A word about guilt

At times in your life, you might experience feelings of guilt. Sometimes, you may feel that «guilt» is not quite the right word for your feelings, but you don’t know how to describe it.

Understanding guilt may help you identify a synonym that fits your feelings and situation. Knowing synonyms for this emotion and fully understanding what it means to feel guilty may help you articulate your feelings to your loved ones or a therapist.

What Is Guilt? 

Guilt is defined as an involuntary emotion rooted in self-examination. Often, it is a feeling that occurs when someone perceives that they have broken their code of conduct or have violated a standard universal moral code or social rule. 

However, guilt may be felt when no code has been broken or when there is no direct responsibility. Thus, some could argue that guilt is about perceived responsibility. It can be common for individuals to feel guilt frequently, even when they don’t feel it is logical. 

Why Is Guilt Important? 

Guilt, like any emotion, may be significant. Healthy feelings of guilt may help us make moral and universally acceptable decisions about our behavior. People who frequently feel guilt may be empathetic to others or consider the consequences of their actions. Guilt can have an impact on the self and interpersonal relationships.

However, too much guilt may lead to shame, a similar yet often challenging emotion. While guilt can be the feeling that something you’ve done is wrong, shame is often defined as the feeling that you might face judgment or ridicule for what you have done or that you are «bad.» Shame often leads to feelings of inadequacy, depression, or poor self-image. It may also lead to strained relationships with others. 

Guilt Synonyms

At times, saying that you feel «guilty» may not communicate your feelings effectively or accurately. The following list of guilt synonyms could help you better articulate your feelings. 

Culpability

Culpability, in short, is blame. When you feel culpable, it may mean that you are blaming yourself for something you feel you are responsible for: something you did or left undone. Either way, culpability is often perceived. Culpability can also be placed on you by someone else.

Disgrace

Feeling disgrace may mean that you are experiencing a state of shame. You may be told that you are a disgrace by others if you have done something that they blame or judge you for. Individuals may feel disgraced because they feel incredibly guilty for something they have done that they perceive as wrong.

Liability

Liability may be defined as answerability and responsibility. You may feel liable when you are responsible for something that has happened. You may not feel actual blame for what you have done, but you may experience liability when you know something was your fault. Liability may be used in a legal sense, as well. For example, you may be liable for legal damages if you damage someone else’s property. 

Regret

Feeling regret can mean you remain upset over a past action, failure to act, or feeling. Often, feelings of guilt come with regret and vice versa. However, it can be possible to feel regret without feeling intense guilt. At times, if you regret something but do not feel guilt, you may feel guilty for not having feelings of guilt. 

Remorse

Remorse can be similar to regret. When you feel remorse, you may have unpleasant feelings about something that has happened or something that you did. Remorse often goes hand in hand with feelings of guilt. You might feel bad about what you did, so you wish you had not done it. You might decide to apologize or try to make up for your actions. 

Responsibility

When you feel responsible for something, it could mean that you are to blame for what happened. For someone who experiences feelings of guilt quickly, feeling responsible for a situation may not necessarily be logical. For example, it may not be your fault if your child falls on the pavement and gets a bruise. However, you might feel guilty and take responsibility to watch them more carefully next time. 

Contrition

Contrition is another potential word for regret. When you feel contrition, you may feel sorry for past actions. A common use of the word «contrition» is the ritual of committing an act of contrition within the Catholic church—an act that demonstrates remorse for «sinful» thoughts or actions.

Dishonor

Dishonor is another word for strong guilt. When you feel dishonor, you may feel that an action was morally wrong. Dishonor may be felt by people who hold themselves to a stringent code of conduct or ethics and feel that they have broken that code. It may also be used in a religious or cultural setting. 

Infamy

Infamy is less about internal feelings of self-image and more about the perception of others. You may feel that you are living «in infamy» if you have done something you think has given you a bad reputation. However, this feeling may be internal and not backed up by social rejection.

Onus

Onus is another word for burden, and guilt may feel like a burden. When a situation arises that you feel negatively about, your emotions may feel like a burden that you must carry. Such burdens can become overwhelming if you ruminate on them. Thus, it can be helpful to discuss feelings of onus with a therapist before they grow.

Penitence

Penitence is another word for severe guilt, meaning that you might be ashamed of what you have done and feel extreme sorrow about it. When you feel penitent, you may wish to do something to make up for the offending actions or words. The sorrow accompanying penitence could lead to depression or feelings of low self-worth if left unaddressed.

Self-Condemnation

Self-condemnation may be a challenging guilt synonym. When you feel self-condemnation, you may pass severe judgment on yourself because of what you did (or failed to do). Self-condemnation means that you not only feel guilty but also criticize yourself to the point that you cannot move past your guilt and shame.

Self-Reproach

Self-reproach is another guilt synonym, like self-condemnation. With self-reproach comes feelings of guilt, shame, low self-worth, blame, and sorrow. 

When you experience feelings of self-reproach, you may feel stuck focusing on the offending actions or words. You may be overwhelmed with these feelings and struggle to move on from them.

Peccability

Peccability is an often-unknown guilt synonym. The word is the opposite of «impeccability» (meaning immaculateness or blamelessness). From a religious perspective, peccability can also be used to describe «sin.» You may feel extreme shame over your words or actions when you feel peccable. You might even feel you have «sinned» against your religion or a universal moral code.

Getting Help With Guilt

Mild feelings of guilt are often typical and temporary. However, if you are feeling such intense guilt or shame that you are fixating on it, unable to move on, or experiencing sorrow that interferes with your daily life, you may want to seek out support from a mental health professional. 

Studies have shown that people who experience shame are at greater risk of developing anxiety and depression. A trained therapist can discuss your feelings with you and help you resolve feelings of intense guilt. 

People who experience extreme guilt and shame often withdraw from others. In some cases, they may not want to leave their house. In this case, online therapy may be an option. Online therapy with a licensed professional has been shown to help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. 

If you’re ready to reach out for emotional support, consider signing up for a platform like BetterHelp for individuals or ReGain for couples. Both platforms offer a match-based system to find you support from a therapist who may specialize in your concerns. 

Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation. It is closely related to the concept of remorse.

Quotes[edit]

• You know, I experimented with feeling guilty about the whole thing, but it seemed like too much work. I mean, I wasn’t even born then. I tried, I wallowed for a few months, and it just felt dumb.
  • Charlie Jane Anders, Suicide Drive (2008), reprinted in Rich Horton (ed.), The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2009 (p. 260)

• It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent. The youth of Germany is surrounded, on all sides and in all walks of life, by men in positions of authority and in public office who are very guilty indeed but who feel nothing of the sort. The normal reaction to this state of affairs should be indignation, but indignation would be quite risky—not a danger to life and limb but definitely a handicap in a career. Those young German men and women who every once in a while—on the occasion of all the Diary of Anne Frank hubbub and of the Eichmann trial—treat us to hysterical outbursts of guilt feelings are not staggering under the burden of the past, their fathers’ guilt; rather they are trying to escape from the pressure of very present and actual problems into a cheap sentimentality.
  • Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. XV.

• [O]nly in a metaphorical sense can one say he feels guilty for what not he but his father or his people have done. (Morally speaking, it is hardly less wrong to feel guilty without having done something specific than it is to feel free of all guilt if one is actually guilty of something.)
  • Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Postscript to the revised (1965) edition.

• It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognized for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of «No», by the use of the word «naughty», and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child’s life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time.
  • Alice Bailey Education in the New Age (1954)

• Capitalism is presumably the first case of a blaming, rather than a repenting cult. … An enormous feeling of guilt not itself knowing how to repent, grasps at the cult, not in order to repent for this guilt, but to make it universal, to hammer it into consciousness and finally and above all to include God himself in this guilt.
  • Walter Benjamin, «Capitalism as Religion» (1921), Translated by Chad Kautzer in The Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers (2005), p. 259

• The soul must accept guilt in order to destroy existing evil, lest it incur the greater guilt of idyllic withdrawal, of seeming to be good by putting up with wrong.
  • Ernst Bloch, Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959/1970), p. 36

• Guilt. It’s this mechanism we use to control people. It’s an illusion. It’s a kind of social control mechanism and it’s very unhealthy. It does terrible things to our body.
  • Ted Bundy, quoted in Michaud, Stephen; Aynesworth, Hugh The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy (1999) pg. 320

• In England a man is presoomed to be innocent till he’s proved guilty an’ they take it f ‘r granted he’s guilty. In this counthry a man is presoomed to be guilty ontil he’s proved guilty an’ afther that he’s presoomed to be innocent.
  • Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley’s opinions (1901), p. 212.

• Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.
  • Henry Fielding, Amelia (1751), Book III, chapter 11.

• No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other.
  • Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, p. 101.

• He declares himself guilty who justifies himself before accusation.
  • Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732).

• That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man.
  • Khalil Gibran, The Voice of the Master (trans. Anthony R. Ferris, 1958), p. 32.

• To be judged by the state as an innocent, is to be guilty. It is to sanction, through passivity and obedience, the array of crimes carried out by the state.
  • Chris Hedges, “Happy as a Hangman,” truthdig.com, December 6, 2010.

• They who feel guilty are afraid, and they who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
  • Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1954).

• Where guilt is, rage and courage both abound.
  • Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall (1602).

• It is said to have happened that a man who by his misdeeds became liable to punishment under the law returned to society a reformed man after having served his sentence. Then he went to a foreign country where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten; then came a fugitive who recognized the esteemed man as his peer back in those wretched days. To meet was an appalling recollection; to shudder at it in passing was a deadly anxiety. Even silent, it shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Then despair suddenly seized the man who seemed redeemed, and it seized him just because repentance was forgotten, because this civically reformed man was still not surrendered to God in such a way that in the humility of repentance he remembered his former condition. In the temporal and sensuous and civic sense, repentance is still also something that comes and goes over the years, but in the eternal sense it is a quiet daily concern.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, 1846, Hong p. 17-18.

• These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,
  Rare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear.
  • John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), line 901.

• Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in Walter Kaufmann, translator, The Portable Nietzsche (1954), p. 96-97.

• Friends and comrades! On that side [south] are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south.
  • Francisco Pizarro. This English translation of a 1527 manuscript is in William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru (1848), vol. 1, p. 263.

• Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience.
  • Plautus, Mostellaria, Act III, scene i, line 14.

• These instances are selected by the learned author as typical of the working of our national nostrum, ‘Not Proven’, as applied to nice and perplexing cases: a verdict which has been construed by the profane to mean ‘Not Guilty, but don’t do it again’.
  • William Roughead, Famous crimes (1935), p. 204.

• And then it started like a guilty thing
  Upon a fearful summons.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 1, line 148.

• O, she is fallen
  Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
  Hath drops too few to wash her clean again.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act IV, scene 1, line 141.

• Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.
  • Robert South «On the Danger of Presumptuous Sins», in Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions (1727), Vol. 3, p. 291.

• I don’t like the word sin. It implies that I am being judged and found guilty. I can understand that. Over the centuries, many erroneous views and interpretations have accumulated around words such as sin, due to ignorance, misunderstanding, or a desire to control…Don’t get stuck on the level of words.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.70

• A word is no more than a means to an end. Its an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself. The word honey isn’t honey… You can talk or think about God continuously for the rest of your life, but does that mean you know or have even glimpsed the reality to which the word points? … if a word doesn’t work for you anymore, then drop it and replace it with one that does work. If you don’t like the word sin, then call it unconsciousness or insanity. That may get you closer to the truth, the reality behind the word, than a long-misused word like sin, and leaves little room for guilt.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.71

• A land of levity is a land of guilt.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII. Preface.

• No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.
  • Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity (1939).

• He who flies proves himself guilty.
  • Danish proverb; reported in Robert Christy, Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages (1888), vol. 1, p. 471. The Bible says, «The wicked flee when no man pursueth». Proverbs 28:1.

• He declares himself guilty who justifies himself before accusation.
  • Proverb; reported in Robert Christy, Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages (1888), p. 470, no. 12. Rev. F. P. Wilson, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, 3d ed. (1970), p. 234, has «He who excuses himself, accuses himself». Shakespeare expressed it as, «And oftentimes excusing of a fault / Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse», King John, act IV, scene ii, lines 30–31.

Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 345-46.

• In ipsa dubitatione facinus inest, etiamsi ad id non pervenerint.
  • Guilt is present in the very hesitation, even though the deed be not committed.
  • Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), III. 8.

• Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
  • Ulysses S. Grant, indorsement of a letter relating to the Whiskey Ring (July 29, 1875).

• What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, The Flight of Two Owls.

• How guilt once harbour’d in the conscious breast,
  Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
  • Samuel Johnson, Irene, Act IV, scene 8.

• The gods
  Grow angry with your patience. ‘Tis their care,
  And must be yours, that guilty men escape not:
  As crimes do grow, justice should rouse itself.
  • Ben Jonson, Catiline, Act III, scene 5.

• Exemplo quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi
  Displicet auctori. Prima est hæc ultio, quod se
  Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.
  • Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), XIII. 1.

• Ingenia humana sunt ad suam cuique levandam culpam nimio plus facunda.
  • Men’s minds are too ingenious in palliating guilt in themselves.
  • Livy, Annales, XXVIII. 25.

• Facinus quos inquinat æquat.
  • Those whom guilt stains it equals.
  • Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, V. 290.

• Nulla manus belli, mutato judice, pura est.
  • Neither side is guiltless if its adversary is appointed judge.
  • Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, VII. 263.

• Heu! quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu.
  • Alas! how difficult it is to prevent the countenance from betraying guilt.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, II. 447.

• Dum ne ob male facta peream, parvi æstimo.
  • I esteem death a trifle, if not caused by guilt.
  • Plautus, Captivi, III. 5. 24.

• Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis conscius.
  • Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.
  • Plautus, Mostellaria, Act III. 1. 13.

• How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!
  • Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 230.

• Haste, holy Friar,
  Haste, ere the sinner shall expire!
  Of all his guilt let him be shriven,
  And smooth his path from earth to heaven!
  • Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Canto V, Stanza 22.

• Haud est nocens, quicumque non sponte est nocens.
  • He is not guilty who is not guilty of his own free will.
  • Seneca the Younger, Hercules Œtæus, 886.

• Multa trepidus solet
  Detegere vultus.
  • The fearful face usually betrays great guilt.
  • Seneca the Younger, Thyestes, CCCXXX.

• Fatetur facinus is qui judicium fugit.
  • He who flees from trial confesses his guilt.
  • Syrus, Maxims.

• Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
  Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
  • John Webster, The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona, Act V, scene 6.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense.^[1] It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.^[2] It is closely related to the concept of remorse.

Moral and legal definitions

«Guilt» is the obligation of a person who has violated a moral standard to bear the sanctions imposed by that moral standard. In legal terms, guilt means having been found to have violated a criminal law,^[1] though law also raises ‘the issue of defences, pleas, the mitigation of offences, and the defeasibility of claims’.^[3]

A three-fold division is sometimes made between ‘ objective or legal guilt, which occurs when society’s laws have been broken…Social guilt…[over] an unwritten law of social expectation’, and finally the way ‘ Personal guilt occurs when someone compromises one’s own standards’.^[4]

Psychology

Guilt and its associated causes, merits and demerits are common themes in psychology and psychiatry. Both in specialised and in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by ‘conscience’. Sigmund Freud described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego parental imprinting. Freud rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he described another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that contributed to illness. Freud came to consider ‘the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt…as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery’^[5].

Alice Miller claims that ‘many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents’ expectations….stronger than any intellectual insight, no argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life’s earliest period, and from that they derive their intensity and obduracy’.^[6] This may be linked to what has been called ‘the disease of false guilt….At the root of false guilt is the idea that what you feel must be true’:^[7] if you feel guilty, you must be guilty!

The philosopher Martin Buber underlined the difference between the Freudian notion of guilt, based on internal conflicts, and existential guilt, based on actual harm done to others.^[8]

Guilt is often associated with depression, and sometimes anxiety. In mania, the patient succeeds in applying to guilt ‘the defense mechanism of denial by overcompensation…re-enacts being a person without guilt feelings’.^[9]

Defences

‘The mastery of guilt feelings may become the all-consuming task of a person’s whole life…»counter-guilt»‘.^[10] Various techniques are possible, including repression. Freud pointed out that ‘as a rule the ego carries out repressions in the service and at the behest of its superego; but this is a case in which it has turned the same weapon against its harsh taskmaster’.^[11] The problem is that, ‘since the latter is a jealous master whose punishments are difficult to avoid’, one may (in a return of the repressed) ‘begin to feel guilty many years afterwards and perhaps break down…under the long-continued reproaches of the Superego’.^[12]

Projection is another defensive tool with wide applications. It may take the form of blaming the victim: The victim of someone else’s accident or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person’s hostility.^[13] Alternatively, ‘the superego is reprojected onto external objects for the purpose of getting rid of guilt feelings…using external objects as «witnesses» in the fight against the superego’.^[14] Here the danger is of creating ideas of reference; of ‘beginning to feel that everybody’s judging me, that you’re judging me, that, by yawning, you judge me, by being restless, you judge me…a very nice, juicy paranoia’.^[15]

Lack of guilt of psychopaths

Psychopaths lack any true sense of guilt or remorse for harm they may have caused to others. Instead, they rationalize their behavior, blame someone else, or deny it outright.^[16] This is seen by psychologists as part of a lack of moral reasoning (in comparison with the majority of humans), an inability to evaluate situations in a moral framework, and an inability to develop emotional bonds with other people.^[17]

Also known as sociopathy or antisocial personality disorder, this ‘type of behaviour disorder in the past was called «moral insanity» or «moral imbecility»‘.^[18]

Causes (etiology)

Evolutionary theories

Some evolutionary psychologists theorize that guilt and shame helped maintain beneficial relationships, such as reciprocal altruism.^[19] If a person feels guilty when he harms another, or even fails to reciprocate kindness, he is more likely not to harm others or become too selfish. In this way, he reduces the chances of retaliation by members of his tribe, and thereby increases his survival prospects, and those of the tribe or group. As with any other emotion, guilt can be manipulated to control or influence others. As a highly social animal living in large groups that are relatively stable, we need ways to deal with conflicts and events in which we inadvertently or purposefully harm others. If someone causes harm to another, and then feels guilt and demonstrates regret and sorrow, the person harmed is likely to forgive. Thus, guilt makes it possible to forgive, and helps hold the social group together.

When we see another person suffering, it can also cause us pain. This constitutes our powerful system of empathy, which leads to our thinking that we should do something to relieve the suffering of others. If we cannot help another, or fail in our efforts, we experience feelings of guilt. From the perspective of group selection, groups that are made up of a high percent of co-operators outdo groups with a low percent of co-operators in between-group competition. People who are more prone to high levels of empathy-based guilt may be likely to suffer from anxiety and depression; however, they are also more likely to cooperate and behave altruistically. This suggests that guilt-proneness may not always be beneficial at the level of the individual, or within-group competition, but highly beneficial in between-group competition.^{[citation needed]}

Other theories

Another common notion is that guilt is assigned by social processes, such as a jury trial; i. e., that it is a strictly legal concept. Thus, the ruling of a jury that O.J. Simpson or Julius Rosenberg was «guilty» or «not innocent» is taken as an actual judgment by the whole society that they must act as if they were so. By corollary, the ruling that such a person is «not guilty» may not be so taken, due to the asymmetry in the assumption that one is assumed innocent until proven guilty, and prefers to take the risk of freeing a guilty party over convicting innocents. Still others—often, but not always, theists of one type or another—believe that the origin of guilt comes from violating universal principles of right and wrong. In most instances, people who believe this also acknowledge that even though there is proper guilt from doing ‘wrong’ instead of doing ‘right,’ people endure all sorts of guilty feelings which do not stem from violating universal moral principles.

Collective guilt

Collective guilt is the unpleasant and often emotional reaction that results among a group of individuals when it is perceived that the group illegitimately harmed members of another group. It is often the result of “sharing a social identity with others whose actions represent a threat to the positivity of that identity”.^[20] Different intergroup inequalities can result in collective guilt, such as receiving unearned benefits and privileges or inflicting more extreme forms of harm on an out-group (including genocide). Individuals are generally motivated to avoid collective guilt in order to maintain a positive social identity. There are many ways of decreasing collective guilt, such as denying harm or justifying actions. Collective guilt can also lead to positive outcomes, such as promoting intergroup reconciliation and reducing negative attitudes towards the out-group.

There are several causes of collective guilt: salient group identity, collective responsibility, and perception of unjust in-group actions. In order for an individual to experience collective guilt, he must identify himself as a part of the in-group. “This produces a perceptual shift from thinking of oneself in terms of ‘I’ and ‘me’ to ‘us’ or ‘we’.”^[20] Only when an individual is salient with the in-group can they perceive responsibility for the harmful actions of the group, past and present. In addition to in-group salience, an individual will only feel collective guilt if they view the in-group as responsible for the harmful actions done to the out-group. For instance, in two studies by the American Mosaic Project, racial inequality in the US was framed as either “Black Disadvantage” or “White Privilege”. When the term “black disadvantage” was used to describe racial inequality, white participants felt less collectively responsible for the harm done to the out-group, which lessened collective guilt. In comparison, when “white privilege” was used, white participants felt more collectively responsible for the harm done, which increased collective guilt.

Lastly, an individual has to believe the actions caused by the in-group were unjustifiable, indefensible and unforgivable. If an individual can justify the actions of the in-group, this will lessen collective guilt. Only when an individual views the in-group actions as reprehensible will that individual feel collective guilt. Collective guilt is not only a result of feeling empathy for the out-group. It can also be caused by self-conscious emotion that stems from the questioning of the morality of the in-group.

There are various methods of reducing collective guilt. Some of these methods are denying the in-group’s harmful actions, denying responsibility, claiming actions by in-group were just, focusing on positive aspects caused by the harmful action, and pointing out positive things in other areas to counterbalance the harm. First, by denying the in-group’s harmful actions, or downplaying the severity of the harm, the effect of collective guilt is lessened. If the individual or group can neglect to observe the harm caused by their actions, either consciously or unconsciously, then the individual will not feel collective guilt. If a person does not feel that the in-group is responsible for the harm caused by actions, collective guilt will be lessened. Additionally, if a person believes that only individuals are responsible for their own actions, and not a collective group, than they can deny the existence of collective responsibility, thereby reducing feelings of collective guilt. An individual can rationalize the actions of the in-group. If the individual believes that there were just reasons for the harm inflicted, collective guilt is likely to be reduced. For instance, out-group dehumanization is one effective means towards justifying the in-group’s actions. By focusing on the positive aspects of the in-group’s actions rather than the harmful effects, collective guilt can be reduced. For instance, an individual or group may choose to focus on the benefits of high levels of production and consumption, rather than on its harmful effects on the environment.

Cultural views

Traditional Japanese society, Korean society and Ancient Greek society are sometimes said to be «shame-based» rather than «guilt-based», in that the social consequences of «getting caught» are seen as more important than the individual feelings or experiences of the agent (see the work of Ruth Benedict). This may lead to more of a focus on etiquette than on ethics as understood in Western civilization. This has led some in Western civilizations to question why the word ethos was adapted from Ancient Greek with such vast differences in cultural norms. Christianity and Islam inherit most notions of guilt from Judaism, Persian and Roman ideas, mostly as interpreted through Augustine, who adapted Plato’s ideas to Christianity. The Latin word for guilt is culpa, a word sometimes seen in law literature, for instance in mea culpa meaning «my fault (guilt)».

Etymology

Guilt, from O.E. gylt «crime, sin, fault, fine,» of unknown origin, though some suspect a connection to O.E. gieldan «to pay for, debt,» but O.E.D. editors find this «inadmissible phonologically». The mistaken use for «sense of guilt» is first recorded 1690. «Guilt by association» is first recorded in 1941. «Guilty» is from O.E. gyltig, from gylt.

In literature

Guilt is a main theme in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Edgar Allan Poe’s «The Tell-Tale Heart» and «The Black Cat», and many other works of literature. It is a major theme in many works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is an almost universal concern of novelists who explore inner life and secrets.

In the Bible

Guilt in the Christian Bible is not merely an emotional state but is a legal state of deserving punishment. The Hebrew Bible does not have a unique word for guilt, but uses a single word to signify: «sin, the guilt of it, the punishment due unto it, and a sacrifice for it».^[21] The Greek New Testament uses a word for guilt that means «standing exposed to judgment for sin» (e.g. Romans 3:19). In the Old Testament the Bible says that through sacrifice one’s sins can be forgiven. The New Testament says that sin will be forgiven by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Saviour (John 3:16). Accordingly, the old and new testaments have differing opinions on the expiation of guilt. It is also theoretically possible to fulfill conditions of both biblical guilt escape methods (A: pay a sacrifice for one’s sins, and B: accept Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Saviour), yet still to be unable to let go of guilt, arguably because of failure at self-forgiveness.

Remedies

Guilt can sometimes be remedied by: punishment (a common action and advised or required in many legal and moral codes); forgiveness (as in transformative justice); making amends (see reparation (legal) or acts of reparation), or ‘restitution…an important step in finding freedom from real guilt’;^[22] or by sincere remorse (as with confession in Catholicism or restorative justice). Guilt can also be remedied through intellectualisation or cognition ^[23] (the understanding that the source of the guilty feelings was illogical or irrelevant). Helping other people can also help relieve guilt feelings: ‘thus guilty people are often helpful people…helping, like receiving an external reward, seemed to get people feeling better’.^[24] There are also the so-called ‘Don Juans of achievement…who pay the installments due their superego not by suffering but by achievements….Since no achievement succeeds in really undoing the unconscious guilt, these persons are compelled to run from one achievement to another’.^[25]

Law does not usually accept the agent’s self-punishment, but some ancient codes did: in Athens, the accused could propose their own remedy, which could, in fact, be a reward, while the accuser proposed another, and the jury chose something in-between. This forced the accused to effectively bet on his support in the community, as Socrates did when he proposed «room and board in the town hall» as his fate. He lost, and drank hemlock, a poison, as advised by his accuser.

Finally, although the research has not been done, guilt (like many other emotions) can sometimes wear out and be forgotten in the passage of time.

See also

References

Further reading

• «Guilt in Think On These Things«. http://www.svchapel.org/Resources/articles/read_articles.asp?id=3. Retrieved 2006-02-16.^{[dead link]} by Gary Gilley
• «The Innocent Bear the Guilt for the Guilty Ones». http://TarotCanada.tripod.com/GermanyCollectiveGuilt.html. Retrieved 2007-05-10. by Gerd Altendorff translation by Jochen Reiss
• Tangney JP, Miller RS, Flicker L, Barlow DH (June 1996). «Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions?». J Pers Soc Psychol 70 (6): 1256–69. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1256. PMID 8667166. http://content.apa.org/journals/psp/70/6/1256.

External links

• Guilt, unconscious sense of
• Guilt on In Our Time at the BBC. (listen now)
• Learnt or innate

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Worldviews	Compatibilism · Existentialism · Fatalism · Incompatibilism · Metaphysics · Nihilism · Optimism · Pessimism · Reclusion · Social justice · Weltschmerz
Source: Parrott, W. (2001), Emotions in Social Psychology, Psychology Press, Philadelphia.