Anger, Hatred, and Judgment in Aristotle's Rhetoric

Abstract Aristotle's analysis in the Rhetoric of the intelligibility of passionately angry political speech is an urgently needed addition to the ongoing scholarly reassessment of his relevance to democratic practices. Aristotle shows his readers—both orators and their auditors, citizens who might both rule and be ruled—that anger is prone to exaggeration and distortion and is therefore liable to be amplified into hatred. He shows further though that if instead of simply being exaggerated, anger is taken “seriously,” then a more sober and measured politics can ensue, one less destructive of a good legal order.