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Evolutionary reason for guilt?

CaptainWacky

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
Some thinkers have theorized that guilt is used as a tool of social control. Since guilty people feel they are undeserving, they are less likely to assert their rights and prerogatives. Thus, those in power seek to cultivate a sense of guilt among the populace, in order to make them more tractable.[citation needed]

Some evolutionary psychologists have said that guilt is a rational human emotion selected by evolution.[citation needed] If a person feels guilty when he harms another or even fails to reciprocate kindness, he is more likely not to harm others or become too selfish; in this way, he reduces the chances of retaliation by members of his tribe and thereby increases his survival prospects, and those of the tribe. As with any other emotion, guilt can be manipulated to control or influence others.

On the other side of the evolutionary fence, Phil Roberts, Jr. has offered a perspective in which guilt is viewed as a maladaptive byproduct of the evolution of rationality:

Guilt (the superego) is a maladaptive manifestation of our need to justify our existence, in this case by conforming to a shared subconscious theory of rationality in which 'being rational' is simply a matter of 'being objective', as exemplified in the moral maxim, 'Love (intrinsically value) your neighbor as you love (intrinsically value) yourself'. Although none of us can actually measure up to this standard, we nonetheless come to experience feelings of worthlessness (guilt) along with a corresponding reduction in the will to survive (depression) when we deviate from the standard to an unreasonable degree. In other words, a capacity for guilt (having a conscience) is a part of the price we humans have had to pay for having become a little too objective (too rational) for our own good.[1]

Another common notion is that guilt is assigned by social processes such as a jury trial, i.e. that it is a strictly legal concept. Thus the ruling of a jury that O.J. Simpson or Julius Rosenberg was "guilty" or "not guilty" is taken as an actual judgement by the whole society that they must act as if they were so. By corollary, the ruling that such a person is "not guilty" may not be so taken, due to the asymmetry that assumes one is innocent until proven guilty and prefers to take the risk of freeing a guilty party over convicting innocents.

Still others -- often, but not always, theists of one type or another -- believe that the origin of guilt comes from violating universal principles of right and wrong. In most instances, people who believe this also acknowledge that, even though there is proper guilt from doing 'wrong' instead of doing 'right,' people endure all sorts of guilty feelings that don't stem from violating universal moral principles.
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I think it must be God, to be honest.
 
GOD IS A TWINKIE
 
sometimes I feel guilty when I touch myself in naughty places.
 
Would we feel guilt if we were isolated on some island away from the rest of society with no moral guidelines?
 
I would assume that "we", as in the original migration, would still have feelings of guilt. It's a part of our culture. Now, if the question is, "would our children's children's children have the same feeling of guilt if they knew nothing but the island ways?"...I don't know. I think so. I think if you ate some other kid's food every day and then one day he died.....yeah, I think maybe there's a speck of something hardwired in our brains that relates to the common form of guilt we know today.
 
I grew up Catholic. We're trained to feel guilty for no reason at all.
 
Yeah I meant the children isolated from birth with no guidelines scenario...some really should do that experiment one day. To hell with the children's rights!
 
I reckon they'd still feel guilt. It's part of us just like any other emotion. A kid born on an isolated island would still find humour in things. They wouldn't know what it was called, but they'd exhibit the emotion and feel happy.
 
Let's just do it anyway to make sure...
 
Can we also not give them any clothes so there ends up being a town of attractive(or so I assume, since they live on a nice island) nudists?
 
We could send one child with no guilt there and see if he kills the others. It's not his fault if he doesn't feel guilty, is it?
 
Then it is we who would feel guilt. You still have GUILT in the 24th century, DON'T YOU?!
 
People let guilt and fear control them.

It's sad.
 
If only we could eliminate them through POSITIVE THINKING.
 
And yoga
 
AND MY AXE.
 
Is your axe hairy?
 
It's smooth, polished and reflective.
 
px pls
 
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