussion of vicarious anger see Paul M. Hughes, "Moral Anger, Forgiving, and Condoning," Journal of Social Philosophy 25 (Spring 1995): 103-118.

11. While in this discussion of rage and anger I am making sharp distinctions between these two emotions, in ordinary language these terms often overlap with the term anger often being used to describe the very strong reactions of rage. Additionally, the term outrage also is often used to describe what is actually rage. Yet, the emotion of outrage is more closely related to anger, given that we specifically define it as a type of "resentful anger" [The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3d ed., s.v. "outrage"]. Nevertheless, the point I am making still stands in that rage, even when popularly described as simply being strong anger or outrage, can be justified and yet ought to be commensurate with its trigger.

12. Although I have been focusing on these types of situations, there can be other situations when rage is justified. For example, there can be cases when the object of rage is deserving of that rage, yet the stakes are not quite as high, or where the subject uses rage as a motivational tool. Although such cases are likely rare, there is no reason to suppose that these cases do not exist.

13. Again, we should not take this example, while focusing on situations of potential loss of life and liberty, as restricting the potential range of justified rage.