Decent people want people to be more decent: they don’t steal someone else’s things, don’t betray friends, don’t abandon children, so that they take care of their loved ones and respect those who are far away. If we live where there is reasonable legislation, a fair court and, most importantly, surveillance cameras and just neighbors that follow every step of every person, life takes on quite decent outlines. But what can we hope for if we want people themselves to wish good and not do evil, so that it comes from within them? What are the possible psychological foundations of morality?
In everyday consciousness, the most reliable means is such education that for deviations from a person’s decent behavior, conscience relentlessly gnawed and tormented by a sense of guilt. “And if you know that through your fault a person died. You will never get rid of such a feeling of guilt, ”one of the Psychologos readers writes with conviction. He is convinced, as one might guess, not only that one cannot get rid of the feeling of guilt in such a situation, but also that it is impossible to get rid of it here, one cannot even set such a task.
The meaning of the response to the article “Guilt Feelings” is similar: “What optimism emanates from your article! It turns out that guilt is not needed for people who ruined destinies, abandoned children, robbed friends! Cool, forgive yourself and move on! And let the victims read other articles, where they will be taught how to worry and give forgiveness.”
Unfortunately, everything is more complicated. There are people who do nasty things and do not feel any sense of guilt at the same time (The most famous historical figure is Sulla, the bloodiest emperor of Rome, a tyrant who considered himself the happiest person in the world all his life).
There are people who live honestly, but at the same time they feel guilty often, or even constantly … Unfortunately, raising a sense of guilt in itself does not guarantee anything. Studies show that the feeling of guilt is very typical for Russians, while the moral state of modern Russian society is at the stage of degradation.
In countries where the situation with the morality and decency of people is more prosperous, the issue was resolved not by instilling a sense of guilt, but by reasonable legislation and a strict system of its observance, as, for example, in Singapore. As a result, people simply get used to living decently, they soon understand (see with their own eyes) the meaning of decency and begin to broadcast the norms of decency themselves.