Is regret always wrong?

A cogent argument can be made that "envy" (the hatred of the good for being good) is something that's always wrong. That it's never in anyone's genuine self-interest to harbor, promulgate or to propagate envy within themselves. That it's always right to fight and eradicate envy within yourself even if there's a psychological cost (all fights have costs). That envy is "inherently" evil.

Is "regret" like that, too? Folks say so, but I've never heard an argument for it (just some bold conjecture). Is there ever such a thing as regret that is in your genuine self-interest?

Thanks.

Ed

Post 1

Friday, July 4, 2008 - 2:00pm

It would be in your interest if you learned from it, I suppose. "I should have done this," "I shouldn't have done that," etc.

Post 2

Friday, July 4, 2008 - 2:56pm

Regret is acknowledging one made a mistake in judgment, and that one would had done or not done such the same if it could have been done or relived over...... personally, have never heard of it as a wrongness or an 'evil' - why would it be?

Post 3

Friday, July 4, 2008 - 6:03pm

I was thinking the same thing. I've never heard of regret as being against self interest.

Post 4

Friday, July 4, 2008 - 7:57pm

Well, it's possible to regret not making certain bad choices, or regret making good ones, if your value system is skewed. Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde had numerous pithy quotes on that topic. It's possible to kick yourself over what you should have done in the past, but not change your current behavior to prevent further recurrences of entirely predictable consequences. So, if you're making yourself unhappy with regret, but firmly insist on continuing with a flawed status quo, you might as well quit beating yourself up and cheerfully embrace your self-destructive habits (see: foreign policy, Bush jr's).

Better, though, to use regret constructively. ;)

Post 5

Saturday, July 5, 2008 - 1:28am

Some regrets are earned and deserved. You pay for them - and the coin of this realm is a quantity of saddness, guilt or shame. Look for culpability, a drop in one's level of virtue, that led to the regreted decision. (Here, the word regret is like Robert described in post #2 - "acknowledging one made a mistake" - with the added understanding that it was from a failure of integrity)

Others regrets are just looking back, with the keen vision of hindsight, and saying, "If only I'd known ..." Introspection can tell you that you weren't morally culpable - that it wasn't a lowering of integrity that led to the decision in question. We are allowed to make honest mistakes. (Teressa pointed out this kind of regret in post #1)

And still a third sense of regret isn't about a decision at all - it's just saying something could have been better. This kind of regret is where you would like things to have been different but you had NO choice in the situation.
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I regret not having married a woman I once loved, when all that stopped me was giving in to a fear of commitment. I deserved and earned that regret and I paid for it. (And I'll add; neither I nor anyone else should over-pay for this kind of regret - there is a fair price for all things. Move on!)

I regret not having bought Google stock at its IPO - I thought about it at the time, but mostly it's just hindsight - and it isn't a regret that I pay for - it doesn't hurt and it shouldn't. This kind of regret is just teaching material and if you learn from it, then you profit.

I regret that having a cold last week kept me from getting together with some friends, but I wasn't culpable in acquiring that virus. This is just the English language's way of using the word to say I'd like to have seen the friends. (If I had any bad feelings about myself or the nature of life that I hooked to that "regret", which I don't, it would be symptomatic, a sign that something else is making me feel bad that I need to bring to consciousness.)
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Almost like three different meanings for this one word.

As to Ed's origonal question: "Is there ever such a thing as regret that is in your genuine self-interest?" - Yes, all three kinds (but only when proportional). The alternative is some form of repression, some kind faked inner-reality, some kind of denial and that is not in anyone's self-interest.

Post 6

Saturday, July 5, 2008 - 10:51am

Thanks, everyone (especially Steve).

Folks' claims have made me question their moral superiority when they announced that they live without regret, as if they've reach a moral pinnacle or summit ... as if they "have arrived." I always suspected some sort of denial or evasion in their supposed sense of superiority. All of your answers in this thread helped validate that suspicion for me.

If someone tells me they have no regrets, I'll rightly bet on them as being a member of the cult of moral grayness. I'll correctly bet on the probability that they are someone who -- like folks who say there's absolutely no absolutes -- that they are someone who finds moral judgment, itself, repulsive (i.e., as worthy of moral judgment).

;-)

Ed

Post 7

Saturday, July 5, 2008 - 12:41pm

Darn! I thought I'd been through in listing 3 kinds of regrets in my last post. But after reading Ed in post #6, I see I needed to write some more. There is another way the word can be understood.

It is when a person says I have no regrets - but in their mind, they don't mean I've NEVER had ANY. Instead they just understand the question as, "Do you regret the major choices in your life - like marriage and career - that brought you to this point?" Or, "Do you regret being the person you are now?"

Someone could reply "No, I don't" and be thinking, "I'm glad I decided to become an engineer and I'm glad I married Susan." And they might not even grasp that the question of regrets could also cover, say, when they cheated a relative out of some small part of an inheritance, or not telling Susan the truth about something that happened in Vegas many years ago, or even that they changed their major four times in college and are still paying student loans. In their mind they are saying, "I'm okay with who I am today."

That may just how how they understand the concept "regret". And they may be telling the truth within that context.

Or like Ed said, there may be lies in the air - they may have an agenda of avoiding moral judgements. And that can happen with this kind of regret or the some of the others in my first post. Attempts to escape moral judgement can be done internally where they try to fool themselves, or it can be external where they live behind a facade - either a facade of moral superiority - where they judge everyone else, almost always harshly, to make themselves appear above judgment, and lash out at any attempt to call them on something (my favorite example in this category are the politicians or preachers caught doing something they've preached against with great moral indignation) - or like Ed said, they can cling to beliefs that moral absolutes are harsh and unnecessary and judging is just best not done.

Post 8

Saturday, July 5, 2008 - 4:31pm

The thing about these regrets is - given the context in which these regretted incidents, or any past incidents even , I doubt anyone would have made a different decision - that is, your life would have gone the same the second time around as the first...... if, however, another element entered in, some different info altering the context, even if slightly, then yes, a different decision could have been done....
in other words, the regretting, any of it or all of it, comes from hindsight, nothing more - and if no regretting, it is because of a refusal to engage in hindsighting .......

(Edited by robert malcom on 7/05, 4:37pm)

Post 9

Saturday, July 5, 2008 - 10:51pm

Hi Robert,

I don't agree.

We have choice points at nearly every waking instant. Some of the signals announcing a choice point are more a part of the external context (outside of us) and regarding those, I agree, that "the imaginary same person" would live a second life similar to the first.

But there are many choice point signals that are more about the internal aspect of our context in that moment.

Most of these internal triggers are calls to shift the consciousness in some fashion. Here are just few examples:

Our defenses signal do this or that (they can be healthy defenses - a "gut feeling" that the person we are dealing with isn't really our friend, or they can be unhealthy defenses, like a feeling of anxiety telling us to ignore something right in front of our face because it might bring to consciousness something that we are in denial about).
Some tiny discomfort can be a signal that we need to focus more intently, that we may not understand what is in front of as well as think we or as well as we need to. "Do I need to pay more attention?"
Another tiny feeling could be saying I should be more or less tolerant in a given context, or focusing in a different direction, or more or less relaxed - we shift the kind of conscious focus, as well as the intensity and direction.
Our character sends us signals when something arises effecting our integrity.
How strong is a person's signal telling them when they are straying from a primary purpose? Some people are more "purposeful" than others - that's not a genetic difference! It's about choice points and building habits.
We get some signal for a choice point to change our focus from a pursuit ocurring in the moment to a larger value in the future that is in conflict - call that one a signal to exercise our will power, our discipline.

Because we are the agent at these choice points, and because the sum of our choices shape our very being (our character, our will, our self-esteem, our virtues, our wisdom and so much more) as we are making them, I don't see any realistic way to talk about living a second life the same as the first. It would certainly not work as a context for discussing regret which implies we might do differently - not if the concept of volition has reality. Even hindsight and introspection are choices, choices that change us as we choose.

If we focused on all choice points only from their external aspect or their outcomes, we would appear to be automatons of some sort, at worst, or, at best, very clever devices that some how acquired the values that drive us - with no real understanding of how that works. The concept of choice points that are mostly internal let us build a model of how character forms, what will power is, how virtues are acquired or lost, how the level of self-esteem ebbs and flows - to put it in a nutshell - how we build the person we will be, moment by moment.

Post 10

Friday, July 11, 2008 - 6:29pm

Someone had to post it:

Post 11

Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 3:20pm