Abstract
This paper analyzes and compares the opinions of Plato and Aristotle about the crimes of passion, particularly in the case of murders caused by anger in response to an outrage (hubris). The act of hubris was certainly the most serious form of injustice which a citizen could encounter, an intolerable crime, which would compromise his raison d’être as a member of the community of men. For this reason Attic law considered it in certain cases—like rape and adultery—legitimate for the victim or his relatives to kill the perpetrator of the outrage. The opinions of Plato and Aristotle concerning the moral and juridical gravity of outrages concur, just as they both approve of the legitimacy of certain killings in response to such crimes. Their appreciation of anger however is very different and bears witness to a radical disagreement. For Plato the violence of anger is above all a danger for collective life and should be eliminated, while Aristotle gives more room for justification and for psychological satisfaction. The famous speech of Lysias On the Murder of Eratosthenes, which precisely treats the issue of a killing provoked by an outrage, illustrates that Aristotle shows more insight into the esprit des lois of his time than Plato.
This article was published in French in Viano, 2011 “Théorie Éthique et Pratique Judiciaire: Passions et Délits Passionnels Chez Platon, Aristote et Lysias,” 101–121. I want to thank Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer and Peter Langford for the English translation and the Journal Mètis for giving me the permission to publish the article in English as a chapter of this volume.
This research started in October 2005, during my stay at the Center for Advanced Studies in Humanities of Edinburgh, which I have to thank for its cordial hospitality. Different versions of this text have already been presented: in 2005 at Rethimnon, on the occasion of the colloquium “Emotions over Time” and in 2006 at São Paulo, during the colloquium “Ação e responsabilidade moral em Aristóteles”. I want to thank especially David Konstan, Jocelyne Wilhelm and Marco Zingano for their remarks.
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Notes
- 1.
Edition used: for translation: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Edited by Jonathan Barnes.
- 2.
See Ober (2005), particularly p. 407 ff.
- 3.
Saunders (1991), Introd., p. 2. See also Gernet and Diès (1951), Vol. I, p. 205, who define the penal code by Plato as the work of a reformer and jurist. See Brisson and Pradeau (2006), Vol. I, p. 17 regarding the problem of assessing the innovative character of the measures proposed by Plato in the Laws in relation to the Athenian legislation.
- 4.
Laks (2005), pp. 91–92, interprets this hesitation of Plato as a sign that in Laws Plato did not completely reject his thesis of the division of the soul, defended in Republic, and that he conceives the human being as one and divided at the same time.
- 5.
In the Protagoras, Plato excludes vengeance from punishment because one cannot erase the past: “But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.” (324b, trans. Jowett).
- 6.
Saunders (1991), p. 225.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 243.
- 8.
In fact, there were public actions for outrage (graphê hubreôs), for adultery (graphe moicheias) and private actions for violence (dikê biaion). The Law of Draco accepted the legitimacy of this type of killing. See Cantarella (2005), p. 22.
- 9.
Cf. Drago (1963), p. 68.
- 10.
Cf. Cairns (1949), p. 92 ff.
- 11.
Konstan (2003), pp. 118–119, draws attention to two fundamental aspects, which characterize the anger: the perception of contempt and the desire for vengeance. He emphasizes that the equality defended in the Athenian courts was completely centered on the protection of the reputation and property of individuals.
- 12.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considers shame, as with self-respect (aidôs), rather as a passion than as a virtue in the strict sense: “And if shamelessness – not to be ashamed of committing base acts – is bad, that doesn’t mean that it is a virtue to be ashamed when one commits base acts.” invert: (1128 b 32–33, Trans. Ross/Urmson). This passage gives also a good example of the different roles of self-respect and shame: self-respect has the function to inhibit bad behavior, while shame looks back to it with regret.
- 13.
Paoli (1950), p.140, n. 28.
- 14.
The word hubris receives here the general meaning of excess and designates the typical attitude of the tyrant driven by an excess of desire and with pleasure as his sole purpose: the wealth for which he manifests an insatiable desire is actually the means to procure all kinds of pleasure. This excess causes anger in the governed and is thus one of the main causes of revolts against tyranny.
- 15.
Fisher (1992).
- 16.
In Pol. 1311 a 32–36, hubris is described as consisting of many varieties (polumerês).
- 17.
See, for example, Saunders (1991), p. 225, n. 24: “Is a report of jurisprudential opinion, common opinion, or legal practice, and what relevance it has to homicide law in particular”.
- 18.
Stewart (1892), vol. I, p. 506.
- 19.
The last lines of this passage are obscure: how can these three figures be identified: the one who states that he has been wronged (A), the one who denies this (B) and the one who has acted by premeditation (C). The ancients envision the moment of the trial and identify A with the challenger and B with the impetuous actor. The majority of the modern readers, in contrast, think of the moment of action and identify A with the impetuous actor and B with the challenger. Others identify the challenger B with C, while there are also people that think that C is not a challenger, but someone who deliberately commits an unjust act. See, on this point Natali (2009), p. 497, n. 512.
- 20.
The tribunal Delphinium was seated in the Temple of Apollo Delphinios, outside the walls of Athens. It was chaired by the Archon Basileus, who established whether a murder had occurred by mistake and for a just cause, as in the case of adultery (cf. Demosthenes in Aristocratem XXIII, p. 74). On the origins of this tribunal and the cults that were linked to it, cf. Todd (2007).
- 21.
The Anonymous Commentator in Heylbut (1892), p. 432, 12, characterizes the argument as epicheirêma. It is a dialectical argument in contrast to the philosophêma, which is a scientific argument. See Aristotle, Top. VIII, 11, 162 a 15: epicheirêma de sullogismos dialektikos.
- 22.
Shame (aischune) is the pathos, which one experiences when one has done wrong. See Eth. Nic. IV, 15, 1128 b 22. Therefore aischron has a moral meaning which is negative in a general sense.
- 23.
Venice, July 2005. For the proceedings see Natali (2009).
- 24.
See the intelligent and precise analysis in Fisher (1992), pp. 15–17.
- 25.
Another problem concerns the implication of hubris for the sensual desire (epithumia). Fisher pays attention to the fact that Aristotle seems a little uncertain when he treats the relation between hubris and psychical and physical pleasures. If hubris consists in the pleasure of being superior, it could be said that it is primarily a mental pleasure. It can also originate in sexual acts or in drunkenness, however, although it is to be expected that Aristotle will consider the hubris in these cases as a frequent companion of excessive pleasures and as the essential component of some of them. Ibid., p. 17, footnote 15.
- 26.
The third argument also seems to be “legal” and refers to the distinction between criminal acts which are committed openly and the ones which are done secretly (EN V 5, 1131 a 1 and Plato, Leg. IX, 864c).
- 27.
S. Broadie thinks that the second part of this argument suggests that anger is the pre-eminent response to a perceived prior aggression, caused by a lack of control of sensual desire. Aristotle (2002), p. 396.
- 28.
See the definition of anger in Aristotle, Rhetoric II 2, 1378 b 23.
- 29.
Ibid., 1378 a 19.
- 30.
Ibid., 1378a30–1388a28.
- 31.
Compare Maffi (2005), pp. 1278–1279.
- 32.
- 33.
See Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, LVII, 3, 1 Démosthène XXIII (in Aristocratem). Like remarked by Paoli (1950), n. 13, and Cantarella (2005), p. 22, adultery comprises all extramarital affairs, not only with one’s wife, but also with one’s mother, sister, daughter and concubines. Only prostitutes are excluded.
- 34.
See Demosthenes, Against Neera (59), 87.
- 35.
See, for a clear and exhaustive analysis of the Attic law on adultery Paoli (1950).
- 36.
Allen (2000), pp. 52 and 349, note 6.
- 37.
Konstan (2006), p. 68.
- 38.
Allen (2003) explains the fundamental importance of the appeal to the anger of the judges by the fact that this emotion referred in reality to a very important moral value which formed an inherent part of the definitions of law and justice. Allen (2000) summarizes this situation well in The World of Prometheus, p. 62: “The practice of punishing transformed a moment of anger into a moment of justice. The movement from the anger to justice or from the personal to the political occurred as a negotiation of honor and of status roles within the community”.
- 39.
See, for example, Lysias, Against Eratosthenes, in which Lysias transforms a private law suit in a public one, by presenting his personal enemy Erathostenes as the one who is responsible for all the crimes of Thirty Tyrants.
- 40.
Cf. Eth. Nic., I, 1, 1094 a 25 suiv.
- 41.
In the first pages of the Rhetoric (I, 1, 1354 a 11 ff.), Aristotle criticizes actually the exclusive importance attached by the “technographes” of his time to the appeal to passions to the detriment of the true “body of persuasion”, namely, the demonstration (enthymeme). Here, he considers the pathos as accessory evidence. But later in I.2 he sees the appeal to emotions as technical evidence and devotes nearly the whole of book II to them. Many interpretations are given to explain the contrast between I.1 and I.2. For example, Fortenbaugh (2006), who chooses for a “developmental explanation” according to which Aristotle would have moved from an idealistic, Platonic position to a more practical rhetorical view, which sees the passions as “remedial measures”, adapted to the sensibility of a mediocre audience (see III, 14, 1415 a 34–35). He quotes specifically the defense speech by Euphiletos in On the murder of Eratosthenes of Lysias, to show that Aristotle’s view reflects in fact an ambivalence in the use of the appeal to the passions already present in the rhetoric of his time: “Apparently the position Aristotle adopts in Rhetoric I,1 is not only ideal and Platonic; it is also a reflection of both actual judicial procedure and the artful practice of the logographos” (p. 392) and somewhat further about the call to the feelings of judges: “That too is Aristotelian. It illustrates in a single passage what Aristotle has in mind when he speaks of a remedial proem derived from an attempt to create goodwill and to arouse anger” (p. 402).
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Viano, C. (2018). Ethical Theory and Judicial Practice: Passions and Crimes of Passion in Plato, Aristotle and Lysias. In: Huppes-Cluysenaer, L., Coelho, N. (eds) Aristotle on Emotions in Law and Politics. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66703-4_10
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