Abstract

Aristotle’s most thorough discussion of the emotions is certainly the one offered in Book 2 of the Rhetoric. This examination unfolds in Chapters 2–11, and concerns exclusively the emotions experienced by citizens: they are the addressees of rhetorical speeches, and the emotions they experience can influence, modify and shape judgements in political as well as legal settings.In this essay I shall examine the so-called ‘competitive emotions’, i.e. emotions that originate from conflicts arising between citizens in connection with possession of different goods, namely money and political power. The first of these emotions is envy, a kind of pain experienced by a citizen who feels deprived of goods that are owned by other citizens who are similar or equal to himself. I shall subsequently move on to two other emotions related to envy, namely indignation and emulation. This essay will draw a distinction between these two sets of emotions. If Aristotle characterises envy as an irredeemably negative emotion, indignation and emulation seem to have an ambivalent status: both are perceived by the subject as painful, and therefore negative, but bring about positive reactions. Indignation is stirred by the awareness that the principle of distributive justice has been violated – the principle according to which worthier individuals deserve to receive more goods. By contrast, emulation consists in striving to acquire goods that one is conscious of lacking, but does not necessarily entail challenging those individuals who already possess them.