Aptness isn’t enough : Why we ought to abandon anger

According to the Fittingness Defense, even if the consequences of anger are overall bad, it does not follow that we should aim to avoid it. This is because fitting anger involves an accurate appraisal of wrongdoing and is essential for appreciating injustice and signaling our disapproval (Srinivasan 2018; Shoemaker 2018). My aim in this paper is to show that the Fittingness Defense fails. While accurate appraisals are prima facie rational and justified on epistemic grounds, I argue that this type of fittingness does not vindicate anger because there are alternative modes of recognizing and appreciating wrongdoing that can generate the benefits of anger without the harmful effects. Moreover, anger involves more than its appraisal of wrongdoing—it also consists of attitudes and motivations that are arguably of intrinsic disvalue.