In support of the rage of man

[Belacqua]

The point I was trying to make was that anger urges us to do things without the consent of reason. Sure, things done without reson's consent may be good (or even excellent). Yet, when speaking of moral behaviors, it seems like things done in anger do not apply any kind of rational scrutiny to themselves. So I ask: how can they be moral? Or at the very least I ask: is it any different if a deed done in anger were (rather) done out of rational necessity? Think about it. Is anger even necessary? Cannot logic compel one to do the selfsame good deeds that anger might compel one to do?

Yeah, a number of interesting questions there. 

First, whether it's possible or desirable to separate emotion and reason. Since both "positive" and "negative" emotions (e.g. anger and love) can cause us to be unreasonable, then the reason vs. emotion debate should probably include both of them. 

I seem to recall some old guy saying that the love of the Good (a.k.a. Eros) is about the only thing that motivates humans. So if love is an emotion, reason serves it -- love aims us at the goal, and reason tells us how to get there. Then we could say that anger is the appropriate response when we see something that deliberately and unnecessarily works against the good. Paradoxically then, anger is caused by love. (In bad cases, by self-love.)

So if that is true at all, then we'd have to wonder whether we would do anything at all without emotion. Or whether we would do it sufficiently. I mean, we might sit in a chair and calculate what the best response to an unjust situation is, but having done that, would we have the energy to get up and do something? (See above: Blake says that energy comes from the body, and reason is its limit. But you need energy, too. Though granted, he was a poet.) 

Since we aren't logic machines who can switch off our emotions, in any real world scenario we'd have to allow for emotion in every case. Now an impartial judge in a black robe is expected to have less passion in a given case, but does such a person really feel no anger toward the murderer he's sentencing, or does he, ideally, feel the right amount of anger?

Just pondering, here. I'm not sure.