Abstract

It is largely taken for granted that painful self-assessing emotions such as guilt, remorse, and regret are appropriate emotional responses to acting in a moral dilemma. The major arguments in support of this seemingly commonsensical thesis work from one or more of the following rationales: the emotions show the world that we are committed to moral ends not reflected by our action, the emotions are understandable byproducts of a healthy moral education, and the emotions reflect our making a connection to the wrongness of our dilemmatic act. I challenge these rationales and argue the contrary thesis that a truly admirable agent would not feel such negative self-assessing emotions because he would apprehend his moral role, if not his causal role, as marginal. Given that an admirable agent would not feel those emotions, I contend that ethical theorists should stop endorsing and celebrating such emotional responses