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Agent Regret and Guilt

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As a matter of the psychology of emotions, or for that matter of moral philosophy: is agent regret the same thing as guilt?

Jake Wojtowicz, a philosophy PhD student at King's College in London, thinks not. That is the subject of his ongoing dissertation work, and the subject of a lot of the tweets in his twitter account too.

It has taken me some time to come to grips with the terminology. "Agent regret" doesn't mean, "regret that one has hired the wrong agent," which is presumably what Britney Spears feels toward -- just about any agent she's ever had. Agent regret means regrets about one' actions in one's capacity as a moral agent. "Oh, damn, I cheated that poor soul. Terrible thing I did," Is that the same as guilt?

The case that it isn't the same as guilt is apparently that agent regret is acquired by looking at one's self as if from the outside, whereas true guilt is more of an internal matter.

This seems to be mixed up with the broader argument between advocates of virtue ethics (i.e. Aristoteleans) on the one hand and advocates of duty ethics (Kantians) on the other. If I understand it properly, a big "if," the Kantians think you need to be able to feel agent remorse in order to be a fully moral being. The Aristoteleans think you can make do without it -- apparently you can get along with guilt instead. Us consequentialists are allowed to say they're the same thing so its six of one and half a dozen of the other.

If you have further questions, contact Mr Wojtowicz, before or after he becomes Dr Wojtowicz.

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  1. HenryFebruary 2, 2019 at 8:41 AM

    One feels regret for a reason; one just feels guilt. A reason to feel regret might be that one got caught, that the consequences of the action were not what one expected, that performing the action made one disappointed in oneself, or that performing the action made one feel guilty. The latter two are different. Suppose that I kill someone whom I consider evil and whom I hate. I feel no guilt over it. Yet I regret it because I consider murder to be immoral even if, as in this case, it seems to have made the world a better place, and I had liked to think of myself as a moral person.

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    1. HenryFebruary 2, 2019 at 8:52 AM

      One might also regret having done something because it made one feel guilty, even though one is otherwise happy with the consequences, does not believe that the action was immoral, and therefore considers the guilt irrational.

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