Prudence and Guilt

Morality is commonly conceived as (the source of) a particular kind[1] of obligation (or prohibition or permission) having to do with an individual’s (or group’s) relation to others. Thus, it would be immoral to do unto others what you would not want done to yourself, but it does not seem to be a moral issue whether you would do that same thing to yourself. For example, it is, other things equal, wrong to slap somebody else, but not yourself.[2]   This is not a hard and fast rule, however, since some acts are deemed wrong[3] to do even unto oneself, such as killing (suicide). And the great ethics of both Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill apply to what the moral agent does or does not do to themself as well as to others. Thus, Kant would deem it wrong to use even oneself merely as a means, and Mill would deem it wrong to do (or not do) something to oneself that would bring less pleasure into the world than not doing (or doing) it. 

            Still, the connection to how we treat others seems basic to morality, perhaps because we are more likely to be tempted to treat others worse than we would be tempted to treat ourselves. Indeed, morality may, in many of its guises, presume our high self regard or solicitousness, such as in the very formulation of the Golden Rule, which premises right treatment of others on caring about oneself. After all, if one cared not a jot about how oneself were treated, the Golden Rule would seem to provide no guidance at all about how to treat others. And this does appear to conform to the behavior of the poor soul who feels hopeless and then goes on a random killing spree before killing themself …or, in the less extreme case, the person who is used to sucking up life’s hardships and therefore has little sympathy for others who face hard times.[4] 

            But we may assume that most of us care a great deal about Number One.[5] And this serves a double purpose, then, both to ground the treatment owed to others (by reference to how we would like to be treated by others) and to account for the need for special incentives to treat others well (that is, in the way we would wish to be treated ourselves). The mere comparison is not deemed to be automatically motivating, since if it were, there would be no need for moral obligation. The upshot, for my present purpose, is that it makes sense to conceive morality as primarily other-focused, even though it does allow for and maybe even presumes self-interest as a proper moral concern. 

What I want to look at now is how this proper self regard fits into moral categorization and phenomenology. In particular I wonder about the role of guilt, and guilt feelings, in supporting moral self regard. When a person does something morally wrong, that is itself moral guilt; but it may (or may not) be accompanied by a feeling that we also label “guilt.” That feeling is a deterrent to doing something wrong (i.e., to be(com)ing guilty). More precisely, feeling it when one has done something wrong (i.e., is guilty) may deter one from doing it again, and the anticipation of feeling it may deter one from doing the wrong thing in the first place. This is somewhat equivalent to conscience, especially if conscience is conceived as functioning via a “pang.” 

Guilt feeling is one of the worst feelings known to human beings. Hence its power. But what is the feeling exactly? I mean, qua feeling, it may be unanalyzable, just like the experience of a color. You only know it by feeling it. It’s “that feeling” when you believe you have done something morally wrong, just the way a physical pain is “that feeling” when (or a couple of seconds after) you stub your toe. But why is the feeling, or really, the belief, so aversive? I suspect there must be some kind of connection to fear, for example, of losing friends and favors or suffering other kinds of punishment by people or by God himself. 

Now what about acting against self-interest? Is this also a case of guilt, and/or can it be accompanied by feeling guilty? Sometimes acting in self interest is referred to as prudence, to distinguish it from morality conceived as other-oriented. So is imprudence connected conceptually and causally to guilt and guilt feelings, respectively, the way immorality is? Well, if imprudence simply is a form of immorality, as one might suppose it is on the Kantian and Millian schemes, then it would seem that it partakes of the same connections to guilt. Thus, to act against self-interest (in those instances where to do so violated the categorical imperative or failed to maximize utility, respectively) would be morally wrong; hence one would be guilty and liable to feeling guilty. 

But what about those cases where acting against one’s self-interest does not fall foul of moral obligation: Would one be guilty, or be liable to feeling guilty? My sense is that acting purely imprudently and not immorally results in a different condition, which might be called foolishness. For example, if one failed to prepare wisely for one’s retirement, and one were or would be the sole victim[6] of the results, one might be considered foolish and also feel foolish, but not guilty. 

But feeling foolish is, I submit, equally powerful and aversive as feeling guilty. And it may also have similar roots, such as aversion to becoming unpopular, in this case due to not taking proper care of oneself. Note that one may also naturally be averse to the direct consequences of not taking care of oneself, such as missing out on a relaxing and enjoyable retirement or any at all. But the feeling of foolishness, like a feeling of moral guilt, is something over and above that – a normative overlay. So it requires a separate explanation. So I am suggesting it is due to some kind of social response to one’s being imprudent, which response is undesirable in its own right over and above the denied advantages of a nice retirement, both intrinsically and instrumentally, because, for example, one might be denied the pleasures of a mate in the meantime, who would be seeking someone who knows how to take care of themself.

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[1] The “particular kind” is categorical, meaning that one is obligated to do x whether or not one wants to.

[2] The Golden Rule can finesse this by being understood to mean “what you would want done (or not done) to yourself by someone else.”

[3] This phrasing suggests that there is an objective fact of the matter, but of course in “real life” people will have different views about what is or is not right or wrong or permissible. Such disagreement does not itself prove that there is no objective fact of the matter, since some people could simply be mistaken in their view. But it certainly remains a live issue whether there is such a thing as objective morality.

[4] Mill’s philosophy of utilitarianism is also problematic in this regard, since, while it definitely includes the effects on oneself in any calculation of what to do, by granting equal consideration to all other sentient beings as well, one’s own welfare could be reduced virtually to nil for practical purposes. Thus, might not one be obligated on this view to sacrifice oneself if the lives of five others could be saved by allowing your vital organs to be harvested?

[5] This still falls far short of presuming a psychological egoism of caring only or even mostly about oneself. But some degree of self-caring seems an important adjunct to morality, so it is not necessary to postulate an ethical egoism to ground a morality that includes self regard.

[6] This is hardly ever the case, but is reasonably considered to be so for practical purposes, just as something may be “safe” even though it is never 100% so.