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In the aftermath of Anselm of Canterbury's version of redemption as ‘satisfaction’, notions crept in about Christ being literally burdened with all human sin, being punished by God in our place, and so placating the divine anger. This chapter rejects such views and does so by examining the texts on which they commonly rely in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

People have a primitive and largely automatic ability to recognize emotions in faces, an ability best explained by simulation, more specifically, mirror processes. In lesion studies of fear, disgust, and anger, paired selective deficits have been found in experiencing and recognizing these emotions. A patient with insula and basal ganglia damage, for example, scored very low on a questionnaire for experiencing disgust and was also significantly and selectively impaired in recognizing disgust in facial expressions. Such findings are best explained by simulation theory, which predicts that damage to a neural system responsible for undergoing a certain emotion would also yield impairment in recognizing it. Mirror processes involve matching neural activation in both a subject and an observer of a specific mental state, and such processes have been identified (via single cell recordings and neuroimaging studies) for motor intention, touch, pain, and the several emotions listed above.

Pride is vice which most patently involves consciousness of self and self-evaluation. The assessment of its nature and implicit harm will depend on the features of the self set out in the preceding chapter. There are different types of pride and, as in the case of envy, not all of them are corruptive.

This chapter develops a new account of what blame adds to the belief that someone has acted badly. According to the proposed account, the additional element consists of a set of dispositions (to become angry, express one’s disapproval, and the like) which are explained by the combination of the belief that the agent has acted badly and a desire that he not have done so. Unlike most desires, this one is oriented to the past rather than the future. Nevertheless, it remains a source of motivation that is capable of accounting for the blame-constituting dispositions.

This chapter examines Philodemus' diatribe On Anger, a principal piece of On the Passions and an important contribution to the philosophical literature on that subject. The first section supplies some semantic and historical context for Philodemus' discussion. The next section presents the methodological objections raised by Timasagoras, one of Philodemus' professional rivals, and shows how Philodemus responds to them. The chapter then discusses how Philodemus accounts for the nature and symptoms of anger, the beliefs, and feelings that it involves, and its consequences. The next section after that is devoted to Philodemus' refutation of certain Peripatetics whom, rightly or wrongly, he takes to encourage one to lose one's temper. In addition, this section discusses the case of people who give the appearance of irascibility without really being irascible. The chpater then deals with the issue of whether anger is a good or a bad thing. Finally it examines whether the sage experiences no less anger than the common man. It discusses three arguments in the form of έπιλογισμός (translit. epilogismos, pl. epilogismoi) to the effect that the sage feels as much anger as the common man, and then another three arguments whereby Philodemus rebuts the epilogismoi of his opponents.

Forgiveness education should have a role in long-term strategies for peacebuilding. The authors argue that forgiveness has the power to break cycles of sectarian violence and makes possible what Aristotle termed “civic friendship.” In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the psychological effects of anger among children are high enough to warrant clinical intervention. The authors find that forgiveness education corresponds to decreases in anger, depression, and anxiety in children. They offer examples of effective forgiveness education curricula for teachers.

The Aristotelian Asapasius (2nd century CE) objected that his fellow-Aristotelian Andronicus (1st century BCE) should not have conceded to Chrysippus that emotion requires assent as well as appearance. He accepts only two generic emotions — pleasure and distress — but he overlooks desire which Aristotle adds, and appetite and fear favoured by the Stoics and sometimes Plato. For the Stoics, appetite and desire are not additional to judgement, but are judgements that pursuit is appropriate. The Stoics omit backward-looking emotions on the grounds that concern about past adversity lasts only as long as one thinks one's present or future affected. Like Philodemus and the Christian Lactantius, Aspasius denied the Stoic view that anger (e.g., with one's children) must include the idea that retaliation is appropriate. Plotinus the Neoplatonist (3rd century CE) objected that mystical love involves no judgement, and that Stoics underestimate the contribution of body.

Zeno of Citium, the Stoic founder, had tried out other definitions of emotion. One, defended by Chrysippus, was that emotion involves oscillating, like Medea, between accepting the right value judgement and disobeying it. But disobedience to reason is not the same as mistake. How can it be, and is it ever, combined with mistake? The Stoic Seneca (1st century CE) allows this by distinguishing three movements in anger. The first movement is the appearance that revenge is appropriate and the resulting shock to soul or body. The second is the mistaken assent to the appearance that revenge is appropriate. The third movement — the full emotion — moves from mistake to disobedience with the judgement that revenge is to be pursued, appropriate or not.

This chapter first looks at End of Act, the anticipation of meeting of Pelléas and Médlisande. Act II, Scene 1 is then examined based on the “Pelléas” and “Well” Motifs. The chapter explores the transformational function of the dominant-ninth chord, instrumental timbre as signifier, the power of the unconscious, and music as message encoder of the unconscious. Next Act II, Scenes I and 2 are considered in terms of the consequences of the lost ring. The chapter explores the varied repetition and development of motifs in transformation from pentatonic to whole-tone spheres. After that Act II, Scene 2, a room in the castle, is examined. The chapter discusses Golaud, Mélisande, the ring, and transformation of the “Pelléas” motif, and points to the “circle of light” as a symbol of fate. Next Act II, Scene 2, which deals with events leading to Golaud's anger and his demand that Mélisande search for the ring is considered. The chapter then goes on to Act II, Scene 3 — before a dark grotto — and discusses a feigned search for the ring. The principle of “expressive doubling” is studied as a means of signifying dualistic human modes of world perception.

Chapter 3 is divided into two sections. The first section presents an overview of the Mahayana Buddhist teachings on ksāntipāramitā, the perfection of tolerance or patience. The second section raises questions about how admirable tolerance might be conceived today. It asks how to understand the limits of tolerance, how to know when to tolerate and how much. The chapter inquires into the Buddhist teachings on anger and on tolerating contingencies and uncertainties in life.

Why should understanding lead to forgiveness? What is it about knowledge of the cause of an offense that makes it not an offense or less of an offense? Does such knowledge affect the character of the harm inflicted or does the forgiveness depend on other conditions of anger? And when should understanding lead to forgiveness? After all, every action has some explanation. Is any explanation enough for forgiveness, or are only certain ones of the appropriate kind? Which? What are the implications of these questions for contemporary therapeutic movements that urge forgiveness (of self and others) as a step toward self-healing?

This chapter challenges the common pathologizing view of premenstrual change that characterizes premenstrual symptoms as representing a psychological or biomedical disorder. The authors present a contrasting view and argue that premenstrual symptoms are more accurately characterized as a disruption in the self-silencing that women engage in for 3 weeks of the month. Drawing upon their interviews with women, they describe the contextual and intrapsychic factors that combine to produce the premenstrual expression of anger, irritation, or sadness. The chapter argues that dismissing premenstrual distress as illness serves to silence women and contributes to a cycle of further emotional suppression, followed by premenstrual emotional eruption.

This chapter describes the physical and mental health consequences encountered by women experiencing intimate male partner violence. Drawing upon on the literature and upon her research, the author describes women's self-silencing within intimate relationships and the associations between silencing and physical and mental health symptoms. The chapter also describes the challenges and barriers within the healthcare system that hinder abused women's attempts to receive effective and supportive care. The author discusses socio-cultural influences that can affect an abused woman's process of healing by socializing women to avoid expressing anger and other strong negative emotions. She also describes alternative models of care that can be adopted to improve healthcare utilization for women who have experienced intimate partner violence.

The author shows that by calling the Christian God impassible the Fathers sought to distance God the creator from the gods of mythology. At the same time the Fathers viewed divine impassibility as compatible with select emotionally coloured characteristics, such as love, mercy, and compassion. Especially revealing in this regard is the patristic treatment of divine anger, an issue that first came to the fore in the debate with Marcionism. The author argues that instead of the context of Hellenistic philosophy the divine impassibility must be located in the conceptual sphere of apophatic theology, where it functioned as an apophatic qualifier of the divine emotions. The divine impassibility was first of all an ontological term, expressing God’s unlikeness to everything created, his transcendence and undiminished divinity, rather than a psychological term implying the absence of emotions.

Contains a translation of the third book of Jerome's commentary on Ephesians with a translation of the parallel excerpts from Origen's commentary. Book III begins with a prologue and then provides commentary on Ephesians 4: 31–6: 24. Origen and Jerome interpret Paul's comments in this section of the epistle on subjects such as anger, sex, obscenity in actions, speech, and thought, marriage and its symbolism in relation to Christ and the Church, and household relationships. There is a major discussion, focused especially on Ephesians 6: 12, of Paul's words about the ‘wrestling’ of the Christian ‘against the cosmic powers of darkness’.