I am doing some personal research and I am interested in knowing about the element of guilt that humans feel when they know that they have done something wrong. Does the conscience produce guilt? What exactly is the consciene and what exactly is guilt? Are they mutually inclusive or exclusive or somewhere in between? Is it just a feeling? Is the conscience and/or guilt inherent in all humans? Does guilt prove some type of accountablity, or does it simply tell of a right and wrong? If it does prove accountability, accountability to who or what? Is the conscience subjective or objective? I know that was a mouthful, but I am interested in knowing because of the debate between atheists and theists on the part of man's conscience in regards to morality. Hence the question of subjectivity or objectivity. Both sides seem to make good points, but with all due respect to each side, most of them are not psychologists, they are just philosophers. I am trying to avoid the philosophic tennis match going on between the two and get something a little more on the scientific end. So, I thought I would ask some psychologists. Daniel

-- Daniel Baggette (FreeFalln85@yahoo.com), July 24, 2003

Answers

You might want to read some of the work of O. H. Mowrer, who asserted that there was "real guilt" quite apart from the neurotic guilt hypothesized by Freud. His relevant books are The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, and The New Group Therapy. I list various books on guilt in my annotated bibliography on Psychology and Theology in Western Thought (Kraus Thomson, 1984). Some other good sources include Edmund Bergler's The Battle of the Conscience (Washington Institute of Medicine, 1948), F. C. Houselander's Guilt (Sheed & Ward, 1951), Theodor Reik's Myth and Guilt (George Braziller, 1957), Paul Tournier's Guilt and Grace (Harper & Row, 1962); John Grant McKenzie, Guilt: Its meaning and Significance (Georte Allen & Unwil, 1962); David Belgum, Guilt: Where Psychology and Religion Meet (Prentice-Hall, 1963). These are all books from before 1965, but they are excellent sources. you might also check the chapter on guilt in Seward Hiltner's Theological Dynamics (Westminster, 1971). Another rather interesting work is Edward Engelberg's The Unknown distance: From Consciousness to Conscience Goethe to Camus (Harvard University Press, 1982). These should give you a start!

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), July 25, 2003.

I think the most useful approach is to consider "territorial behavior" in animals. Many animals set up boundaries that are both defended by its holder, and to some extent respected by others. This may be due to learning or primal intuition, probably both, but more one than the other as varies according to species. We recognize the generalization that "humans are social animals", but this implies that humans tend to follow rules of social relationships, including some mutual recognition of rights and responsibilities between fellow humans. When one transgresses these rules, perhaps inadvertently but occasionally intentionally, one tends to retreat in the face of opposition that the transgressor himself regards as legitimate. Serious conflict arises when both sides intuitively feel a legitimate claim on the same "territory" or "property". This happens between various territorial animals, including large groups of humans (e.g., nations). Not all animals are territorial. Some always retreat, some never retreat. It's a matter of genetics/evolution, imprinting, and later learning-- some or all of these. Read any good source on the development of behavior patterns in animals, such as Frans de Waals' works.

-- Irving L.Selk (recovnow@earthlink.net), September 17, 2003.

I can give you an answer acording to A.P. Sperling book I've read recently. Conscience is a learned set of rules and ideals to which a human is pursuing. It is learned, when when a child is being rewarded for doing 'good' and punished, when doing 'bad'. I guess that it makes unpleasently thought (which you can called guilty) when the rules are broken, becouse man associate breaking of the rule with the punishment, which he took in many years ago. Conscience and guilty surely dosen't occur in all human, but in strongly most. It don't occur in some of psychopatic persons. I guess that becouse conscience is learned it can be unlearned too in all people. But 'unlearnig' normally take longer time than learnig, so most people would not lose their conscience, expecially that not many people try to lose it. At the end I can say that I do not feel any symptoms of having conscience, but it might be becouse I do not 'test' it enough. Regards!

-- Kamil Felskowski (kamil_f@operamail.com), May 28, 2004.