Guilt

Guilt is a word describing many concepts related to a negative emotion or condition caused by actions which are, or are believed to be, morally wrong.

Dealing with guilt

Guilt can sometimes be remedied by punishment (a common action and advised or required in many legal and moral codes), by forgiveness (as in transformative justice), or by sincere remorse (as with confession in Catholicism or restorative justice). Law does not usually accept the agent's self-punishment, but some ancient codes did so: in Athens the accused was permitted to propose his or her own remedy, which might in fact be a reward, while the accuser proposed another, and the jury chose between. This forced the accused to effectively bet on his support in the community - as Socrates did when he proposed "room and board in the town hall" as his fate. He lost, and drank hemlock, a poison, as advised by his accuser.

Related Topics:
Punishment - Legal - Forgiveness - Transformative justice - Remorse - Confession - Catholicism - Restorative justice - Self-punishment - Athens - Accused - Reward - Accuser - Jury - Socrates - Hemlock - Poison

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