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 mix...
