Agree on How to Disagree: Aristotelian Ethics and Conversational Virtue

Demonization

An important prerequisite for persuasion is that citizens need to be willing to speak and deliberate with one another, particularly with people who hold fundamentally divergent views on the public good (Allen 2004, xiii-xix). Citizens disagree on the appropriate size of government, how to properly weigh competing concerns for liberty and equality, and what the best structure is for distributing political power. If citizens perceive those who hold contrary views as fundamentally misguided or malevolent, then no fruitful discussion can take place. Citizens need to be not only brought together, but made to properly consider competing claims about the public good.

However, the tendency to demonize those on the other side of the political spectrum makes us unwilling to speak with them. While the study of “demonization” is fairly new, the underlying principles have been known and discussed for millennia. ¹ To demonize is “to strongly imply or directly suggest that others have very bad, immoral, or evil qualities, and often that they are capable of quite immoral deeds…[and] to do so without sufficient evidence, inquiry, justification, or consideration of the consequences” (De Luca and Buell 2005, 4). Citizens encounter their ideological counterparts, and ascribe to those counterparts some form of malevolence. The construction of this narrative goes beyond merely categorizing these groups into a conflict between Us versus Them (Connolly 2002, 8; 64–66), but renders the Otherness of “Them” to be so vile that “They” must be countered at every turn. Political narratives thus favor war and combat over dialogue and compromise.

Demonization is enabled by the way underlying narratives serve as the foundation for social and political identity. Individuals construct a system of ideas and beliefs on their own and in conjunction with others to form a group identity, which is also used to distinguish from those who are different (Connolly 2002, 64–66; Nussbaum 2008, 340; White 2017, 38–39). Those who do not fit within the group become foes who threaten the individual and group in some way, thus it is necessary to fight over political institutions and policy (White 2017, 59–60). To sustain these narratives and our place within them—as the good guys, obviously—the Other must become a threatening force. The rhetoric and symbols of anything fearful or dangerous, including literal demons, helps to sell that narrative both to ourselves and to others (see Rogin 1988, 52).

Within democratic politics, which cannot solve confrontations physically, the arena becomes discourse. Narratives are constructed to explain the successes and losses of various groups and figures, determined by which group they belong to (White 2017, 206). These narratives then make use of moralizing language, describing victories as moral triumphs and losses as symptoms of moral decline. Social and political figures take on the roles of heroes and villains, their actions and words warped to fit the constructed story of good versus evil (Sandel 1996, 351). In this way, poverty is explained as laziness, political losses are explained as corruption, criticism is explained as derangement, and so on.

The primary and most familiar use is to render the Other as some form of literal monster, or else as something “evil” or inhuman (see De Luca and Buell 2005, 102–127; Gunn 2004; Ivie and Giner 2007). The language and symbolism of demons become important for this process. In a similar vein is the use of language or symbolism that renders the Other as some form of beast or animal, particularly one that invokes fear or disgust. Hence equating people with insects such as cockroaches, or as parasites (see Sripokangkul and Cogan 2019; Steizinger 2018). The inhumanity of one’s opponent becomes the basis for dismissing any claim they might make—why should we listen to people who are so blatantly evil or disgusting? So too does it become a basis for violence, whether against one’s fellow citizens or a foreign enemy, because such evil monsters must be destroyed so that goodness may prevail (Ivie and Giner 2007).

While demonization is dangerous, the solution is not simply avoiding “meanness” and demanding that people be “nice” to one another. Democratic politics demands that people be willing to engage in frank speech with one another, and sometimes we may need to call out others for their ideas (Bejan 2017, 64–70; Sandel 2005, 54–56). Nor can the solution involve sweeping problems under the rug: democratic politics also demands that people talk about controversial topics openly (Bejan 2017, 5; Sandel 2005, 55). So our understanding of demonization must distinguish its deleterious effects from the constitutive components of democratic engagement.

But this distinction helps us to better understand what demonization is supposed to be. Demonization is not merely calling others names or making fun of someone or being a bit rude. We are instead focused on a broader process. The terms and concepts applied to the Other are generally secondary to the actual belief that the Other is an evil to be opposed (see De Luca and Buell 2005, 5–6). The unique component of demonization is not that the other person is a “monster,” but that they are monstrous specifically by being part of the Other. It is a distinct form of vitriol because it detaches citizens from conversation in the first place. The Other is not even worth talking to, because they will attempt to lie and trick you—to speak to the Other is potentially corrupting. Demonization is not frank speech, but a termination of speech.

The prevalence of demonization within discourse poses several major threats to democratic politics, two of which I highlight here. The first is its ability to hinder groups from achieving consensus on political policies. So long as ideological opponents are perceived as evil or ignorant, individuals will perceive those opponents’ policy proposals as fundamentally destructive to national ends (Connolly 2002, 3). Demonization prevents individuals from seeking common ground or compromising in any way, as any form of agreement would necessarily become a deal with the devil. But democracy needs consensus, both on particular policies and on broader political principles, in order to function properly (Gutmann and Thompson 1990; Rawls 2005, 133–172). Even where disagreement must naturally arise, the ability for individuals to forge compromises is critical. Demonization effectively undermines democracy as a political forum in favor of democracy as a political battlefield.

In presenting this idea of demonization as a threat to democracy, it is important to ask whether strong disagreement is not only okay, but actually valuable to democratic politics. In particular, we can look to theories of agonistic democracy from scholars such as Connolly and Mouffe (Connolly 2002, x-xi; Mouffe 1999; 2000, 80–107; 2016). These theories embrace the premise of difference and conflict among individuals, arguing that such passions are constitutive elements of human behavior (see Mouffe 2016). If this theory is true, then surely demonization would not be such a major problem, since it would merely be a form of rhetoric built out of such differences, right?

However, even an agonistic theory of democracy relies on some level of cohesion among citizen. When citizens disagree and perceive themselves as competitors, it is possible for them to take this conception to a dangerous extreme. If—rather than competitors—opposing groups see their counterparts as enemy combatants in a battle of good versus evil, then the response is to treat our opponents viciously. Rather than encouraging each citizen to pursue virtue, the solution is to tear down the opposing side. Demonization essentially reflects the Nietzschean concept of ressentiment, the idea that the other side must simply be negated (Nietzschean 1988, 19–24). The identity of each side consequently revolves not around cultivating virtue, but to say “no” to the opposition in any way, removing any coherent sense of principle (19). Connolly’s emphasis on “agonistic respect” points to the need to distinguish between “opponents” and “enemies” within democratic discourse (2002, 91, 166; see also Mouffe’s distinction between “agonism” and “antagonism,” 2016).

The second threat comes in the form of political oppression and marginalization. The construction of moralized narratives to describe various groups lends itself to denying those groups political power and resources (De Luca and Buell 2005, 7–8; see also Nussbaum 2008, 334, 340–353). Especially troubling are narratives that attempt to explain existing inequalities as moral failings, which reinforces the problem by halting policies designed to alleviate those inequalities. Examples can be seen in the stigmatization of poverty, describing the poor as individuals who are unwilling to work, wishing to live off of the government’s largesse. Or in the treatment of Muslims, when they are perceived as potential terrorists who ultimately despise Western society. Or in the rhetoric surrounding immigrants as “invaders.” From such narratives, the conclusions can be drawn that the poor do not deserve aid, that practitioners of Islam do not deserve the same protections or rights as members of other religions, that immigrants must be removed to protect the nation’s culture and security. In the latter cases, this can even result in violence as individuals take it upon themselves to protect their country from these perceived evils.

A question can be raised here regarding the causal effects at play. Is demonization causing these policy decisions, or is it merely a byproduct of partisan politics or racism? Demonization is not the root of all political evil, but we should not ignore that it still has a reinforcing effect on underlying problems (De Luca and Buell 2005, 32–33). For instance, while partisans have polarized for a variety of reasons over the past several decades, demonization feeds into the worst drives of that polarization. We can see the trend toward “negative partisanship,” where voters base their choices on opposition to the Other (see Abramowitz and Webster 2018), as an outgrowth of this demonizing process. The basis for political power and policy becomes less about promoting preferences but crushing the enemy. While deep-seated hatreds against the Other lurk within the political psyche, demonization helps to fuel these hatreds and give them a veneer of legitimacy—it is okay to denigrate people of a different race, sexuality, or religion because they are brutish, degenerate, or terrorists.

In discussing the dangers of demonization, we may run into a problem of conflating these narratives with mere criticism. Insofar as we are talking about rhetoric that portrays others in a negative light—including people acting immorally or ignorantly—we might wonder whether this means no criticism of others is allowed. Is it wrong to call out someone who is being hypocritical for that hypocrisy? Is it wrong to criticize someone for being racist? Would these not constitute some form of demonization? The solution to demonization, then, would appear to be that we need to paper over our disagreements and pretend that we all perfectly get along.

However, the core of demonization is not about mere negativity, but the root of that negativity. Criticism is still an important element of democratic politics and conversation more broadly, and certainly should not be eliminated. What constitutes demonization, though, is the underlying narrative for why someone needs to be criticized. A person behaving in a hypocritical manner—by exhorting others to live according to principles that the person themself avoids—merits criticism. But if a person is presumed to be a hypocrite based merely on their group identity, then that would become demonization. The basis for criticism needs to be the person’s words or actions, rather than the fact that they belong to the Other.

Important in thinking about this process of Othering and demonization is that it is not a tendency of “other people.” The psychological biases that push us to consider any sort of “Other” as an opponent always exist, and thus are always in need of combatting. Easy as it would be to pretend that we are sufficiently enlightened to avoid demonizing, and that it is the Other that resorts to this destructive rhetoric, that very mentality itself becomes a form of Othering and demonization. The end result is that the dangers of demonization should be understood as universal, rather than a danger inherent to a particular part of society.

Conversational Virtues

If our cognitive biases hinder our ability to converse with our ideological opposites, what can alleviate this problem? Virtue ethics as a moral theory proposes that being a good person (and along with it, a good citizen) is a continual effort which requires cultivating certain habits and dispositions (Hursthouse 1999, 1, 11–13; Russell 2013, 18). The task of building these habits and dispositions requires us to modulate our passions to correspond with the ethical character that we should develop (Salkever 1990, 69–70). Where democratic theory requires citizens to be constantly engaged with political issues, virtue ethics requires individuals to be constantly engaged with ethical issues. The need for citizens to collect and process information, to participate regularly, to monitor those whom they choose as representatives, and to critically reflect upon the decisions they intend to make, all mirrors closely the process of cultivating virtue. Virtue ethics also points out the necessity of constantly working at being virtuous. Insofar as we are prone to psychological biases that can lead us to demonize the Other, virtue ethics reminds us that everyone is prone to these tendencies, and they are not overcome in a single day. Rather, virtue ethics points to the importance of understanding how we should act, and then continually striving toward that goal. Being a good citizen—particularly a good democratic citizen—requires a continual commitment to participation and engagement. In this sense, virtue ethics serves as a useful moral theory to help support democratic theory.

Virtue ethics is useful to address this process of demonization because demonization finds its root in various psychological biases. It is a problem that cannot be solved merely through the construction of institutions. Even the best institutions presume a certain “good character” of the people who inhabit them so that the institutions can operate effectively (see also Shklar 1984, 216–221). When the people fail, the institutions must ultimately fail as well.

Generally, creating new institutions or altering existing ones can only control the most dangerous outcomes of demonization, while leaving intact the process of Othering that prevents citizens from engaging in productive discourse. We must instead dig into the very ethos of individuals to determine why they construct demonizing narratives and discern how to prevent such narratives from taking hold. In this sense, virtue ethics gives us the tools to think about how to deal with these issues.

The most relevant class of virtues for addressing the problem of demonization is what we might call the “conversational virtues.” Conversational virtues are the virtues of character that relate to how we engage with other people in common social interactions, or to borrow Aristotle’s phrasing, “are concerned with our sharing in speeches and action” (Aristotle 2011, 1108a11-13; 1126b11-14; see also Curzer 2012, 7). These virtues have received very little attention within the history of virtue ethics, receiving no treatment from prominent scholars within virtue ethics such as Hursthouse and Slote, and only minimal treatment from others such as Swanton (2003, 72–73).

Aristotle does not directly connect the conversational virtues to the challenge of politics, but leaves it open for us to do so. Aristotle does not draw the late modern distinction between ethics and politics, and so his framework enables us to consider how everyday interactions shape and are shaped by political forces. Mundane interactions are especially important for considering demonization, which arises from psychological biases and narratives that pervade social life beyond the formal public political sphere. How we talk to each other on the street impacts how we talk to each other in a town hall, and vice versa. Further, it makes sense to consider the political effects of the conversational virtues. Aristotle is ever attentive to political difference, as the political community “does not arise from people who are similar” (Aristotle 2013, 1261a23), and human beings are equipped with the power of speech, which allows us to “reveal the advantageous and the harmful, and hence also the just and the unjust” (1253a10-15). The threat demonization poses are by making that disagreement so vitriolic that we are unable to cooperate: in Aristotelian terms, the city would become a place where people merely live together, rather than being a community (1253a20-40; 1278b16-29; 1280a31-b40). Aristotle points out the causes of factional conflict throughout much of Book V of the Politics, and even notes that these conflicts can begin from “small things,” such as the two Syracusan men who created a factional split over a set of love affairs (1303b21-27). He emphasizes the role of “education relative to the regime” as “the greatest of all things…with a view to making the regimes lasting” (1310a13-15). And, since Aristotle does not split ethics and politics, this education could—and probably should—include an inculcation of the conversational virtues. How we engage with others outside of formal political settings impacts how we engage when the time for political debate arrives.

So what would constitute a conversational virtue? Building from Aristotle’s formulation, a conversational virtue is any aspect of action that relates to how we speak with others and treat them. What we might commonly refer to as being tactful or considerate would be more familiar ways of describing what a conversational virtue is. The point is not to avoid disagreement or conflict, or avoid criticism. Rather, the way in which disagreement or criticism is voiced takes on a central role. These conversational virtues are components of what it means to be a good person, and thus still fall within the broader category of moral or ethical virtues (Aristotle 2011, 1108a10-18; Curzer 2012, 7–8, 167–222; Lombardini 2013). While I use the term “conversational” here to highlight how these virtues emphasize communication, even this name is a slight misnomer. These virtues also concern good action, such as how we incorporate or exclude others. The point of focusing on these virtues is to push our conception of political virtue beyond what merely takes place within the political arena, and to help remind us that these everyday, extra-political interactions have an impact on how we construct narratives, forge identities, and make decisions.

Aristotle’s theory contains three core conversational virtues, which are defined by this focus on “sharing in speeches and action.” The first is the virtue we will refer to as “friendliness,” which Aristotle calls an “aim[ing] either at not causing others pain or at contributing to their pleasure” (Aristotle 2011, 1126b29-30). Friendliness centers around trying to be pleasing to others when doing so accords with nobility and right action, and is contrasted on the one hand with being obsequious—trying to be pleasing to others even when we shouldn’t be (1126b11-14)—and on the other with being quarrelsome—opposing people and causing them pain when we ought not to (1126b15-17). Friendliness will serve as a central part of the analysis for the remainder of this paper, so further discussion will be conducted in the following sections.

The next conversational virtue is “truthfulness,” which is aimed primarily at how we present ourselves to others in conversation (1127a14-18). It is easier to understand the objective by looking to the vices: the vice of boastfulness, which is exaggerating our qualities and attributing a greater degree of goodness and nobility to ourselves than is warranted, and the vice of irony, which is downplaying our good qualities in such a way that it gives a radically false impression of who we are (1127a22-26). The two vices in tandem show that the key to truthfulness is essentially self-presentation: we need to make sure that others are aware of our qualities, good and bad, and that we provide as accurate a picture as we can of those qualities (Curzer 2012, 196–197).

The Greek root for truthfulness, aletheia, suggests it has to do with truth-telling more broadly, and thus might be akin to honesty. But Aristotle is careful to narrow the focus of truthfulness. While telling the truth in general is certainly important, lying in other contexts (such as creating agreements) is a matter of justice (1127a34-35). Insofar as there are other ways in which we can lie, Aristotle implies that these are transgressions that fall under the umbrella of other vices. While virtue ethics often points to the general virtue of honesty as something to cultivate (e.g., Hursthouse 1999, 11–12), it is at least worth investigating why Aristotle specifies this virtue. Self-presentation is important because conversation serves to convey to others who we are as an individual. As Nieuwenburg (2004) argues, the virtue of truthfulness forces us to become self-reflective about our own moral capacities, preventing us from becoming pretenders in an unconscious way. Political communities need citizens to be moral actors, and part of that morality requires presenting themselves and their ideas to the public for judgment, without tricking the public.

The final conversational virtue that Aristotle lists is “wittiness and tact,” a virtue related to laughter (Aristotle 2011, 1127b33-1128a3). Aristotle essentially splits this into two components: the ways in which we speak to others, and the types of conversations we participate in. The first focuses on provoking laughter in others, governed by the virtue of wittiness (1128a4-16). The vice of excess (provoking too much laughter) is referred to as being buffoonish, while the vice of deficiency (refusing to provoke laughter at all) is being boorish and dour. Meanwhile, the second component focuses on what kinds of jokes we tell. Aristotle suggests that while many different things can provoke laughter, not all jokes are appropriate. Some are inappropriate on their own, and some are inappropriate in certain situations or among certain people (1128a17-34). The relevant virtue is called “tact,” which means to understand what kinds of jokes are proper to tell in a given circumstance. The vices use the same terminology of buffoonery and boorishness, meaning respectively to tell jokes without regard for their propriety and to be disgusted with humor even when it is appropriate.

Contemporary political discourse is replete with examples of humor being used to convey points and make jabs. From satirical articles and websites to the sharing of memes on the internet, the role of comedy in politics can feel somewhat similar to the role of the comedic play in Ancient Greece, which would commonly hold up prominent public figures for ridicule and criticism. And so it should be just as important now as it was then to think about the nature of the jokes we tell. While it is easy to poke fun at others as a way of scoring cheap laughs, to do so without good cause illustrates more a tendency to spark quarrels than to highlight sincere criticisms (Curzer 2012, 193–194; Walker 2019, 109–110). Such humor would be inappropriate, relying on such a gross caricature that the target no longer holds meaning (Lombardini 2013). In a sense, the more we see our opponents as an object of ridicule, the easier it is to demonize them. The point of this virtue is to make us think about how we make fun of others, so that we do not let our desire to laugh go too far.

The purpose in turning to these conversational virtues is that being ethical does not simply require us to think about how we treat others. We must also think about how we talk to them. Political associations will inevitably involve disagreement among citizens, as “a city does not arise from persons who are similar” (Aristotle 2013, 1261a24). Though Aristotle does not necessarily make this connection, the conversational virtues still hold value in this context. The conversational virtues help to preserve association among these different people, allowing citizens to communicate those disagreements and reach accords that allow the political system to continue to function. An individual who lacks the conversational virtues—someone who is quarrelsome or boastful or boorish—is someone that we generally wish to avoid. As more and more people ignore these virtues, it becomes more difficult for us to associate with one another—especially when we disagree. And it is in this environment that Othering is most frequent and most dangerous.

Disagreement and the Conversational Virtues

Aristotelian political philosophy centers a great deal around community. The city is a grouping of people brought together not merely “for the sake of living,” but “for the sake of living well” (Aristotle 2013, 1252b29-30; see also 1280b39-40). Aristotle also goes to great lengths to point out that friends are an important element for a good and ethical life (Aristotle 2011, 1155a5-16; see also 1155a23-32). The conversational virtues factor into this discussion by providing some basic glue for helping to hold these relationships together—it is tough to be friends with someone or see them as a fellow citizen if they are always surly, dour, and boastful. To see how these conversational virtues can be useful in these contexts, I will briefly cover the concept of friendship—particularly Aristotle’s depiction of “political friendship.” By doing so, we can distinguish these forms of friendship from the virtue of “friendliness,” and see how friendliness and other conversational virtues contribute in turn to this broader sense of community (based on political friendship) that Aristotle promotes.

Aristotle relates political friendship to “concord” or “like-mindedness” (Greek homonoia, meaning literally “of the same mind”). But homonoia does not require a literal sameness, nor does it require that citizens be in perfect agreement (Frank 2005, 143; Pangle 2002, 157–158). Rather, it is an underlying agreement concerning “a shared set of practices or a common mode of interaction” (Frank 2005, 144–145), such as “to make the political offices elective, or to conclude an alliance with the Lacedaimonians, or to have Pittacus rule” (Aristotle 2011, 1167a31-32). When this sense of concord is missing, there is no actual polis, rather a mere confluence of individuals (see 1167b14).

While Aristotle relates this concord to political friendship, he does not mean that citizens regard one another in the same way that “true friends” do (1167b3-15). While political friends are supposed to care for one another, they are not purely altruistic, but still engaged in a form of self-interest (see Pangle 2002, 80; Riesbeck 2016, 62–68; cf. Schollmeier 1994, 78–82). In this sense, when we talk about concord, we do not mean that there must be a deep affection for fellow citizens, nor that they ignore major disagreements about difficult topics. Rather, we demand of citizens a level of respect, a willingness to view their fellows as equals rather than as enemies.

So what would distinguish this political friendship and concord from something like friendliness? After all, the term Aristotle uses for both friendship and the virtue of friendliness is philia, suggesting that there may not be any significant difference. This is where I am going to disagree with Allen’s analysis in her Talking to Strangers (2004, 119–139). Allen references both “friendliness” and “friendship” in her adoption of Aristotle (see e.g., 121, 124–125, 129), but her analysis flattens them both to the same basic idea: the root of friendship is “equity” (129), finding “a midway point between acquiescence and domination” (121). Allen rests much of her claim on the links Aristotle draws between justice and friendship (see 121–124) to show how we can approach strangers from the standpoint that we are equals with a shared interest in the preservation of the community (129–138). But Allen’s argument ends up turning friendliness into political friendship: where she claims that “Aristotle had described political friendship as differing from ordinary friendship in ‘not possessing the emotional factor…of affection for one’s associates’” (140), Allen misses that this friendliness is a virtue of all associations.

In discussing friendliness, Aristotle continually highlights the distinct lack of “person” within interactions. He notes how the friendly person acts the same “in the case of both those he does not know and those he does know, of both those who are intimates and those who are not” (Aristotle 2011, 1126b25-27). Insofar as the “who” matters, it is a point about propriety. We ought to do what “is suitable in each case,” since it would be improper “to give similar thought to one’s intimates as to strangers” (1126b27-29), and we will “associate differently among people of worth than among people at random” (1126b36-37). The “who” in the equation matters only in this abstract sense. The focus of the virtue of friendliness is primarily on the disposition towards causing pleasure and pain, particularly with an eye towards “what is noble and advantageous” (1126b29)—this friendliness is built out of “being the sort of person [we are]” (1126b25). We should not see friendliness as effectively a type of friendship. Instead, we should see friendliness as a potential foundation for friendship, since we tend to not want to make friends with people who are belligerent or standoffish (1157b14-24). Friendliness of course is not an absolute necessity—people can be drawn together into friendships for a wide variety of reasons. Aristotle’s “use friendships,” for example, could be driven by necessity and thus need neither affection nor friendliness to cement them. But we would then need to understand that such friendships would be weak and easily broken. A quarrelsome “use friend” is someone that we will struggle to get along with, and that quarrelsomeness is likely to drive a wedge into the association. Friendliness is thus important to friendship, without being an absolutely necessity. We still need to separate the two conceptually (see Avramenko and Promisel 2018, 853).

Aristotle provides a small hint of the idea that friendliness is more of a foundation for friendship than a type of friendship when discussing concord. There he notes that concord requires that members of a political community be “decent,” in contrast to the “base” people who continually “grasp for more of what is beneficial to them” (Aristotle 2011, 1167b5-11). Aristotle says that concord is largely impossible among these base people because “[w]hile wishing for these beneficial things for himself, each of them scrutinizes his neighbor and obstructs him” (1167b13-14). Such obstruction should invoke in our minds the vice of quarrelsomeness, where people “oppose everything and give no thought whatever to causing others pain” (1126b15-16). Absent friendliness, political friendship, and concord are difficult to cultivate.

Conclusion

In thinking about how we converse with others, we are asked to consider the various emotional reactions we can have in response to another person’s words, actions, or even mere existence. Virtue ethics demands that we examine what those emotions, and the ways in which we express them, say about who we are as moral beings. The virtues outlined in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics provide a basic set of conversational virtues for us to cultivate in order to combat the problem of demonization.

But as we think of these virtues and their role, we may also ask how other emotions can play a part in this discussion. For example, while Aristotle does not specifically discuss anger in this capacity, we might ask whether getting angry—and its corresponding virtue of “gentleness” (Aristotle 2011, 1125b27-31)—is appropriate to add. Aristotle describes gentleness as “[being] calm and not led by…passion, but rather as reason may command” (1125b35). Aristotle focuses on avoiding revenge, but does not necessarily countenance avoiding anger entirely, since the vice of “unirascibility” is something that is also blamed in people. Rather, we might liken proper anger to something like indignation (see Griswold 2020, 20). Such indignation in turn suggests a cooler disdain, something that is better reflected through political processes such as participation and protest as opposed to violence.

In thinking about how we might “get angry at the things and with whom [we] ought…in the way, when, and for as much time as [we] ought” (Aristotle 2011, 1125b31-33), we can reflect upon how to best express our emotions in ways that will not only be virtuous, but effective. Anger is a justified and justifiable reaction in the face of actual injustices, both personal and systematic (Thomason 2020, 94; Kling 2020, 199–210). But the point of the virtue of gentleness is for us to recognize when we can take that anger too far. While being angry and venting said anger publicly can provide a sense of catharsis, or even a sense of superiority, we can use anger improperly. It is by stepping back and asking ourselves “is this worth getting angry over?” and “what is the proper way to express that anger?” that we practice and cultivate the virtue of gentleness.

Anger and other possible emotions all play roles within politics, impacting not just how we interact with political institutions but also how we interact with other individuals. The process of identifying emotional responses and discerning how to properly control and channel them is the basic stuff of virtue ethics. When we allow these conversational virtues to languish, we invite the various vices that lead us to demonize others. But we should be continually thinking about how our treatment of one another as individuals is related to our moral excellence. These social interactions impact how we interact with others within the political realm, and in some way they form the basic building blocks for political interaction. So focusing on these virtues and establishing principles of sociability allows us to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy disagreement and foster the former over the latter.