Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief.
~ William Faulkner
I have criticized regret and refused to glorify it as a noble emotion. I think that regret after transgressions (remorse) has evolved as a protection against vengeance; it keeps individuals in line with group norms. Regret after decisions under uncertainty, on the other hand, is little more than a narcissistic struggle with one's own labile preferences (see Kathryn Schulz's TED talk and my commentary).
As for remorse, one may now wonder if it is also narcissistic or Machiavellian if its prime function is to protect the self against punishment. To some extent it works. Perpetrators of crimes who manage to signal sincere remorse can, on average, expect lower sentences. Likewise, in ordinary social life, a sincere message of regret paves the way to forgiveness and the resumption of mutually beneficial relations. So in this regard, my thesis to "Forget Regret" is too radical.
It may seem that wholesale abandonment of regret would turn us into Stoics at best and psychopaths at worst. I think that such a conclusion would be mistaken. Getting rid of regret need not entail emotional numbing. I received an email from a reader who served in Vietnam and who may have killed people during his tour of duty. Killing people in combat, or worse, civilians in time of war, is a horrifying experience for the vast majority of soldiers. Indeed, it is not so much the present danger of being killed, but the prospect of having to kill others or actually having done it that is the strongest contributor to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Only a small percentage of true psychopaths actually does not care or even enjoys killing (Grossman, 2009). I am concerned here with the majority case. Should these soldiers feel regret? From the ordinary normative perspective, the answer is yes. Though they did their duty, narrowly defined, they violated the higher sacred value not to kill. Hence, their suffering serves them right.
I don't share this view. If regret is a signal to the ingroup not to seek vengeance, a soldier's regret does not make much sense. What entitles the ingroup to forgive? Should a soldier regret the deed in order to expiate the outgroup? This seems possible in principle, but it is weak sociologically, especially during armed intergroup conflict. If regret is the wrong emotion in this context, what is the right one? I think the answer is "grief." Grief is very different from regret. Grief does not put blame on the self. It does not put blame on anyone. Yet it is a very powerful emotion. We grieve after the death of a loved one. As in regret, there is a social component, but it is a constructive one. The ingroup is called upon to support and sustain the griever, not to threaten punishment or exclusion. Grief, intense as it can be, has a time-course; it is self-limiting. With time, grief dissipates. The psyche is allowed to heal. This is not so with regret. Regret hinges on the idea that one could have acted differently, that one could have averted the disaster. This idea, if believed, will always appear to be valid; its force does not diminish with time. The regret-prone person is at risk of periodically re-activating his own misery. In contrast, the grievant will eventually overcome. With grief, hope is built in; with regret, it is not. Veterans need our compassion, not our forgiveness. Let's have the wisdom to give it to them.
Grossman, D. (2009). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
