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Gentleness (praótēs) concerning anger

The virtue of praótēs is the correct mean concerning anger. Someone with the vice of excess, irascibility or quickness to anger, is angry at the wrong people, in the wrong manner, and so on. The vice of deficiency is found in people who refuse to defend themselves: milquetoasts, servile.

Aristotle does not deny anger a place in the behavior of a good person, but says it should be "on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time". Aristotle says it is not easy to behave according to the mean.

The virtue with regards to anger is not led by the emotions (pathoi), but by reason (logos). Anger can be virtuous and rational in the right circumstances, and a small amount of excess is not blameworthy, and might even be praised as "manly and fitted for command". It is better, however, to err on the side of forgiveness than anger; the person with a deficiency in this virtue, despite seeming foolish and servile, is closer to the virtue than someone who angers too easily.