Guilty Minds

A musing about guilt, this was sort of inspired by a friend of mine more recently as well as a few observations and general experience.

Now we all know the feeling of guilt, right? It's that thing where you've done something and you feel bad about it and would like to make up for it. Not regret, that's where you wish you hadn't - I've felt guilty about lots of things but wouldn't want to undo it. Well, maybe change how I did it but moving on!

I'm not going to go into any details on the exact situation that lead to this thought and just, well, dive right in.
You see... I've had so many people throw around this "guilty" expression while decribing different types of feelings or situations. To me, the term "guilt" is just too wide-reaching, or at least not defined well enough such that its meaning has been diluted... so now I'm trying to sort it. I like sorting things - it makes me think I have some measure of control over things. But enough of me, now for my so-called reasoning.

There are four different kinds of guilt, of which I'd only call one of them proper guilt. Now, keep in mind here I'm trying to talk about the actual guilt experienced rather then being emotionally manipulated into feeling guilt.

Proper guilt, how I see it, is when you do something bad and you know you shouldn't have and you're sorry that did that bad thing. This is regardless of whether you've wronged someone or not. It's where you do something and then at some later point (preferably sooner than later) go "Oh crap... why did I do that?" It may be accompanied by regret.
This guilt isn't awakened by an outside source - it's your conscience telling you that what you did was wrong.

The next "best" is what I think of as reactionary guilt. It's when you don't realize/ackowledge that what you did was wrong until outside forces interfere. For example, you think it'll be funny to put gum into your sister's hair. You laugh until she starts crying and then you feel like rubbish. This also can come attached to regret especially in the former instance.
A different friend of mine is especially good at making me feel this sort of guilty without the regret completely by accident. Anyway, the key here is that you feel bad because you feel like you've done something wrong (whether you actually have or not is up to circumstances) and you wish to atone because another person's behaviour has brought this to your attention. This is like your parents telling you that breaking curfew is bad. Note that the emphasis here is that the guilt is brought on by the realization that you were in the wrong - not the other person's feelings.

Now we have the third guilt. Much like the second kind this is triggered by another person's behaviour. However in this case you are not trying to atone because you realize what you did was wrong, but because you made this person mad/sad/other-negative-emotion. Here there is emphasis on the fact that you are responsible for their feelings and it's that responsibility that you feel bad about. Most importantly the atonement is motivated by the desire to make the "victim" happy again.

Finally we have what I think of as faux guilt. This is most closely related to the third type but rather than making it up to the person because you feel bad that you made them upset, you're trying to make it up to them because you don't want them to be mad at you. The emphasis here is that you are responsible for their feelings but the reason you feel bad is that those feelings are directed at you. Here the atonement is motivated by the desire to make the victim happy so that they're no longer mad at you... if you get what I mean. It's more egocentric, it's about how this person's feelings effect you.

This can be tied in rather nicely with Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

The first guilt can be tied in with Post-conventual morality, especially, I believe, Stage 6. It is where "moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles". Basically "Congratulations! You have a conscience!".

The second and the third guilts fit mainly under both Conventional, though not very well, I think. Conventional looks at it from the point of view of wanting to be liked and thus acting in a sociably acceptable way which fits (which fits rather nicely with Guilt type 2, if not completely), while I like to think that type three is about more caring for the other person's feelings.

The fourth is Pre-conventual at it's worse (the "stop 'punishing' me" part) and Conventional at it's best (when it's focusing on the "why don't you like me" part). This is all about rewards and punishment. This is because they view these guilty feelings as a punishment, so they want it to go away. Stage 1 best represents this "guilt" in my opinion.

Unfortunately we also have cases where people feel guilt of any of the first 3 kinds (because I have no sympathy for those with the 4th kind... and yes I have been there so I'm not a hypocrite in this instance) because they have been manipulated into feeling it (types 2 and 3) or for no reason at all (type 1). However my inspiration for that aspect has run dry for the time being... perhaps another week.