Guilt

dlofnep

Is guilt a product of fear of consequence, or is it through advancement as a social species?

Joe1919

Guilt I think is an Emotion. Emotions of course, are about motivation, they all influence our actions.

Robert Solomon links Guilt with Pride and states 'Pride is a member of a family of emotions that includes shame, embarrassment, guilt, remorse, and regret. All these emotions are about the self.' He argues that all Emotions are intelligent in the sense of generally guiding our actions in the direction that's generally good for us (as a species?)


Darwin of course claims that these 'social' emotions are necessary for survival. His Chapter 5 in the Decent of Man is worth reading.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_05.html

John Searle would probably agree with Darwin and see this as like his 'collective intentionality', as 'biologically primitive' (hardwired in our brain). In many ways, this is no different to what Plato said 2500 years ago, the idea of 'spiritedness' (thymos) that's part of the soul and present in all creatures.
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/3363

I personally think Guilt is also linked to Prudence. We can feel personally guilty if we say spend too much money or put off work that we ought to do now. Guilt could be compared to a master, hiding in the background, always watching us and punishing us.
Its interesting that traditionally people linked guilt to religion and indeed blamed religion for Guilt but I think this may be wrong. People today still feel very Guilty about their appearance or that they (or their children) are not getting on in life they way they thought they would etc.
It also may be the case that some people suffer less from guilt than others.

Joycey

Is guilt a product of fear of consequence, or is it through advancement as a social species?

Well guilt happens after the event, so it couldnt be a fear of consequence. Its like an inward looking shame, if I remember Solomon's description properly. Where shame relates to a sense of having failed society, guilt is a sense of having done something morally wrong as an individual.

To the second part of your question, it is most definitely a function of evolution, and probably only evolved when we began to socialise.

Read Temple Grandon's "Animals in Translation" (the whole book is excellent but pages 303-308, the very end, are what im talking about here) for an educated guess with plenty of evidence given for her interpretation of why it is that humans began to socialise when they did. She ascribes it to our association with and domestication of the first wolves, and that at the same time they became dogs we became homo sapiens sapiens, really interesting.

Joe1919 wrote: »

Robert Solomon links Guilt with Pride and states 'Pride is a member of a family of emotions that includes shame, embarrassment, guilt, remorse, and regret. All these emotions are about the self.' He argues that all Emotions are intelligent in the sense of generally guiding our actions in the direction that's generally good for us (as a species?)

Did you come across his series of 24 lectures on emotional intelligence or did you read that somewhere? I have those lectures and they are quality. His ones on Existentialism are also top notch.

I found them a really insightful discussion of emotions, touched on all kinds of areas of thought. Would highly recommend.

Joe1919

Joycey wrote: »

Did you come across his series of 24 lectures on emotional intelligence ..........

You are spot on. That quote come from his pdf notes.

I also have his book 'Thinking about feeling' but I havent time to read it yet.

I am particularly interested in this area of spirit/pride/recognition/will/will to power/ self-esteem..... Many argue that they are all different forms and variations of the same motivational factor. I'm not sure whether we can necessarly claim that they are linked to survival although I'm sure many will claim so.

dlofnep

Joycey wrote: »

Well guilt happens after the event, so it couldnt be a fear of consequence.

But, doesn't consequence also occur after then event?

Joycey

dlofnep wrote: »

But, doesn't consequence also occur after then event?

Ah right sorry I misunderstood you.

But I dont think that guilt is fear of the consequences of whatever the action was that you are guilty about.

Take the example of stealing something from a shop, and feeling guilty about it afterwards. I think this is different from a simple fear of being caught on camera later on, because where the latter is simply a selfish worry based on self-interest, the former involves a complex set of judgments regarding the existence of a certain moral code, whether the code has been violated by the action or not, and the seriousness of the violation.

Perhaps you mean that it is the consequences of others finding out about our breach of a moral code which they also hold that we are afraid of when we feel guilty? I think it probably is, but its a different sort of fear from fear of physical harm, and it serves to reinforce within the individual external, societal conceptions of what is a morally acceptable code of behaviour. This is interesting because our feeling of guilt is like a kind of self-cencorship, once we perform an action, feel guilty about it, then the conditioning which occurs after the guilt is likely to disincline us from repeating the action.

Thoie

Joycey wrote: »

This is interesting because our feeling of guilt is like a kind of self-cencorship, once we perform an action, feel guilty about it, then the conditioning which occurs after the guilt is likely to disincline us from repeating the action.

So what about a situation where I don't like Bob. I'm having a party, and I didn't invite Bob, because I don't want to see him. Yet I feel guilty about not inviting him. I've not done anything morally wrong - most people will agree that I can invite who I want to my party. So my guilt centres around the fact that I may have hurts Bob's feelings even though I don't like him. I'm still not going to invite him to my next party (even if I feel guilty about that too).

Do I just have a moral code that says "Don't make others feel bad."? What benefit does this moral code provide to me, or to society?

Joycey

Thoie wrote: »

I've not done anything morally wrong - most people will agree that I can invite who I want to my party

Well clearly your amygdala (or whatever it is thats responsible for emotion) disagrees with you :pac:.

You, like everyone else in the society we live in, have been conditioned by about 2000 or so years of talk of rationality etc, your conscious conception of what is "morally wrong" is vastly different to what your brain has evolved to feel is morally wrong. This is one possibility. Another is that you realise consciously that excluding people -> causing psychological harm to people is morally wrong.

Do I just have a moral code that says "Don't make others feel bad."? What benefit does this moral code provide to me, or to society?

Well if our society promotes values which lead to a greater degree of cohesion and interdependence (exlusion = bad), then it will be to the advantage of the society. Because for many thousands of years we have been reliant on society for our own survival, belief systems which promote the persistence of society increase our survival chances.