Aristotle’s Insight into Emotion

Right thing, right reason, right way

Stoics want to learn from anyone who has something to teach. In that spirit, today’s lesson comes from Aristotle, the famous student of Plato.

Stoicism counsels us not to feel extreme passions in any circumstance. For example, the Stoic sage can never be angry. But Aristotle treats emotions more like indifferents. It’s not anger that is bad, but how you use it:

One can be frightened or bold, feel desire or anger or pity, and experience pleasure and pain in general, either too much or too little, and in both cases wrongly; whereas to feel these feelings at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them.

Nicomachean Ethics Book 2.6.10-11 H. Rackham Translation.

There is a lesson here for the Stoic progressor. While the Stoic sage will never feel anger, we are not sages, we all make mistakes. Aristotle’s insight is that our reasons, not just the action itself, determines a mistake’s severity.

Lashing out in anger at your child for crossing the street without checking for cars because you are worried for their safety, is better than yelling at them because they embarrassed you.

Both are wrong for the Stoics, but Aristotle explains the difference.

When you feel some intense emotion or feeling, like desire, anger or pity, ask yourself it’s:

• Appropriateness (Right Thing): Is the feeling of the appropriate kind for the situation? Does this situation justify or require that emotion? For example, is anger necessary at all here?

• Justification (Right Reason): Are you feeling the emotion for the right reason? Why are you getting angry?.

• Intensity (Right Way): Is your emotion proportional to the facts of the situation? Are you overreacting, even if the reaction is of the right kind?

Aristotle’s questions are still great tools for a Stoic. The Stoics disagree with Aristotle only in how they answer these questions in specific circumstances. For the Stoics, anger is never the right thing, it never has a good justification, and so you can’t feel it in the correct intensity. It’s ok to feel caution and warn our child for putting themselves in danger, but passionate anger would always be going too far.

Of course, that’s a hard standard to meet. As we make progress in our emotional lives, we can start small by seeing the difference between scolding our child out of care for them versus berating them out of concern for ourself. We can do a better job at shaping our motivations, even if they don’t always lead to the best actions.

When reflecting on an intense feeling, consider if it is the right thing, felt for the right reason, in the right way.

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Check out our discussion of Aristotle’s Golden Mean here: