Olwen Bedford and Kwang-Kuo Hwang, Guilt and Shame in Chinese Culture: A Cross-cultural Framework from the Perspective of Morality and Identity, pp. 127–144.This article formulates a cross-cultural framework for understanding guilt and shame based on a conceptualization of identity and morality in Western and Confucian cultures. First, identity is examined in each culture, and then the relation between identity and morality illuminated. The role of guilt and shame in upholding the boundaries of identity and enforcing (...) the constraints of morality is then discussed from the perspective of each culture. The developed framework is then applied the emotions of guilt and shame in Chinese culture drawing on previous field research. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

This collection of essays, on French and francophone prose, poetry, drama, visual art, cinema and thought, assesses guilt and shame in relation to structures of ...

Shame and guilt are negative social emotions that are sensitive to culture, and findings from past research have suggested that shame impairs perspective-taking cognitive ability more than guilt does. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of research that has considered culture and experimentally tested the effect of shame and guilt on perspective-taking. Taking an experimental perspective, this study aimed to examine how shame and guilt states affect perspective-taking performance in (...) two different cultures. Data from German and Turkish female college students provided support for the effect of emotional state and culture on perspective-taking, but there was no interaction between them. We discussed the results and possible explanations for them in light of the literature. (shrink)

The distinction between shame cultures and guilt cultures is due to the anthropologist Ruth Benedict. The moral education of the youth in a shame culture will involve a multitude of prescriptions determining how to conduct oneself. Heroic societies with a closed aristocratic warrior class are typically shame cultures. The form of the dominant norms of a guilt culture is the imperative or dominative tense, which determines what one is obligated to do. This is the typical form (...) of the obligation‐imposing commandments of God. A primary focus of shame in the emerging guilt culture became sexuality and the body, and shame became forcefully riveted to the notion of sin. Feeling shame, like feeling pride, lies at the centre of a ramifying cluster of emotions and emotional attitudes. Shame bears a kinship to embarrassment. Embarrassment is distinguished from feeling shame in so far as it is essentially an audience‐involving emotion. (shrink)

Guilt appeals have been found effective in stimulating ethical consumption behaviors in western cultures. However, studies performed in Confucian cultural contexts have found contradictory results. We aim to investigate the inconclusive results of research on guilt and ethical consumption and to explain the inconsistencies. We aim to better understand the influence of guilt on ethical consumption in a Chinese Confucian context and to explore the culturally relevant individual-level concept of interdependent self-construal as a moderator. We build our (...) argument on the Confucian ethics of ren-yi-li where the virtue of propriety specifies role-based obligations depending on the proximity of one’s relationship to others and may thus limit ethical behaviors that are directed to those who are relationally distant. We hypothesize a positive relationship between guilt and ethical consumption that is, however, negatively moderated by interdependent self-construal. Put another way, consumers who define themselves strongly through their relationships with close others are less likely to compensate for guilt through ethical consumption. We find the hypothesized model supported in a survey of 314 Chinese consumers. The results suggest that guilt appeals can stimulate ethical consumption in Confucian cultures. However, guilt appeals may not be enough, as the moderating effect suggests that they will be most effective when combined with an ethical consumption initiative that conforms to the Confucian li principle. As this principle implies prioritizing close over distant relationships, it follows that consumers may be more likely to respond to guilt appeals which are linked to ethical consumption initiatives whose beneficiaries they feel connected to. (shrink)

The stark theological polarities of damnation and salvation have haunted representations of guilt in Western culture for thousands of years. Friedrich Ohly's classic study The Damned and the Elect, first published in English in 1992, offers a comparative cultural history of figures such as Oedipus, Judas and Faust, from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, into modern times. Looking at the works of writers such as Sophocles, Dante, Marlowe, Bunyan, Goethe, and Thomas Mann, Ohly's wide-ranging arguments weave deftly across (...) different cultures and periods to illuminate one of the most salient themes in Western literature. (shrink)

G.E.M. Anscombe argued that we should dispense with deontic concepts when doing ethics, if it is psychologically possible to do so. In response, I contend that deontic concepts are constitutive of the common moral experience of guilt. This has two consequences for Anscombe's position. First, seeing that guilt is a deontic emotion, we should recognize that Anscombe's qualification on her thesis applies: psychologically, we need deontology to understand our obligations and hence whether our guilt is warranted. Second, (...) the fact that guilt is a deontic moral emotion debunks Anscombe's claim that deontic concepts are a relic of the Western, religious past: guilt feelings–hence the idea of moral duty as well–can be found in cultures without an ethics of divine command. Modern moral philosophers' interest in oughts and obligations is not an academic hobbyhorse, but a vital concern arising out of a primeval human emotion. (shrink)

The stark theological polarities of damnation and salvation have haunted representations of guilt in Western culture for thousands of years. Friedrich Ohly's classic study The Damned and the Elect, first published in English in 1992, offers a comparative cultural history of figures such as Oedipus, Judas and Faust, from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, into modern times. Looking at the works of writers such as Sophocles, Dante, Marlowe, Bunyan, Goethe, and Thomas Mann (and illustrating his ideas with reference (...) to representation in the visual arts), Ohly's wide-ranging arguments weave deftly across different cultures and periods to illuminate one of the most salient themes in Western literature. (shrink)

We are interested in the relations among shame, guilt, and embarrassment and especially in how each relates to judgments of character. We start by analyzing the distinction between being and feeling guilty, and unearth the role of shame as a guilt feeling. We proceed to examine shame and guilt in relation to moral responsibility and to flaws of character. We address a recent psychological finding that shame is both destructive and in so far as it has a (...) social function could be replaced by guilt. We reinterpret the guilt culture/shame culture distinction in terms of our way of distinguishing these emotions. Finally we examine embarrassment as distinct from shame and find the difference to lie not so much in the phenomenology of the participant as it is in context, and in which elements of the context the speaker describing the emotion wishes to stress. We conclude by defending shame despite its psychological troubles. (shrink)

How do experiences of shame and guilt shape or reflect the ways in which the vanquished are reconciled (or not) to the new world order established by the victors? Shame and guilt are universal experiences in the emotional landscape of post-war politics, albeit for different reasons and with radically different political effects. An examination of Germany after 1918 and of Japan after 1945 reveals that experiences of shame and guilt may be pivotal for creating conditions of possibility (...) for reconciliation marked by political and moral transformation. This transformative potential of shame and guilt, however, is a double-edged sword. In threatening old identities, values and beliefs, experiences of shame and guilt may provoke defensive, reactionary and violent political responses, and thus may precipitate hideous rather than salutary transformations. Political leadership and political culture are crucial factors in shaping the kind of reconciliation — reactionary or transformative — as well as the specific nature of transformations that experiences of shame and guilt may motivate the vanquished to pursue. (shrink)

This is the first study of guilt from a wide variety of perspectives: psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, six major religions, four key moral philosophers, and the law. Katchadourian explores the ways in which guilt functions within individual lives and intimate relationships, looking at behaviors that typically induce guilt in both historical and modern contexts. He examines how the capacity for moral judgments develops within individuals and through evolutionary processes. He then turns to the socio-cultural aspects (...) of guilt and addresses society's attempts to come to terms with guilt as culpability through the legal process. This personal work draws from, and integrates, material from extensive primary and secondary literature. Through the extensive use of literary and personal accounts, it provides an intimate picture of what it is like to experience this universal emotion. Written in clear and engaging prose, with a touch of humor, _Guilt_ should appeal to a wide audience. (shrink)

Burnout was recently declared by WHO as an “occupational phenomenon” in the International Classification of Diseases 11th revision, recognizing burnout as a serious health issue. Earlier studies have shown that feelings of guilt appear to be involved in the burnout process. However, the exact nature of the relationships among burnout, guilt and psychosomatic disorders remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediator role of feelings of guilt in the relationship between burnout and psychosomatic (...) disorders, and perform a cross-cultural validation of the multi-dimensional model by Gil-Monte in two samples of teachers. The study sample was composed of 1,266 teachers, 1,062 from Spain, and 204 from Portugal. Burnout was measured by the Spanish Burnout Inventory. Hypotheses were tested together in a path model. The results obtained provide empirical evidence for the mediator role of guilt in the relationship between the Burnout syndrome and psychosomatic disorders in the sample of teachers from Spain and Portugal, and they contribute to the empirical validation of the model by Gil-Monte. The results indicate that guilt should be incorporated as a symptom of burnout in order to identify individuals affected by burnout and profiles or types of burnout to differentiate it from other pathologies like depression. (shrink)

The author, an experienced psychiatrist and professor, examines the feeling of guilt in different times, places, cultures, religions, and contexts.

In this article, I examine the relevance and desirability of shame and guilt to restorative justice conferences. I argue that a careful study of the psychology of shame and guilt reveals that both emotions possess traits that can be desirable and traits that can be undesirable for restoration. More in particular, having presented the aims of restorative justice, the importance of face-to-face conferences in reaching these aims, the emotional dynamics that take place within such conferences, and the relevant (...) parts of the empirical psychology of shame and guilt, I argue that restorative justice practitioners have to take account of a rather more complex picture than it had hitherto been thought. Restorative conferences are not simply about "shame management," though practitioners must certainly avoid shaming and humiliation. Given the nature of shame, guilt, and restorative conferences, it is not possible to provide a single concrete precept applicable to all restorative conferences. The successful holding of conferences depends in large part on the cultural and situational specificities at hand. The latter include among others knowledge of the perceived relations standing between victim and offender as well as the affective specificities of the individuals involved. (shrink)

Previous research has found a rich lexicon of shame and guilt terms in Chinese, but how comparable these terms are to “shame” or “guilt” in English remains a question. We identified eight commonly used Chinese terms translated as “shame” and “guilt”. Study 1 assessed the Chinese terms’ intensities, social characteristics, and action tendencies among 40 Chinese speakers. Testing term production in the reverse direction, Study 2 asked another Chinese-speaking sample (N = 85) to endorse emotion terms in (...) response to eight eliciting scenarios generated using each term’s social characteristics from Study 1. A native English-speaking sample (N = 83) was also included to examine the production of English emotion terms and compare motivational tendencies cross-culturally. Using this cross-referencing method, we found that some of the Chinese terms shared similar social-functional characteristics to their English translation, but some had distinct profiles. The two large shame-like and guilt-like term categories yielded in Study 1 were replicated in Study 2’s Chinese term-production task where larger-scale correspondences between categorised elicitors and term clusters were found. Meanwhile, English speakers’ term use provided further evidence for the equivalence between some Chinese terms and “shame” or “guilt” both in terms of their social and motivational characteristics. (shrink)

Cross-cultural comparisons can a) illuminate the manner in which cultures differentially highlight, ignore, and group various facets of emotional experience, and b) shed light on our evolved species-typical emotional architecture. In many societies, concern with shame is one of the principal factors regulating social behavior. Three studies conducted in Bengkulu and California explored the nature and experience of shame in two disparate cultures. Study 1, perceived term use frequency, indicated that shame is more prominent in Bengkulu, a collectivistic culture, (...) than in California, an individualistic culture. Study 2, comparing naturally occurring shame events with reports thereof, revealed that shame is associated with guilt-like accounts in California but not in Bengkulu, and subordinance events in Bengkulu but not in California; published reports suggest that the latter pattern is prominent worldwide. Study 3 mapped the semantic domain of shame using a synonym task; again, guilt was prominent in California, subordinance in Bengkulu. Because shame is overshadowed by guilt in individualistic cultures, and because these cultures downplay aversive emotions associated with subordinance, a fuller understanding of shame is best arrived at through the study of collectivistic cultures such as Bengkulu. After reviewing evolutionary theories on the origins and functions of shame, I evaluate these perspectives in light of facets of this emotion evident in Bengkulu and elsewhere. The available data are consistent with the proposition that shame evolved from a rank-related emotion and, while motivating prestige competition, cooperation, and conformity, nevertheless continues to play this role in contemporary humans. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aestheticism, Homoeroticism, and Christian Guilt in The Picture of Dorian GrayJoseph CarrollSince the advent of the poststructuralist revolution some thirty years ago, interpretive literary criticism has suppressed two concepts that had informed virtually all previous literary thinking: (1) the idea of the author as an individual person and an originating source for literary meaning, and (2) the idea of "human nature" as the represented subject and common frame (...) of reference for literary depictions. Under the tutelage of Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault, literary critics learned to speak of authors, characters, settings, and plots not as individuals situated in a natural world but as discursive formations constituted by the circulation of linguistic, cultural, and ideological energies. In the three decades during which poststructuralism has dominated academic literary study, a different kind of revolution—evolutionary, Darwinian, and naturalistic—has been transforming the social sciences. Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, Darwinian anthropology, behavioral ecology, cognitive archaeology, and behavioral genetics do not all agree with one another in every respect, but they are all nonetheless aspects or phases of a common research program. The central working hypothesis in this program is that the human species, like all other species, has evolved in an adaptive relation to its environment and that as a consequence it has a distinct, genetically transmitted, species-typical set of characteristics—anatomical, physiological, hormonal, neurological, and behavioral. That set of characteristics is what in common language is meant by "human nature." Literature has always given us subjectively evocative depictions of human nature, and Darwinian social science is now giving us a more comprehensive and scientifically precise account of it. The sense of [End Page 286] individual agency is one crucial aspect of human nature, and that aspect is now being explored in complementary ways by personality psychology and by cognitive neuroscience.1Over the past decade or so, a scattered handful of literary scholars has broken away from the dominant poststructuralist paradigm and has sought to make use of the new scientific information on human nature.2 The simplest and most obvious way to use this information is to examine the behavior depicted in literary texts and to correlate that behavior with "human universals," that is, with forms of behavior that appear in every known culture and that thus appear to be embedded in the nature of the species. Seeking depictions of universals has produced valuable results for literary study, but this first move in Darwinian criticism does not exhaust the range of possibility in the analysis of literary meaning. Human nature is complex and sometimes divided against itself; individuals vary, and some variations depart from species-typical patterns, even in the most adaptively crucial aspects of survival and reproduction. Moreover, literary meaning involves more than the represented subject matter. Authors imbue texts with meanings and affects peculiar to themselves; authors engage in communicative transactions with audiences; and texts have formal and aesthetic properties that are not reducible to represented subject matter. All of these aspects of the total literary situation are part of literary meaning, and all of them can and should fall within the range of analysis available to Darwinian literary study.3Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray offers two special challenges to Darwinian criticism. First, the novel is saturated with homoerotic sexual feeling, and it thus defies any simple reading in terms of behavior oriented to reproductive success. Second, the central conflicts in the novel involve two competing visions of human nature, and in their conceptual structure neither of those visions corresponds very closely to the quasi-Darwinian conceptual structure implicit in most realist and naturalist fiction. One vision derives from the aestheticist doctrines of Walter Pater, and the other from a traditional Christian conception of the soul. Pater's ideas about human motives and the human moral character are at variance both with Christianity and with Darwinism. Christianity and Darwinism share certain concepts of the human moral and social character, but they couch those concepts in different idioms, and they would invoke wholly different causal explanations for how human nature came to be the way it is. Wilde does not develop his themes in Darwinian terms, but the novel can still be read [End Page... (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists come together to think systematically about the nature and value of guilt, looking at the biological origins and psychological nature of guilt, and then discussing the culturally enriched conceptions of this vital moral emotion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aestheticism, Homoeroticism, and Christian Guilt in The Picture of Dorian GrayJoseph CarrollSince the advent of the poststructuralist revolution some thirty years ago, interpretive literary criticism has suppressed two concepts that had informed virtually all previous literary thinking: (1) the idea of the author as an individual person and an originating source for literary meaning, and (2) the idea of "human nature" as the represented subject and common frame (...) of reference for literary depictions. Under the tutelage of Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault, literary critics learned to speak of authors, characters, settings, and plots not as individuals situated in a natural world but as discursive formations constituted by the circulation of linguistic, cultural, and ideological energies. In the three decades during which poststructuralism has dominated academic literary study, a different kind of revolution—evolutionary, Darwinian, and naturalistic—has been transforming the social sciences. Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, Darwinian anthropology, behavioral ecology, cognitive archaeology, and behavioral genetics do not all agree with one another in every respect, but they are all nonetheless aspects or phases of a common research program. The central working hypothesis in this program is that the human species, like all other species, has evolved in an adaptive relation to its environment and that as a consequence it has a distinct, genetically transmitted, species-typical set of characteristics—anatomical, physiological, hormonal, neurological, and behavioral. That set of characteristics is what in common language is meant by "human nature." Literature has always given us subjectively evocative depictions of human nature, and Darwinian social science is now giving us a more comprehensive and scientifically precise account of it. The sense of [End Page 286] individual agency is one crucial aspect of human nature, and that aspect is now being explored in complementary ways by personality psychology and by cognitive neuroscience.1Over the past decade or so, a scattered handful of literary scholars has broken away from the dominant poststructuralist paradigm and has sought to make use of the new scientific information on human nature.2 The simplest and most obvious way to use this information is to examine the behavior depicted in literary texts and to correlate that behavior with "human universals," that is, with forms of behavior that appear in every known culture and that thus appear to be embedded in the nature of the species. Seeking depictions of universals has produced valuable results for literary study, but this first move in Darwinian criticism does not exhaust the range of possibility in the analysis of literary meaning. Human nature is complex and sometimes divided against itself; individuals vary, and some variations depart from species-typical patterns, even in the most adaptively crucial aspects of survival and reproduction. Moreover, literary meaning involves more than the represented subject matter. Authors imbue texts with meanings and affects peculiar to themselves; authors engage in communicative transactions with audiences; and texts have formal and aesthetic properties that are not reducible to represented subject matter. All of these aspects of the total literary situation are part of literary meaning, and all of them can and should fall within the range of analysis available to Darwinian literary study.3Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray offers two special challenges to Darwinian criticism. First, the novel is saturated with homoerotic sexual feeling, and it thus defies any simple reading in terms of behavior oriented to reproductive success. Second, the central conflicts in the novel involve two competing visions of human nature, and in their conceptual structure neither of those visions corresponds very closely to the quasi-Darwinian conceptual structure implicit in most realist and naturalist fiction. One vision derives from the aestheticist doctrines of Walter Pater, and the other from a traditional Christian conception of the soul. Pater's ideas about human motives and the human moral character are at variance both with Christianity and with Darwinism. Christianity and Darwinism share certain concepts of the human moral and social character, but they couch those concepts in different idioms, and they would invoke wholly different causal explanations for how human nature came to be the way it is. Wilde does not develop his themes in Darwinian terms, but the novel can still be read [End Page... (shrink)

In this book, Chiarot offers a uniquely poignant social commentary: the current generation, whether consciously or subconsciously, has taken a Nietzscheian approach to dealing with guilt. Clever prose, careful analysis, and witty anecdotes make this both an enjoyable and educational read.

America is at war with terrorism. Terrorists must be brought to justice.We hear these phrases together so often that we rarely pause to reflect on the dramatic differences between the demands of war and the demands of justice, differences so deep that the pursuit of one often comes at the expense of the other. In this book, one of the country's most important legal thinkers brings much-needed clarity to the still unfolding debates about how to pursue war and justice in (...) the age of terrorism. George Fletcher also draws on his rare ability to combine insights from history, philosophy, literature, and law to place these debates in a rich cultural context. He seeks to explain why Americans--for so many years cynical about war--have recently found war so appealing. He finds the answer in a revival of Romanticism, a growing desire in the post-Vietnam era to identify with grand causes and to put nations at the center of ideas about glory and guilt.Fletcher opens with unsettling questions about the nature of terrorism, war, and justice, showing how dangerously slippery the concepts can be. He argues that those sympathetic to war are heirs to the ideals of Byron, Fichte, and other Romantics in their belief that nations--not just individuals--must uphold honor and be held accountable for crimes. Fletcher writes that ideas about collective glory and guilt are far more plausible and widespread than liberal individualists typically recognize. But as he traces the implications of the Romantic mindset for debates about war crimes, treason, military tribunals, and genocide, he also shows that losing oneself in a grand cause can all too easily lead to moral catastrophe.A work of extraordinary intellectual power and relevance, the book will change how we think not only about world events, but about the conflicting individualist and collective impulses that tear at all of us. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 545 Congratulations to the publisher must be qualified only with regret that a work so valuable to students should be available only in a hardback edition costing nearly twenty dollars. Wabash College Crawfordsville, Indiana WILLIAM c. PLACHER God, Guilt, and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion. By MEROLD WESTPHAL. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Pp. xiv+ 305. $27.50. At each stage of its history existential thought (...) has been deeply engaged with the phenomena of religion. However, the appeal to the existence has produced starkly opposed responses to the question of the significance of religion. The original and most obvious contrast is that between Kierkegaard and his near-conternpomry, Nietzsche. Where the first reflects on the existence of the " single one " as a way of defending religious consciousness against Hegelian rationalism; the latter makes a similar turn to existence (as the will to power of life) precisely in order to " unmask " the " lies " that tempt one to the religious life. Or, more recently, one could contrast the efforts of Marcel and Bultmann, who find in existential thinking the key to a deeper appreciation of traditional religiosity, with the resolutely atheistic project of Sartre, for whom "we are in a situation where there are only human beings," where "even if God existed it wouldn't make any difference." In spite of such controversy over the value of religion, the philosophical approach to religion in terms of existence has had the beneficial effect of shifting the locus of questioning from the cognitive status of religious utterances to the problem of the meaning of the religious life. An existentail approach does not exhaust itself in analyzing the evidential structure of propositions about God, the soul, etc., as though religion were simply a mode of cognition, but rather explores the question of "what it is (means) to be religious." In our own time Paul Ricoeur has taken up this issue in a way that seeks to do justice both to the critical moment in existential thought and to its promise of a deepened religious sensibility. Along with a "hermeneutics of suspicion" (grounded in the works of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud) Ricoeur calls for a "hermeneutics of recovery " which would reinvest the " symbolism of the sacred " with a depth drawn from consciousness of our existential situation. It is in the horizon of this latter project that we may locate Merold Westphal's sig- 546 BOOK REVIEWS nificant contribution, God, Guilt, and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion. This book, addressed to a general audience of believer and unbeliever alike, has many virtues. While it draws judiciously from the central works of existentialism and phenomenology, as well as from a wide variety of literature on the world's religions. it is written in clear and engaging prose, entirely free from tedious jargon. And while vYestphal's sympathies are clearly with those who find a continued vitality in religious eonsciousness today, his book is written in the spirit of inquiry; it gracefully avoids the twin dangers of polemics and devotionality. He is sensitive to objections without allowing them to paralyze his arguments, and he offers some bold, important generalizations without being blind to the limits of his evidence. Finally, the book contains original phenomenological investigations, striving after eidetic insight through study of personal experience, world literature, and (mostly standard) works on other cultures and their religious life (including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, various forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Amerindian religions). Because Westphal draws on such a diversity of materials, there are likely to be many points with which the specialist will take issue. But an ad.equate phenomenology of religion must tackle this diversity, and Westphal has certainly given us one of the most accessible examples of such an enterprise. Westphal's approach to the existential question-What does it mean to be religious ~-is phenomenolog'ical. This means, first, that we are interested in the significance of religion from the descriptive first person perspective of the believing soul. The believing soul (a term borrowed from Ricoeur) is not simply "one who believes or affirms this or that proposition," but one. "who sees things in a certain way" (257). vYe are concerned here with a form... (shrink)

1. Let me begin by distinguishing two conceptions of guilt. The first conceives of guilt as an experience of reprehensible failure in response to specific actions. I feel guilty if I break a promise for reasons that cannot justify this transgression. This conception of guilt as a responsive attitude, which I call locally- reactive guilt, captures a tension in one’s agency that arises from a local failure. The second conception understands guilt as a condition that (...) shapes one’s whole existence. Guilt, on this view, is a persistent feeling of imperfection. Such guilt, existential guilt, presupposes a reference point vis-à-vis which one’s life is so experienced. This reference is most plausibly a shared understanding of moral perfection within a community that is so demanding as to make it hard or impossible to live up to its standards. While the adoption of the Christian God offers one explanation for the emergence of such a shared understanding, other explanations of existential guilt are possible (see section 5 below). Existential guilt manifests itself especially in locally-reactive guilt, but there can be locallyreactive guilt without existential guilt. I submit that Nietzsche is not particularly interested in locally-reactive guilt, and that his vision of the future of humanity can accommodate such guilt. That conception of guilt, at any rate, is not tied to the Christian sittliche Weltordnung that Nietzsche attacks, or to other thick metaphysical or ethical views. Locallyreactive guilt merely presupposes that some set of expectations is in place and perceived as binding. What Nietzsche is interested in is existential guilt. As far as the Genealogy is concerned, this is to some extent a hermeneutical preconception based on my understanding of the German-speaking or otherwise European culture in which Nietzsche operated—a culture in which religious diversity generally amounted merely to the joint presence of Catholics and Lutherans (or, in some places, other Protestants) in the same area, interspersed with relatively small groups of Jews, and in which the Christian legacy was prevalent across all sections of culture.. (shrink)

This paper involves a critical evaluation of a conceptualization of guilt and shame, which guides a number of research mainly in social psychology. In the contemporary literature, conceptualization of guilt and shame shows variation. In one of the leading approaches, guilt is regarded as an experience that targets behavior in evaluative thought and shame as targeting the self. According to this distinction, guilt has a constructive nature and it motivates the individual to take reparative actions, since (...) it targets the behavior, whereas shame has a destructive quality and is linked with problem behaviors, since it targets the self. The claim that guilt and shame are adaptive and maladaptive feelings respectively by their very nature, has been challenged by theory and research. Researchers from non-Western cultures also criticized compartmentalization of guilt and shame as constructive and destructive emotions by emphasizing cultural variation in the experience of self-conscious emotions. In this regard, the present paper argues that features of constructiveness and destructiveness do not necessarily follow from the definitions of guilt and shame and that this dichotomous conceptualization of guilt and shame, and the research findings based on this dichotomy need reconsideration. (shrink)

. This article inquires into the social function of guilt, especially collective guilt, and the implications thereof for collective violence and collective memory. The focus is on the relationship between collective violence and collective memory in countries that have experienced cultural trauma, defined as a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric. Analyzing the dynamics—the mechanisms and processes—of remembering and forgetting such trauma, I argue that the idea of collective guilt is essential (...) for making sense of collective violence and collective memory. Specifically, I show that collective violence requires collective action; that collective action produces collective guilt; that collective violence generates perceptions—and misperceptions—of collective guilt; and that collective memory is formed, deformed, and transformed by perceptions—and misperceptions—of collective guilt. The article uses illustrative data from a variety of cases to illuminate these dynamics. It concludes by explaining why understanding these dynamics is imperative for responding to historic injustice in the twenty‐first century.Flash‐backs falsify the Past:they forgetthe remembering Present. (shrink)

The concept of having done something wrong is an integral part of normative thinking and thus a human universal. With regard to the early Chinese world of ideas and the resulting Confucian value system, consensus has it that the normative forces of "shame" have played a particularly strong role in the conceptualization and assessments of wrongdoings. This study aims to broaden our understanding of these processes by examining a group of synonyms associated with different states of "guilt" (i.e. the (...) fact of having committed something wrong), in the course of their historical development during the pre-Qin period (appr. 1250-221 BCE). By outlining the synchronic conceptual differences and diachronic changes of these synonyms and framing them in their sociopolitical context, this attempts to relate the early history of a concept that has so far received little scholarly attention. The results of this study offer many surprises and show overall that the concept of guilt in early Chinese texts is much more nuanced than previously assumed. They provide impressive evidence of the emergence and growth of several expert discourses on the subject of guilt, thus challenging the notion of early China as a representative of a "shame culture". (shrink)

What is the relation of shame to guilt? What are the characteristics that distinguish the two? When we regard them phenomenologically, i.e., in the way that they directly manifest themselves, two features stand out. Guilt and shame imply different relations to the other person. Their relation to language is also distinct. Guilt involves the internalization of the other, not as a specific individual, but rather as an amalgam of parents, elders, and other social and cultural authority figures.i (...) This amalgam of authority figures becomes present as the inner voice of conscience. The sense of guilt arises when we violate its strictures. This occurs even when we are alone—that is, when we act in secret. Even then, there is a certain inner dialogue that occurs in our heads. It may be that we are trying to excuse our conduct or justify it to this voice. It may also happen that we give way to its demands. In either case, the presence of this “voice” of conscience indicates guilt’s dependence on language. With language we have the possibility of the spoken and written norms that formalize the admonitions of our internalized others. Shame, by contrast, usually does require a face-to-face. I am ashamed before the actual other, i.e., before his or her concrete presence. It is this presence, rather than any generalized other, that I internalize.ii There is here a primitive, immediate, pre-linguistic type of empathy at work, one where I regard myself through the other’s presently regarding me. This regard is painful. I do not want this other to see me in my present situation. In contrast to guilt, then, shame requires the real or, at least, the imagined presence of specific others to be activated. In the absence of such others, I can.. (shrink)

This paper examines the psychology of existential guilt with Martin Heidegger and Rollo May’s conceptualizations as the point of departure. The concept of existential guilt describes preconditions for responsibility and accountability in life choices and the relationship to the potential given in the life of a human. It might also be used as a starting point to examine an individual’s relationship to the potential offered in their life and life context and, in this way, the hitherto unlived life (...) of an individual. The following questions are discussed in contexts of identity development, perfectionism, and current cultural shifts in conceptualizations of selfhood: How can humans relate to the fact that only limited parts of who they might be can ever be actualized? Moreover, how can they relate to the fundamental ambiguity and “groundlessness” in the contexts of life where choices are made? There are striking parallels between the role of exploration in the Eriksonian approaches to healthy identity development and the ontological groundlessness that stands out as a premise for existential guilt. There are also parallels between identity fore-closure and normative identity styles and “falling” into das Man in the existential framework. Perfectionistic ideals easily become an objectivization – and closure – of possible alternatives and choices. In contemporary theories of constructions of selfhood, the dangers of alienation from the community on the one hand and escape into what might become totalitarian collectivism on the other is pointed out. The contextualization of personal responsibility offered through the concept of existential guilt might address both dangers. It provides a perspective on how personal responsibility is embedded in contexts of human relationships, relationships to nature, and the finitude, freedom, uncertainties, and suffering that is given through human existence. Existential guilt can wake sorrow and regret over opportunities overlooked and lost. However, most of all, it can be seen as a drive toward repair in the relationship toward both oneself and the other. It takes the form of receptivity, an openness to a life not yet lived, and creative use of imagination. (shrink)

The relentless exploitation of the earth's resources and technologys boundless growth are a matter of urgent concern. When did this race towards the limitless begin? The Greeks, who shaped the basis of Western thinking, lived in mortal fear of humanity's hidden hunger for the infinite and referred to it as hubris, the one true sin in their moral code. Whoever desired or possessed too much was implacably punished by nemesis, yet the Greeks themselves were to pioneer an unprecedented level of (...) ambition that began to reverse that tabu. If it is true that no culture can truly repudiate its origins, and that gods who are no longer potent can vanish but still leave behind a body of myth which coninues to live and assert itself in modernized garb, then our concern with the limits of growth reflects something more than an awareness of new technological problems - it also brings to light a psychic wound a a feeling of guilt which are infinitely more ancient. (shrink)

Judeo-Christian Western culture recognizes a legislating, judging and punishing God. The view that a judge separate from man indeed exists, constitutes, among other things, cultural motivation for the pursuit of success, on the one hand, and fear of failure, guilt, on the other. The human-being fears the consequences of judgement, especially those entailing punishment, and attempts with all his might to succeed in the eyes of the judge. This study‟s underlying assumption is that judge-ment constitutes a deep structure (...) in Western culture and that its religious origins are in the culture‟s Jewish and Christian sources. Although religious judgement under-goes processes of secularization throughout the culture‟s history, it remains a deep cultural construct; while worldviews are deeply embedded in the religious expe-rience, as Jung contends, they have a latent capacity for preservation in the secular experience. A genealogical methodology will be applied to examine the con-cept of judgement. While genealogy deals with the past, its aim is to understand and critique the present reality. The genealogy will scrutinize the Jewish judgement, the Catholic judgement and the Calvinist judgement, while calling attention to their similarities and differences. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to David McIvor’s and Lars Rensmann’s discussion of my recent book, The Politics of Repressed Guilt: The Tragedy of Austrian Silence (2018, Edinburgh University Press). Both invited me to clarify my use of Arendt in my conception of embodied reflective judgment. I argue for a stronger connection between judgment and emotions than Arendt because one can effectively shut down critical thinking if one uses defense mechanisms to repress feelings of guilt. In response to (...) McIvor, I discuss the idea of the “subject-in-outline” and “embodied reflective spaces” to overcome the guilt/defense complex to engender a reparative politics of justice. Finally, in response to Rensmann, I point out that the lingering culture of repressed guilt helps us explain the general conditions that contributed to the rise of the far and extremist right in Austria, which I develop further in my new book Analyzing the Far Right. (shrink)

Cultural psychology and experimental existential psychology are two of the fastest-growing movements in social psychology. In this book, Daniel Sullivan combines both perspectives to present a groundbreaking analysis of culture's role in shaping the psychology of threat experience. The first part of the book presents a new theoretical framework guided by three central principles: that humans are in a unique existential situation because we possess symbolic consciousness and culture; that culture provides psychological protection against threatening experiences, but (...) also helps to create them; and that interdisciplinary methods are vital to understanding the link between culture and threat. In the second part of the book, Sullivan presents a novel program of research guided by these principles. Focusing on a case study of a traditionalist group of Mennonites in the midwestern United States, Sullivan examines the relationship between religion, community, guilt, anxiety, and the experience of natural disaster. (shrink)

What political, economic, religious, and emotional factors are involved in a person's decision to kill civilians and military personnel through the sacrifice of his or her own life? Data for this research were secondary analyses of interviews with Islamic martyrs, as well as their leaders’ speeches. This investigation into the cultural-psychological explanations for Islamic martyrdom leads to a model explaining a person's decision to carry out the mission as resulting from a combination of four factors: the historical-cultural context, group processes, (...) immediate and anticipated rewards, and mechanisms to eradicate possible doubts and guilt regarding this decision. Compared to existing models, this model is more integrative and focused on the psychological processes involved. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a new framework for understanding infant-feeding-related maternal guilt and shame, placing these in the context of feminist theoretical and psychological accounts of the emotions of self-assessment. Whereas breastfeeding advocacy has been critiqued for its perceived role in inducing maternal guilt, we argue that the emotion women often feel surrounding infant feeding may be better conceptualized as shame in its tendency to involve a negative self-assessment—a failure to achieve an idealized notion of good motherhood. (...) Further, we suggest, both formula-feeding and breastfeeding mothers experience shame: the former report feeling that they fail to live up to ideals of womanhood and motherhood, and the latter transgress cultural expectations regarding feminine modesty. The problem, then, is the degree to which mothers are vulnerable to shame generally, regardless of infant feeding practices. As an emotion that is less adaptive and potentially more damaging than guilt, shame ought to be the focus of resistance for both feminists and breastfeeding advocates, who need to work in conjunction with women to oppose this shame by assisting them in constructing their own ideals of good motherhood that incorporate a sense of self-concern. (shrink)

Using a discursive and ethnomethodological analytic framework, this article explores the social construction of moral transgression and moral meanings in the context of coming to terms with the recent communist past in Eastern Europe. This article illustrates some significant aspects of everyday uses of morality and the socio-communicative organization of public judgements on moral transgression. The article considers the range of public reactions and commentaries to a public confession of having been an informer for the former Romanian secret police. Moral (...) reasoning around transgression takes several forms: a) invoking everyday psychological categories and morally implicative descriptions associated with identities of persons and actions; b) drawing upon culturally available metaphors and images with roots in Judaeo-Christian ethics and morality; c) using the wider political context of coming to terms with the past as foundation and criterion for moral judgement. This article argues that rather than attempting to analyse moral judgement in abstract, one must focus on the everyday constructions and uses of morality found in social interaction and social responses to moral transgression. (shrink)

In "Culture and Value" Wittgenstein remarks that the truly "religious man" thinks himself to be, not merely "imperfect" or "ill," but wholly "wretched." While such sentiments are of obvious biographical interest, in this paper I show why they are also worthy of serious philosophical attention. Although the influence of Wittgenstein's thinking on the philosophy of religion is often judged negatively (as, for example, leading to quietist and/or fideist-relativist conclusions) I argue that the distinctly ethical conception of religion (specifically Christianity) (...) that Wittgenstein presents should lead us to a quite different assessment. In particular, his preoccupation with the categorical nature of religion suggests a conception of "genuine" religious belief which disrupts both the economics of eschatological-salvationist hope, and the traditional ethical precept that "ought implies can." In short, what Wittgenstein presents is a sketch of a religion without recompense. (shrink)

Cultural norms may dictate how grief is displayed. The present study explores the display behaviours and rules in the bereavement context from a cross-cultural perspective. 86 German-speaking Swiss and 99 Chinese bereaved people who lost their first-degree relative completed the adapted bereavement version of the Display Rules Assessment Inventory. Results indicated that the German-speaking Swiss bereaved displayed more emotions than the Chinese bereaved. The Chinese bereaved, but not the German-speaking Swiss bereaved, thought that bereaved people should display more emotions than (...) they actually did when they were with their close others (but not when they were alone). Bereaved people endorsed more emotional expression “when alone” than “when with close others”, demonstrating a social disconnection tendency, which was more evident in the Chinese sample. Bereaved people endorsed more expression of positive emotions (e.g. affection/love) and less expression of powerful negative emotions (e.g. blame/guilt, anger) across cultures. Compared to their Chinese counterparts, the German-speaking Swiss sample indicated more actual expressions for most emotion types (i.e. joy/happiness, affection/love, sadness, anger, and denial) but thought bereaved people should express more joy/happiness and less blame/guilt. The results suggest that bereaved people’s display behaviours and rules are influenced by culture, situation, and type of emotion. (shrink)

The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety. He seeks not to inflict his own certainties on others but to find a meaning in life. Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even the reality of his own existence. Superficially relaxed and tolerant, he finds little use for dogmas of racial and ethnic purity but at the same time forfeits the security of group loyalties and regards everyone as a rival for the favors conferred (...) by a paternalistic state. His sexual attitudes are permissive rather than puritanical, even though his emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace. Fiercely competitive in his demand for approval and acclaim, he distrusts competition because he associates it unconsciously with an unbridled urge to destroy. Hence he repudiates the competitive ideologies that flourished at an earlier stage of capitalist development and distrusts even their limited expression in sports and games. He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. Acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of nineteenth-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Levinas’s understanding of the social as distinguished from the political. In his neo-phenomenological work, Levinas never conceptualized the difference between the political and the social, because he was more interested in the difference between the ethical and everything else. In his Talmudic Readings, however, with the help of examples or paradigms, he offers a vision of a social domain distinct from the political one. This paper concentrates on the Talmudic Readings to delineate those situations in which (...) Levinas distinguishes such a specifically social realm. It analyzes Levinas’s understanding of the city as paradigm of liberalism’s shortcomings and elaborates on the absence of the social in Levinas’s conception of a good life. (shrink)

Morality and mental health are now inseparably linked in our view of character. Alcoholics are sick, yet they are punished for drunk driving. Drug addicts are criminals, but their punishment can be court ordered therapy. The line between character flaws and personality disorders has become fuzzy, with even the seven deadly sins seen as mental disorders. In addition to pathologizing wrong-doing, we also psychologize virtue; self-respect becomes self-esteem, integrity becomes psychological integration, and responsibility becomes maturity. Moral advice is now sought (...) primarily from psychologists and therapists rather than philosophers or theologians. This book asks: are we replacing morality with therapy, in potentially confused and dangerous ways, or are we creatively integrating morality and mental health? According to the book, it's a little bit of both. It surveys the ways in which morality and mental health are related, touching on practical concerns like love and work, self-respect and self-fulfillment, guilt and depression, crime and violence, and addictions. Terming this integrative development “the therapeutic trend in ethics,” the book uses examples from popular culture, various moral controversies, and draws on line of thought that includes Plato, the Stoics, Freud, Nietzsche, and contemporary psychotherapeutic theories. The book develops some interesting conclusions, among them that sound morality is indeed healthy, and that moral values are inevitably embedded in our conceptions of mental health. In the end, the book shows how both morality and mental health are inextricably intertwined in our pursuit of a meaningful life. (shrink)