You might say you feel guilty because you feel you wronged
others. Guilt encourages you not to wrong again or even to rectify that wrong.
So guilt serves to punish, to rehabilitate and to restore. It is your internal
penal system.
Also, guilt deepens our sense of belonging to others by
forcing us to consider others’ perspectives. Paradoxically, guilt bonds us together by forcing us to
confront the bitter loneliness of our own singular conduct.
But what if you were wrong to feel guilty?
Then you are inflicting pain on yourself unnecessarily. You
are a masochist. What’s worse, the sadistic pain-inflictor is also you,
yourself. Moreover, rather than binding you to others, your guilt is driving a
psychological wedge between you and them that need not exist.
So the questions remain:
Should I feel guilty?
Must I feel guilty?
The questions guilt asks of us are difficult to confront
directly. Consequently many view others’ ethics as perverse. If we err too much
towards guilt, we never take risks, or indulge in ultimately positive
behaviours. If we err too much away from guilt, we exonerate ourselves from
behaviour the reasonable man considers blameworthy.
From the banker to the mother, this dilemma faces us all.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4b0HYxOSvI
