Wednesday, April 25, 2012
On guilt
It is an interesting notion that guil somehow plays a part in our moral framework, or a facet in helping us find meaning in our lives. The connotation to guilt is that it is often a feeling inspired by a lack of action taken on the part of the indiviudal or the reaction to do performing an immoral act. While this is true and guilt could be a means of internally regulating our behaviors by means of negative reinforcement, it could also be a sign of an inclination towards empathy in the human condition. As we discussed today a person is capable of feeling guilt in situations which may conflict with an already adopted moral code or societal norm, this could be evidence that human beings can develop the capacity to have an emotive response to a state of affairs and recognize the unjust conditions of a given experience. I am unsure if guilt calls us to action as more often it seems to be a state where we reflexively evaluate our moral character and hope to change our behavior in future experiences as to replace the feeling of guilt with one of pleasure we receive from performing a moral act.
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Avery and I recently, I think a week or two ago, had a conversation on morality. We decided that morality is based largely on three things: evolution, logic/reason, and emotion/intuition. Evolution supplies basic morals, then you can use logic/reasoning to extend those basic morals to new situations. Emotion, specifically empathy, helps us to understand that there are other creatures that have worth in themselves. It fosters a sort of golden rule which reinforces our morality. I think that guilt fits fairly well into the view of morality; it's our ability to feel negatively after we neglect the emotional aspect of morality. I think the emotional aspect of morality is very important and calls us to action. Guilt, I think, does not call us to action as it is reflective, as you mentioned. However, I think that other parts of the emotional aspect are very important to how we behave. When people neglect to be moved by emotion to behave morally, you get those who accept arguments for such things as vegetarians but, because they don't feel like it's the right thing to do, continue to ignore the moral obligation recognized by evolution and reasoning.
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