Harman (2009) Guilt-free morality

Harman, Gilbert (2009). Guilt-free morality. Oxford Studies in Metaethics 4:203-14.

1. PROPOSED CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MORALITY AND GUILT FEELINGS

guilt feelings are warranted if an agent knows that he or she has acted morally wrongly. It might be said that in such a case the agent has a strong reason to feel guilt, that the agent ought to have guilt feelings, that the agent is justified in having guilt feelings and unjustified in not having guilt feelings. It might be said that it would be immoral of an agent not to have feelings of guilt after realizing that he or she has acted morally wrongly or that only an agent with bad character would not have such feelings.

Another thought is that all normal adults are susceptible to guilt feelings. In this view, children who do not acquire such a susceptibility to guilt feelings will not acquire a moral sense. Psychopaths are adults who, among other things, have no such moral sense and are not susceptible to guilt.

A further thought is that moral motivation is at least in part motivation to avoid guilt feelings for acting immorally. This thought might explain the previous idea, because it would imply that someone not susceptible to guilt feelings would not be susceptible to moral motivation and would therefore lack a moral sense.

2. GUILT FEELINGS

Consider amoral psychopathic Mary. While she believes that it is morally wrong to steal a book from the library, that consideration does not motivate her at all and she steals a book without regret or concern. She has no guilt feelings about her action even though she feels that she is guilty of stealing and so in that respect feels as if she is guilty. It appears to Mary that she is guilty of acting wrongly.

If that were enough for Mary to have guilt feelings, many but not all of the views mentioned in the previous section of this chapter would be trivially true. Moral principles are trivially principles that one is guilty of violating if one violates them. If one knows one has acted wrongly, one is trivially warranted in feeling that one is guilty of having acted wrongly.

Nontrivial guilt feelings have to be real feelings—with affect—indeed, with negative affect. To feel guilt is to feel bad.

They may involve agent regret, but that by itself is not enough for guilt. One regrets many things one has done without feeling guilty about them. For example, one may regret having moved one’s queen to a particular square in a game of chess.

And it is not enough for feeling nontrivial guilt that one regrets having done something morally wrong. Psychopathic Mary can have such regret even though she has no guilt feelings. (I consider non psychopathic examples below.) [???]

One conception of guilt feelings identifies them with feelings of remorse, involving deep regret, painful humiliation, distress, self-punishment, and/or self-flagellation. Some theorists suggest that guilt feelings also involve anxiety (e.g. Freud 1962) and perhaps the thought that one deserves punishment (e.g. Kaufmann 1973)

4. REASONS TO THINK GUILT FEELINGS ARE NOT CENTRAL TO MORALITY

Social Function of Guilt and Fairness

A possible worry about a morally good person who is not susceptible to nontrivial guilt feelings is that other people often expect one to feel guilt for doing something wrong. If one does not, they may get even angrier at one than they would otherwise. One’s showing guilt can allow others to be less angry with one, because one takes on some of the anger oneself. This is connected with what is sometimes referred to as ‘‘the social function of guilt’’ (Baumeister et al. 1994).

The admirable people I have in mind feel regret about moral mistakes, but not guilt. In order not to incur the wrath of others, they can apologize, say that they are sorry for what they have done, try to make amends, and sincerely promise not to do it again. Furthermore, as moral people, they will not pretend to feel guilt and pretend to beat themselves up about it, since that would involve wrongfully misrepresenting themselves.