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Guilt

Stanford University Press

Contents

Preface.............................................................ixAcknowledgments.....................................................xvii1 Guilt and Its Neighbors...........................................12 Commandments and Sins.............................................283 Guilt and Relationships...........................................624 Guilt without Transgression.......................................885 The Pathology of Guilt............................................1126 The Development of Moral Judgment.................................1397 The Evolution of Guilt............................................1678 Guilt in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.........................1929 Guilt in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.....................22710 Guilt in the Light of Reason.....................................25611 Guilt in the Courtroom...........................................285Epilogue............................................................307Notes...............................................................315Index...............................................................355

Chapter One

When I was in college, I fashioned in my imagination an idealized image of a woman who would one day fulfill all my yearnings. During my last year at architecture school, I met that woman—at least, I thought I did. Cynthia seemed to embody all that I wanted. She was beautiful, intelligent, and gifted; a strong-willed woman with enormous self-confidence. If I could have her, there was nothing more I could ask of the Lord. Men far more mature and better established than me courted her. Yet, to my amazement, I was the one who won her heart—at least, I thought I did. By the time we got married, I knew it was an awful mistake. Yet, I felt trapped and went ahead with it out of a misguided sense of commitment, the fear of losing face, and the crumbling residues of my insane passion for her. Soon enough, our lives became mired in a gloomy discontent that did not even have the cleansing relief of emotional outbursts. Feelings of guilt permeated my life as I blamed myself for making Cynthia feel miserable, condemning myself to a bleak future and most of all, for failing God, who had granted me what I wanted so desperately. As our marriage dragged on, and I tried to lose myself in my work, my feelings of guilt became blunted and gave way to resignation and resentment. Since Cynthia was as unhappy as I was, I tried to persuade her that we would be better off going our separate ways. Yet, the prospect of losing me made her tighten her grip for reasons I could not fathom. Finally, I left her. Some months after our separation, I met with Cynthia with the hope of getting a handle on our stalled relationship. Our encounter was surprisingly amicable but we made no headway. As I was leaving, Cynthia broke down and begged me to let her come back to me. I was stunned. She had never—not once—expressed the slightest regret or ever admitted guilt for anything that concerned me. Since I knew she had a conscience, she must have been stubbornly proud to admit such feelings or contemptuous to express them. Yet here she was pleading with me in abject humility. As I looked into her tearful emerald eyes, my arms yearned to embrace her but my legs urged me to run. With a wan smile, I turned around and walked to my car. As I drove on, an overwhelming sense of guilt washed over me. How could I cause so much pain? How could my hopes for a happier life be purchased at the cost of so much suffering? I wanted to turn back, but I pressed on like a prey running from a predator. Cynthia's remorse was no doubt genuine and I could forgive her but I could not imagine living with her for the rest of my life. It took a couple of years before my lingering sense of guilt allowed me to file for divorce. When it became clear that I was determined to go through with it, Cynthia became vindictive. That, more than anything else, hardened my heart enough to break free. As our divorce became public, my lingering guilt became replaced by a mounting sense of shame. For the first time I had failed in a big way. It was hard to know which hurt more—the guilt or the shame.

PHILIP K. is a brilliant young architect and Cynthia is a gifted painter. One may wonder how two attractive, intelligent, and decent individuals could blunder into such a mismatched relationship. However, what concerns us here is not that intriguing issue but the role that guilt plays in such human dramas. How are we to understand Philip's struggle with guilt? Is he a merely a man with a sensitive audience or excessive, pathological guilt? Is guilt the reflection of his guilt-prone character or the result of his troubled relationship with Cynthia? If Philip had married someone else, would he have been free of the guilt that burdened his life? Had Cynthia married someone more mature, would she have been as inclined, or as successful, in inducing guilt in her husband? We do not have Cynthia's side of the story to better understand her, but does she come across to you as the villain or the victim of this sorry tale? Should there always be villains and victims or could the relationship itself be at fault? In that case, does guilt help or hinder intimate relationships? Does it enhance love or fuel hatred?

We have so far addressed these matters in psychological and relational terms. However, guilt has equally significant social and cultural components. Philip came from a traditional and conservative background. In his community, divorce was rare and disgraceful. Given his family's social prominence and his own reputation as an exemplary young man, it was particularly galling for Philip to get branded with the shame of his divorce. It also raised the question of whether Philip had correctly understood God's will or substituted his own desires for it. Philip's sense of personal failure and the prospect of public condemnation of his divorce enhanced each other in generating Philip's raging feelings of guilt and shame.

Even if most of us have not have suffered through the same experiences that Philip did, there must have been other occasions for us to know what it is like to feel guilty or ashamed. Philip refers to these emotions as distinct feelings that troubled him at different times in different ways. That is the way most of us think too. However, guilt and shame, as well as regret and embarrassment, were tangled up in Philip's experience (as they often are in ours).

When we do something wrong, or shameful, we "feel bad." Usually, we do not stop to tease apart and label what these feelings consist of. It is only when we reflect on them, or try to convey them to others, that we attach labels to them, saying we feel guilty or ashamed. Such labels are readily understood since the feelings they convey are widely shared. However, as often as not, these feelings are neither discrete nor sharply defined in our minds. Even those who study them do not always agree on what they represent.

It is also worth noting that lay and scientific usage of the terminology for emotions often differ quite a bit. In other words, when we use terms like shame and guilt in...