Righteous anger? How justifications of aggressive acts are received in Danish court

This article is based on the observation of 50 cases of violence, threats and offensive speech in a Danish city court, after which arguments presenting justifications of the anger behind the incidents have been systematised. By discerning between receivable and not receivable arguments in the sense that they are picked up by the professional actors in court and the arguments that appear not to be receivable as they are ignored or objected to, the article aims to identify commonly shared norms for the justification of expressing anger. Theoretically, the analysis draws particularly on Boltanski’s understanding of justifications through arguments referring to higher-order principles. The conclusion is that for anger expressions to be accepted as having a certain justification, they should be understood as a reaction to a situation everybody can relate to and therefore identify with. Further, the higher-order principles that may be seen as relevant are: protection of the self, not being more to blame than the other party, and suffering.