1Anger is a common emotion felt by everyone, often many times a day. Whether it is road rage experienced when driving during rush hour traffic or the feeling of outrage associated with learning of social injustices half way across the world, anger is a part of our daily practice. It is an emotion that has been categorized, along with other emotions and acts, into the seven deadly sins of man. Why is this considered a sin? Why do we feel this anger? Can getting angry ever have a positive effect on our lives or is it always negative? What step should be taken against certain angers? In this paper I hope to discuss the nature of anger. .
2We will look closer at anger as a vice and as a possible virtue. I would like to offer my opinion of how to use anger and the control of anger to optimize happiness in our lives. Hopefully, this will help us learn more about the deadly sin of anger. In ethics we study the seven deadly sins to help us identify what is important in trying to achieve the good life. When talking about sin we are inclined to refer to vice. A vice is a character trait that detracts one from living the good life. A person's idea of vice is then dependent on their definition of the good life. Let us not burden ourselves with varied definitions at this point. For the sake of this paper let us identify the good life as a maximization of true pleasure and a minimization of true pain for an individual and those around him or her. In contrast to vice we have virtue. Virtue is some character trait that leads one to living the good life. It is important to distinguish between the two in our study of anger. Anger is very often thought of as a vice. Christian philosophies, in particular, view anger in this manner. It is without a doubt that anger can bring pain to oneself and to others. At times anger can seem irrational and violent.