Reason Is Always Provoked

For Seneca, reason is always provoked into action — it is always called into action as a response to some externally received test or impression (the first movement). Reason is therefore only in charge of the response, not the provoking events themselves.

Reason is thus a behavioral facility that aligns our actions with virtue and must provide the justification/reasons for our actions. (This begins with Socrates.)

It is also tied closely with “forgiveness” (a “virtue” @II.10.2) and “deliberation” and “delay” (specific techniques or practices of self-control @II4.2 and II.2.29) that it must embrace once provoked.

“Now to make plain how the passions begin or grow or get carried away: there’s the initial involuntary movement — a preparation for the passion, as it were, and a kind of threatening signal; there’s a second movement accompanied by an expression of will not stubbornly resolved, to the effect that ‘I should be avenged, since I’ve been harmed’ or ‘this man should be punished, since he’s committed a crime.’ The third movement’s already out of control, it desires vengeance not if it’s appropriate but come what may, having overthrown reason. We cannot avoid that first mental jolt with reason’s help…. Reason cannot overcome those movements though perhaps their force can be lessened if we become used to them and constantly keep a watch for them. That second movement, which is born from deliberation, is eradicated by deliberation.” (II 4.1-2)

3 movements are described:

1. Impression

2. Assent/initial judgment (“deliberation” @4.2, see also 2.29)

3. Overthrow of reason by will

Reason is provoked at #2 to prevent #3.

Reason is therefore reactive and must be trained so as to lessen the force of external provocations.

Habituation of self-control is thus at issue throughout On Anger. Habituation can be both positive and negative: II.5 is about negative habituation that turns frequent unchecked anger into a disposition to cruelty — it is brought about by a “full and frequent exercise” (5.3)

This is followed by the Moral Anger section (II.6-10) where we must realize that the struggle is with “wickedness” (II.9.1). Reason must be the ability to exercise judgment in the face of moral defects of humanity.

II.10.2: “Forgiveness” is the rational response but must be trained. “To keep from being angry with individuals you must forgive all at once: the human race should be granted a pardon.” This follows a long “piling on” passage (starting at II.7.3) where examples are heaped one after another as a test of the reader’s own ability to exercise judgment. But the shift is to move away from treating these as “individual cases” (II.8.1) and rather as manifestations of the human condition. The condition cannot be corrected by anger, but must be corrected by individuals who are “calm and even-tempered in the face of anger… one who sets them straight” like a “doctor does his own patients.” (II.10.7)

This is a social endeavor that is never done: “a prolonged assistance is needed.” (II.10.8)

Conclusion and inferences

Reason thus has three important characteristics in this passage:

1. It is provoked into action by an external event — it is therefore fundamentally a response to something and does not come into action on its own terms but must activate techniques and values (2 and 3 below).

2. When called into action, it activates techniques — in the case of anger for Seneca, “delay” and “deliberation” are the techniques. (These need to be practiced and, to use a common Stoic phrase, “rehearsed often” to be effective.) The techniques can be exercised by the individual or, more commonly, they are social. Seneca has instances where both “delay” and “deliberation” are socially enacted, not purely individually enacted.

3. When called into action, it must also activate one or move “virtues” (or to use a more modern term, “values”) — in the case of anger for Seneca, “forgiveness” is the value/virtue.

Thus Book III must be about techniques of habituation of reason in the face of provocations. (III.36-41). In this sense, On Anger is an “art of living” (Nehamas) and a “spiritual exercise” (Hadot).