Guilt and Shame... Part I

Guilt and Shame are not just emotions that people feel. Like all other emotions, Guilt and Shame have evolutionary roots. Let us axiomatically assume the three Laws of Humanics. Shame is the system's way of negating anti-societal behavior while emphasizing the need to prove oneself acceptable/desirable to others. Shame is the system's way of enforcing the 2nd Law of Humanics - Thou shalt obey the system. Guilt evolved as an implementation of the 1st Law of Humanics - Thou shalt not harm a human or through inaction allow a human to come to harm.

Note that neither Guilt nor Shame have any impact on the 3rd Law - Self Preservation. Guilt is not rooted in the need for self-defense. Rather, for guilt there must first be some concern with the welfare of others.

The classic example of caring and responding to the distress of another human is probably in the parent-child care system. As a child becomes aware of distress in others (including awareness of being a source for others distress), develops empathy and sympathy, and the wish to help others, the capacity for guilt becomes developed. Unlike shame, guilt is not associated with anger at others, guilt is not associated with feeling inferior to others.

Although animals may have the precursors for shame (sensitivity to dominant others and submissive behavior) and guilt (care-giving), I'm not entirely convinced that animals feel shame or guilt as such. They lack self-conscious awareness (of "being a self") and the capacity to reflect on behavior and judge them good or bad.

Humans have evolved certain cognitive competencies that enable Guilt and Shame. First, humans became able to form symbolic representations of objects in the world and of the self and others. Symbolic self-awareness comes with language and the ability to symbolize "the self," the ability to "imagine" the self as an object and to judge and give value to the self; to have self-esteem, to think about the meaning of one's appearance to others and the implications.

Evolution also provided humans with the ability to understand what might be going on in the minds of other people. One can think about what motivates someone else's behavior, what they might value or devalue, what they know and what they do not know, and one can think how to manipulate them to like us or be wary of us.

Linked to these abilities is metacognition - to be able to reflect and judge one's own thinking and feelings.

Guilt and Shame make sense only to an evolutionary entity that has these three abilities. Without meta-cognition, there is no way a man could feel disturbed by the knowledge that he-she is mentally undressing a woman. Without the ability to figure out how someone might think, there is no way you could explain to a human why calling someone a bastard might hurt the person who is being thus adressed. Without the ability to be self-aware, there is no way you could feel self-conscious: Without self-consciousness, there is no meaning to Guilt or Shame.

So, what about people who don't feel Guilt or Shame? Are these people sub-human or inhuman in any way?
The next post has the Analysis...

p.s. The theories explained in this post are not opinions. This post is almost entirely based on well-established facts and conclusions based on anthropological research.
p.p.s. No! the reasearch wasn't done by me!