While other emotions may stem from judgments about things beyond ourselves, guilt is the result of negative judgments about our own moral behaviour. This makes guilt particularly useful in Stoic practice because we focus on improving our own moral character in order to flourish. Like all emotions, guilt is a signal that we can use to assess the source and validity of our judgments.

Two types of guilt

Guilt can stem from rational and irrational judgments about ourselves. Determining whether the guilt we feel is rational or irrational helps us assess how we can best resolve that emotion.

Irrational guilt

Irrational guilt stems from placing moral responsibility on ourselves incorrectly. For instance, a person who lived through a car accident may feel survivor’s guilt because their friend did not. A survivor may concoct a counterfactual in their head that they could have done or not done something different so the other person would have made it. Or, they may perceive their relief over the fact they survived as morally reprehensible while their friend’s loved ones grieve. This irrational guilt stems from creating a false alternative to reality or thinking they cannot feel positive emotions while others feel negative ones.

Rational guilt

Rational guilt, on the other hand, comes from rightly assessing moral responsibility for our immoral actions. Imagine that you are a student in a class. You have a classmate who struggles to grasp the course material and always asks questions that interrupt the flow of the class. One day, you lose your patience with the classmate and tell them that if they aren’t smart enough for the class, then they should leave the room. Your classmate shrivels back in their chair, diminished and humiliated as others around you laugh at them. You continue with your day and maybe even laugh alongside the others, but a growing guilt gnaws away at you. That feeling is rational, you failed to be kind to your fellow classmate and you are responsible for your behaviour.

Analyzing guilt

When we feel guilty for something, we need to take it as a signal to analyze our judgments. Ignoring or wallowing in feelings of guilt can lead to anxiety and regret. Conversely, denying guilt and instead attempting to rationalize inappropriate behaviour can create a warped reality that leads you into deeper irrational and immoral patterns of thought and behaviour.

Five questions to ask yourself

When you feel guilt, ask yourself:

1. What did I do to make myself feel guilty?
2. Was I responsible for what I feel guilty about?
3. Can I do anything to directly rectify the error?
4. Would trying to rectify the error be helpful?
5. What can I do to mitigate against myself doing this again?

Resolving guilt

If you find that your guilt stems from a rational judgment, it may be tempting to apologize for what you did wrong and try to move on. But oftentimes, mere apologies are not enough. Demonstrating remorse for your moral failing means trying to correct that mistake. For instance, you could offer to help that struggling classmate study for the class. But what if you let years go by feeling sorry for what you did? Going to apologize now may open up old wounds that had long since healed. Or perhaps in those intervening years, that classmate had unfortunately passed away, making an apology impossible. In those cases, we must accept that failure and resolve to be better going forward.

It can be incredibly daunting and uncomfortable to acknowledge our failures, embrace our guilt, and commit to improving ourselves. Doing the work of Stoicism is more challenging than just learning about it, but it is better than the alternative. Epictetus spoke quite poignantly about this:

… Contrary actions strengthen contrary characters: shamelessness strengthens the shameless man… abusive words the abusive man… For this reason philosophers admonish us not to be satisfied with learning only, but also to add study, and then practice. For we have long been accustomed to do contrary things, and we put in practice opinions which are contrary to true opinions. - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.9

However, we have to recognize that while we are always responsible for the choices we make, all moral failure stems from false impressions and misplaced intentions. Vice is not the presence of malice; it is the absence of wisdom. It may be tempting to wallow in our guilt because the discomfort that comes from punishing ourselves can seem preferable to the fear of what it means to actually do the work. But making ourselves suffer will not help us grow. Acknowledging that our failures were mistakes gives us the space to learn from them. And when we can forgive ourselves for falling short, that gives us the space to become more forgiving of others as well.

John Kuna is a Stoic prokopton, writer, and dog lover. He likes digging deep into Stoic theory, but also writing accessible and inspiring Stoic content.

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