The Dark Side of the Heart: The Political Significance of Destructive Emotions in the Political Thought of Aristotle and Dostoevsky.

The dominant approach to studying politics assumes an image of the reason-ruled individual (J. Friedman 1996, Crawford 2000, Koziak 2000). In this paper, I challenge this image and argue that certain emotions always remain impervious to reason. Specifically, I examine and apply Aristotle?s analysis of emotions to Dostoevsky?s critique of rationalism. In general, Aristotle understands most emotions as janus-like ? neither unconditionally positive nor negative in their potential to facilitate individual or community flourishing. For example, the emotion of anger potentially can motivate rash vengeance or, in partnership with reason, motivate virtuous action. In contrast to most emotions, Aristotle also argues that three emotions, envy, malicious enjoyment, and shamelessness, are never amenable to reason, but universally motivate individually and socially destructive action (NE1107a). Applying Aristotle?s understanding of destructive emotions to Dostoevsky?s novels, his characters can be understood as conceptual portrayals of the power of destructive emotions and the inadequacy of political solutions to their influence. In concert, Aristotle?s examination of destructive emotions and Dostoevsky?s demonstrative characters present a unique challenge to a ratiocentric understanding of political behavior. I divide this paper into three sections. In the first section, I analyze Aristotle?s general theory of political emotions. In particular, I explore how destructive emotions are distinguished from other emotions, because they inevitably frustrate virtue and just action. The political problem of destructive emotions is that they are socially inappropriate responses. For example, envy is pain caused by another?s success. Such emotions are potentially destructive because they either fail to prevent or actually facilitate actions that cause harm to others in the community. In the second section, I turn to Dostoevsky?s challenge to rationalism in his characters of the Underground Man in Notes from Underground and Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. In their respective narratives, these characters personify different movements of the problematic nature of destructive emotions. The Underground Man represents destructive emotions that manifest in irritating, rather than truly vicious, ways. Raskolnikov, conversely, reveals the extent to which destructive emotions can motive violent, anti-social behavior. It is Dostoevsky?s more vivid examination of destructive emotions, which also include spite, resentment, and the love of domination, that reveals those aspects of human nature not amenable to reason. In the final section, I explore the political implications of this challenge to the possibility of either a philosophical or institutional solution to politically destructive emotions. Ultimately, we can conclude, as does the Underground Man, that reason is a good thing, but that the whole of human life includes the dark side of the heart ? from which there is no political escape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]