Guilt

Here is a good general podcast if you want a quick overview:

In our time – Guilt

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0084kd8

For discussion (with links to some articles for you to feel guilty about not reading):

Q. What is guilt?

Q. What causes guilt? Is it innate or learned?

Different types of guilt

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201208/the-definitive-guide-guilt

Q. Do you need to feel guilt to behave morally?

https://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/Guilt.pdf

Q. Or can it do more harm than good?

(This article lists seven reasons not to feel bad about yourself when you acted immorally: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/12/7-reasons-not-to-feel-bad-about-yourself-when-you-have-acted-immorally)

1 Feeling guilty is not necessary for leading an ethical life.

2. Feeling bad about oneself is not sufficient for leading an ethical life.

3. Feeling bad about oneself is a selfish response

4. Feeling bad about oneself does not make one a better person.

5. Feeling bad about oneself is not a reliable guide to evaluate our behaviour or the virtuousness of our character.

6. It is so unpleasant to feel bad about oneself, that guilt becomes a motivator to look away from injustice, to avoid questions of morality.

7. It can be argued that, in order to be as ethical as one can be, one must learn to experience pleasure in morality. For Aristotle, enjoying what one does is essential to doing things as well as possible: “pleasure makes an activity more exact, longer, and better” (Nicomachean Ethics, X.5, 1175b15-16). In that sense, learning to feel pleasure about morality (more specifically, about acting virtuously) may be a necessary condition for moral excellence, and guilt seems to be the opposite of pleasure.

Q. Why do Catholics excel at guilt?

Collective guilt

Q. Should we feel guilty as a member of a group?

https://theconversation.com/oskar-groening-and-our-own-guilt-for-crimes-committed-collectively-41767

Q. Should we feel guilty for being whilte and privileged?

(This is an article by a black South African women about white citizens and their guilt - https://mg.co.za/article/2011-07-01-confronting-whiteness

Historical guilt

Q. Should we feel guilty for the ‘sins of our fathers’

Q. Are apologies such as Kevin Rudd’s to the Stolen Generations valuable, or all about white people feeling better about themselves?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-02-25/the-apology-and-the-moral-significance-of-guilt/1053240