Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
contrast, if regret was concerned with the outcome sense of mistake, it would, as
Jacobson puts it, “ [T]hreaten the idea that regret serves as a sentiment whose
function involves learning from one’s mistakes, because cases of loss without error
should not motivate any change of policy. ” 7
I will instead defend the outcome sense of mistake. I will argue that agent-
regret is fitting only in cases where the decision produces a bad outcome. As such,
regret is not connected with motivating a policy change. Rather, I will argue that
what motivates a policy change is a distinct but related emotion to regret, what I
will call ‘ self-reproach. ’
The distinction between these two senses of mistake interestingly parallels
a central debate in ethics; namely, between deontology and consequentialism.
Recall that for consequentialism, only the consequences or outcomes of the action
matter morally speaking. What Thomas Nagel calls the causal pathways – that is,
how the action was brought about are totally irrelevant. 8 Deontologists also value
the consequences of actions, but they are mainly concerned with whether the
action was brought about in the right kind of way: for instance, that it did not
involve a wrongful violation of rights or other norms. 9
In what follows, I argue that regret is best understood as a consequentialist
emotion. To clarify, I am not making a claim in normative ethics. Rather, I am
making a claim about moral psychology. I will argue that regret resembles
consequentialism as far as it is only concerned with outcomes, which is naturally
related to the outcome sense of mistake. Similarly, I argue that self-reproach is a
deontological emotion insofar as it is primarily concerned with causal pathways,
which is instead naturally related to the deliberation sense of mistake. I will give a
7 D’Arms and Jacobson, 119. 8 Th omas Nagel, “War and Massacre,” in Mortal Questions , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1979), 54. 9 As John Rawls, a famous deontologist, writes in A Theory of Justice: “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would be simply irrational, crazy,” 30.
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