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Is the emotion "Guilt" inherited or learned/mechanical?
in General

By ZeusAres42ZeusAres42 281 Pts
While I believe most people are born with the capacity for being empathetic I will contend that the emotion Guilt is a learned behavior that came about via the process of domestication using a system of reward and punishment. 

Furthermore, I think many of us have learned how this feeling of guilt can be exploited to get people to do what you want because they would feel guilty otherwise. In this particular sense, it is mechanical.

The good news, however, is that once we know this we can accept and then transcend it.

What are your thoughts?
Plaffelvohfen

The unexamined thought is not worth thinking.




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  • part of the evolutionary empthy gene   , proves you have a concience@ZeusAres42
    The passion for destruction is also a creative passion. Mikhail Bakunin

  • @ZeusAres42 sociopaths and psycopaths lack it and that makes them dangerous
    The passion for destruction is also a creative passion. Mikhail Bakunin

  • maxxmaxx 50 Pts
    edited June 2019
    @ZeusAres42 first I think you may mean remorse rather than guilt; there is a difference. regardless. both come about by either the threat or actual punishment, but mainly by shame and humiliation. I think that shame is learned from being laughed at as a child by other children and being laughed at makes one feel inadequate. in children this feeling of being laughed at due to the shame is in my opinion not something we learned; it seems to show up as early as age 3-4. so perhaps guilt and remorse may be learned, but they stem from an instinctive reaction.
  • @ZeusAres42

    Guilt is indeed a learned emotion and is closely related to shame, love is also a learned emotion... As opposed to primary emotions which do not require any kind of knowledge like happiness, sadness, anger, and fear...
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
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