Guilt says: "Hey, there is a crack in the wall".

“True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself.”    

R. D. Laing

            Guilt is considered to be a negative emotion. Do you like feeling guilty? Few, however, realize that emotions such as guilt and despair (considered by many to be negative), can have a positive effect. It can reveal an emptiness or a lack in the make-up of your ethical and moral life. The inauthentic (not genuine) self is closed to guilt. Why? Because if you are not genuine, you lie to yourself, and guilt will knock on your door and tell you that you transgressed morally and ethically. The lying self will not want to entertain this knocking, so it is better not to open yourself up to guilt.

The German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, considered guilt as the a-priori (known or assumed without referenced to or based on experience) condition for the existence of a moral code. Another philosopher, Christina Bicchieri, observed that when norms are internalized, when people have an internal sanctioning system, then norm-abiding behaviour will be perceived as good or appropriate. Whenever such people behave in a deviant way, then they will typically experience feelings of guilt. Guilt, as a "moral emotion“, therefore present its object in the light of such moral concepts as desert, fault, and responsibility, and these should not be seen as debilitating. It should much rather be considered in the light of showing you that you not only have a moral make-up of some kind, but more so, that you transgressed this moral make-up.

Instances such as these should NOT demoralize you; what you perceive as guilt and despair should strengthen your moral constitution. Franz Kafka said that his guiding principle is that Guilt is never to be doubted. Guilt will always make you aware of some crack in your moral make-up that requires some patching.

When feeling guilty one experience a sense of shame,

but this is part of the moral conscious game,

for how would you be aware of your morality at all,

if guilt and shame fail to make its house-call. 

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