Conscience and Guilt

Our moral experiences of guilt and obligation are something presented to us by our consciences.
This conscience is something within us that speaks to us, telling us what we should do, making us feel guilty
at times, approving our behavior at other times and making us feel bad or good. Like all human abilities, the
conscience develops as we move through life.
There are many influences, both good and bad, that touched us and added something to our
consciences. There are times when reason guides us in a moral way. In our religious lives, we sense that God
speaks to us and guides us. Because our consciences are so complex and are constantly changing, it is
frequently difficult to know whether our consciences are guiding us correctly or not.
For example, I feel guilty because a foolish mistake cost me a game of chess. I may feel ashamed or
disgusted. How should I evaluate this feeling of guilt? Do I agree with or accept this feeling? Or do I
disagree with it or laugh at it? Do I accept that I have done something wrong, foolish and shameful, or do I
affirm that I have done nothing wrong and let the feeling of guilt go away?
Another example. I decide on a career and my parents disapprove of this. They scold me and make
me feel guilty for disappointing them. How do I handle this? Should I agree that I have done something
wrong? Should I feel bad, or should I judge that I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to feel guilty
for?
A third example. I got angry with a friend and said some cruel words. I feel guilty afterwards. How
do I respond to this? Do I accept my fault, do I hate myself, or do I go and apologize and make up for the
cruel words? Or do I judge that it was my friend’s fault and I have done nothing wrong? Should I ignore the
suggestion that I should feel guilty?
What do we do with our feelings of guilt? Do we accept them or not? All these tell us we need to
have principles, rules for judging guilt and dealing with guilt. We need a basis for deciding whether a guilty
feeling is true or false. We also need rules for dealing with true and false guilt.
The question of what is true and what is false guilt is not raised as long as we live immersed in the
anonymous social existence of the “crowd,” we simply feel the obligations and guilt which everyone feels
and we are guided by the way everyone acts. My existence is automatic and controlled. I do not make any
evaluation about my true obligations in life. My moral obligations and my sense of guilt and shame are
presented as things which “they say” I should feel. These feelings are ready-made, and I do not have to think
about them or make judgments about them.
It is only when I dare to live as an individual with individual responsibility that this question of true
and false obligation and guilt arises. Then I need to assess which of these feelings are truly valid or not.
Then I meet other obligations which are not suggested by my culture or environment but which really
confront me as an individual.
The Mature Conscience. To be mature adults, we need developed consciences. We cannot merely
accept without personal evaluation the experience of obligations and guilt that arise in us or that are forced
upon us. Just as human maturity requires that we have grown up in our social and technical skills, so it also
requires that we have grown up in our living of morality. As mature adults, we need to have more moral
awareness and more skill at moral judgments than that possessed by a child.
A developed, mature conscience has certain characteristics. First, it is sensitive to all the moral
demands that are there in a concrete situation. It makes me aware that in my life, I have legitimate
obligations to myself, to others, to God and to the world. As I grow as a human being, I become more
sensitive to these obligations. Human existence is not the play world of a child where I do whatever I want
to do, without any recognition of what I ought to do. Sometimes it happens that even adults can have a
serious gap in their sensitivity to morality and not be aware of basic obligations and the wrongness of their
actions. Psychologists call such persons psychopaths or sociopaths.
A second characteristic of a mature conscience is its ability to make a personal moral evaluation.
When I was young, I accepted the moral judgments of my family and my culture and I was guided by them.
I looked upon certain actions as good or bad because others told me so. But there came a time when it
became fitting that I should begin to make my own moral decisions. Now, in the complex and confused
situations of life, I am called upon to decide what I should do. What career should I take up? Should I get
married? How should I worship God? How should I treat other people?
A third characteristic of a mature conscience is that it is balanced. It is able to judge which are the
more important moral obligations and which are the less important ones. At any stage in our lives, there are
certain major obligations that are present. A student has the obligation to study, parents have the obligation
to care for their families, a doctor has the obligation to give his patients good care.
 A balanced conscience is aware of these major obligations and concentrates on them. A balanced
conscience is also able to deal rationally with all of the minor obligations of life. It does not make one of
these minor obligations more important than one of the major ones. It does not make the impossible demand
that every small obligation must be fulfilled.
Furthermore, a mature conscience is not scrupulous. A scrupulous conscience is one that finds guilt
where there is none, or imagines a minor fault to be a major sin. By contrast, a mature balanced conscience
is able to set aside the false guilt feelings that arise in experience, not paying any attention to them. This
conscience also does not make a big fuss about small faults. It guides a person to concentrate on the
important things and to trust in God.
Furthermore, persons with balanced consciences know how to deal with guilt in a healthy way. They
respond to true guilt by reforming their activity and moving forward with their lives. They let false guilt
flow away. They do not allow themselves to give in to self-hatred, nor do they become burdened and
depressed because of guilt.
Guilt. 1) For there to be true guilt, there must exist a valid obligation which truly applies to me.
There are two points to this principle. First, for true guilt, an obligation arising from a valid moral source
must be present. Such a source would be something like the natural law, a moral value, a relationship, the
divine law, etc. Secondly, for guilt to be true, I must judge that this obligation applies to me.
Thus, the experience of shame for what others might think about me does not fall within the realm
of true morality, since there is no question of a moral fault in such a case. Even though in shame there is the
experience of an accusatory judgment made by others, there is no valid moral criterion at the basis of this
judgment, no valid and objective standard or law.
In the experience of shame, there is only an arbitrary social standard, a rule which others happen to
affirm at this moment. The behavior that they judge to be unacceptable today may be judged to be acceptable
tomorrow. The “they” or the “others” by themselves have no permanent and valid basis for their moral
judgments. They make us feel shame, but they can not give us a true obligations or a true guilt.
2) For there to be true guilt for doing something immoral, the act must be intended. In true guilt, I
am aware that I have freely chosen to do something that was destructive of myself or others. By contrast,
there can be no true guilt when something was done or said which was not intended. This can be clarified by
various examples.
If I accidentally hit a person which driving my car, I am not guilty of a moral fault. I certainly didn’t
intend to hit the person. Sometimes we say things without intending to hurt others, only to find out we have
actually hurt them. We may feel bad about this, but we have no true guilt here. Similarly, if my mother died
while giving birth to me, I have no reason to feel guilty about this. I did not intend it.
3) For there to be true guilt, I must be responsible for it. I must somehow have caused it. I cannot be
guilty for something I did not cause. There can be no true moral fault for involuntary feelings within me.
Anger, desire and fear are feelings which often arise very naturally and automatically in me. I have no
control over their initial appearance and I am not morally guilty about them. True morality arises only when
I later respond to them in some way, either deciding to do something about them or reacting against them or
just letting them go away.
4) For there to be true guilt in omitting something, I must be obliged to perform that action. I
frequently find myself confronted by expectations. Moral obligations arise from these, resulting in guilt
when I fail to do them. For example, I have certain clear responsibilities to my family, things that I should
do. By contrast, I am not morally responsible for the care of every other family and every other person in the
world. I have no valid obligation to take care of feeding, clothing and sheltering them. Even though I am
concerned about others and I may generously give something of my life to helping others, I have no strict
moral obligation to do so. It would be a case of false guilt if I were to condemn myself for not doing
anything.
Healthy and Sick Guilt. 1) Healthy guilt leads to a richer, fuller life and greater freedom. Sick
guilt leads toward a paralyzing of our energies, toward a withdrawal from life. Healthy morality leads us
forward along a path of human development. When guilt appears, it is a sign that we are not acting in a way
that leads to growth. This guilt should naturally lead to change and take a more mature attitude toward life.
By way of contrast, many guilt feelings composed mainly of fear and shame tends to block growth.
They tend to paralyze us, inhibiting our efforts to go forward. The fear and shame we feel may pull us back
and make us hesitate to do anything in the future. The result is an end to growth. It leads us not to trust
ourselves and not to trust life. A fear of what others may say holds us back from making our own decisions
and doing what we think should be done. There is no more growth here.

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 2) Healthy guilt is put behind us. It is part of living, it leads us forward. We leave it behind and
forget about it. Sick guilt stays with us for many years. Life is meant to be lived positively. Guilt is not
something we should cling to. In a healthy way, we are guided by it to correct the fault, to restore and to
make up for this. Healthy guilt points us forward.
3) Healthy guilt does not destroy our self-respect. Sick guilt leads to self-hatred. Here we see moral
rules as necessary restraints for the wild and evil aspects of human nature. This leads us not to accept the
presence of irrational impulses within us and to hate ourselves. We do not trust ourselves. We reject and
punish ourselves, making us miserable.
Contrast this with the compassion of those who hate the sin but not the sinner. A healthy attitude is
motivated by love for ourselves and a deep sense that our lives are worthwhile and should be treasured. The
faults we commit are evil and we should turn away from them, but we never lose the sense of our own
preciousness, no matter what we have done. In healthy guilt we are compassionate and forgiving toward
ourselves.
4) Sick guilt is controlled by fear, the fear of making mistakes, the fear of rejection by others, the
fear of what is deep within us. In healthy guilt, the self is in control, making its own rational judgments. In
sick guilt there is no room for a rational evaluation of the situation, of one’s obligations and faults. There is
only an experience of an automatic, authoritarian imposition of obligation or guilt by the conscience. The
result is a sense of powerlessness.
In healthy guilt, the self is strong and in control. It rationally evaluates what has happened, accepts
its own guilt and decides what the appropriate response will be. It is guided by its own sense of what it
should do and not by the pressure to conform. It is honest and it becomes stronger as it faces the situation
and copes with its responsibility.
5) Healthy guilt leads ultimately to joy. Sick guilt leads to sadness and depression. There is pain
connected with all guilt, which no one likes to feel. But the pain of healthy guilt is like the pain of a wound
that is healing. It is a growing pain that makes us aware of what is needed for growth. We experience it with
hope and a sense that we are moving forward toward wholeness.
By contrast, sick guilt leads us into deeper sadness, a sadness that can take many forms. It can be
self-hatred or self-rejection. It can be the sadness of despair, when we no longer try and we give up on life. It
can be the sadness of being entrapped in the past and being unable to go forward.
6) Sick guilt is self-centered. Healthy guilt is outgoing. In sick guilt we are absorbed in our own
private selves, using much energy to deal with our private feelings. We make much of our fears and shame.
Healthy guilt leads us outwards beyond ourselves, toward rectifying the wrong that we have done. It
leads us to improve our relationship with people and to improve the world that we live in. It leads us to God.
Some examples here of guilt. Which are healthy, and which are sick?
- I asked forgiveness from my friend because I was cruel to her.
- I am ashamed of making mistakes in class. I will never again speak out in class.
- I cannot forget the sins I have committed in the past.
- I hate myself for having pre-marital sex or having an abortion.
- I feel bad for not studying class and will now try to do better.
- I fear that my parents will find out that I stole money from them or that I lied to them.
- I am ashamed not to cheat when everyone else is cheating.
- I am afraid to be honest because everyone will think I am trying to attract attention.
- I do not give alms to beggars because people will stare at me.

Michael Moga SJ
Understanding Morality

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Conscience and Guilt