Introduction: The Worry

One can feel guilty without thinking that one actually is guilty of moral wrongdoing. For example, one can feel guilty about eating an ice cream or skipping aerobics, even if one doesn't take a moralistic view of self-indulgence. And one can feel guilty about things that aren't one's doing at all, as in the case of survivor's guilt about being spared some catastrophe suffered by others. Guilt without perceived wrongdoing may of course be irrational, but I think it is sometimes rational, and I want to explore how it can be.

If guilt were essentially a feeling about having done something morally wrong, then feeling guilty about self-indulgence or survival would of course be irrational. The only reason why I can conceive of guilt's being rational in these cases is that I think the emotion need not involve any judgment or perception of immorality. But I also think that the emotion of guilt must involve a judgment or perception whose content is normative in a more general sense. In particular, I believe that guilt requires a sense of normative vulnerability, which I would define as follows.

At the bottom of normative vulnerability is the sense of being somehow unjustified, of having nothing to say for oneself. But feeling unjustified in some respect does not by itself amount to feeling guilty, since one doesn't feel guilty, for instance, about beliefs or assertions for which one is aware of having no justification.