Anger's epistemic value for clinicians

Abstract: A contentious topic in recent philosophical discussion is the normative function and value of anger. Some argue that one’s anger is apt when its cognitive content is an accurate, epistemically justified appraisal of wrongdoing against her and, furthermore, that such fitting anger is morally valuable (Srinivasan 2018, Cherry 2019, D’Arms and Jacobson 2000). Others argue that anger has instrumental and intrinsic disvalue because it is irrational, non-necessary for recognizing injustices, or counterproductive to correcting them (Marcus Aurelius 2006, Nussbaum 2016, Paytas 2022). This debate holds novel insights for bioethics, especially in evaluating moral attitudes relevant to the patient-physician relationship. Here, I focus on a less-explored issue: the value of one’s anger on behalf of her companion’s being a target of injustice. I argue that we should view clinicians’ anger on behalf of their patients as an epistemic good for at least three reasons. First, fitting anger consists in the clinician’s accurate, rational appraisal of (social) health injustices against her patient; I argue that fittingness depends on the right kinds of cognitive content the clinician holds, which addresses Tully (2023) on clinicians’ misplaced anger. Second, it signals not only disapproval of such wrongdoing but also recognition of moral fidelity to and solidarity with her patient. Third, while Paytas (2022) finds that anger involves “attitudes and motivations that are arguably of intrinsic disvalue,” such as animosity, I argue that some of these attitudes precisely hold intrinsic value—particularly when targeted against blameworthy collective actors, like opioid manufacturers, who wrong her patients.