The Moral Psychology of Regret (Moral Psychology of the Emotions)

"What kind of an emotion is regret? What difference does it make whether, how, and why we experience it, and how does this experience shape our current and future thoughts, decisions, goals? Under what conditions is regret appropriate? Is it always one kind of experience, or does it vary, based on who is doing the regretting, and why? How is regret different from other backward-looking emotions? In The Moral Psychology of Regret, scholars from several disciplines--including philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, law, and neuroscience--come together to address these and other questions related to this ubiquitous emotion that so many of us seem to dread. And while regret has been somewhat under-theorized as a subject worthy of serious and careful attention, this volume is offered with the intent of expanding the discourse on regret as an emotion of great moral significance that underwrites how we understand ourselves and each other." --From publisher's description "What kind of an emotion is regret? What difference does it make whether, how, and why we experience it, and how does this experience shape our current and future thoughts, decisions, goals? Under what conditions is regret appropriate? Is it always one kind of experience, or does it vary, based on who is doing the regretting, and why? How is regret different from other backward-looking emotions? In The Moral Psychology of Regret, scholars from several disciplines--including philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, law, and neuroscience--come together to address these and other questions related to this ubiquitous emotion that so many of us seem to dread. And while regret has been somewhat under-theorized as a subject worthy of serious and careful attention, this volume is offered with the intent of expanding the discourse on regret as an emotion of great moral significance that underwrites how we understand ourselves and each other." --Page 4 de la couverture The Moral Psychology of Regret 1 Contents 10 List of Tables and Figures 12 Acknowledgments 14 Backward Glances: An Introduction to The Moral Psychology of Regret 16 Part I: Varieties of Regret 42 1 Cousins of Regret 44 2 Regret as a Reactive Attitude: The Conditions of Responsibility and Revision 60 3 Regret as a Condition for Personhood 91 4 Reasonable Regret 113 Part II: Regret and the Self 134 5 Remorse 136 6 Regret, Narrative, and Marital Regret and Transformation 159 7 Regret, Responsibility, and the Brain 180 Part III: Whether to Regret 200 8 “Bury Me in a Free Land”: Regret for Slavery in Nineteenth-Century African American Philosophical Literature 202 9 Regret: Considerations of Disability 218 10 Regret Aversion in Riskless Choice Contexts: A Formal Model of Choice Behavior and Morally Problematic Choice Architectures 236 11 Long-Term Regret, Perspective, and Fate 255 Index 274 About the Contributors 280 The Moral Psychology of Regret assembles scholars from several disciplines, including philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, law and neuroscience, to present regret not merely as a feeling or affect but as an emotion of great moral significance that underwrites how we understand ourselves and each other