Going on with my project (3) - Remorse

   I would like to focus on remorse next and what it reveals ontologically. (I think Raimond Gaita has thought most deeply about remorse in Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, and I draw freely on this book.) Rather than an example from my own life, of which there are too many, I would like to focus on Dostoevsky's character Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment. As I read it, he is oppressed by poverty, which produces a kind of meaning-blindness in him. From this matrix he latches on to a kind of corrupt version of Nietzschean philosophy, one that sees morality as a decadent social construct, an ideology of resentment. He thinks the superior man is free from concern about moral conventions and remorse over alleged evils done. He sees Napolean as such a man. (“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it,” as Voldemort put the same thought.) He believes himself to be such a man and tests this belief by murdering the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom he sees as a "louse" whose death would benefit society. (We always de-mean before we violate or destroy.) Raskolnikov is tormented by anxiety and guilt after the murder, though he does not experience a single dramatic "Oh my God!" moment early on. His descent into Hell is gradual. At first, his sickness and paranoia seem psychological rather than moral; he fears being caught rather than truly feeling remorse. The real breakthrough comes primarily through Sonia Marmeladov, the young prostitute (!) whose humility and faith shine light into his darkness. Through her, he begins to see the true meaning of what he has done and indeed what he has become: a murderer. She reads to him from the Gospel of John, and in her presence, he starts to understand his crime existentially, indeed spiritually. His eventual surrender to the police and confession is more than just admitting to the crime; it marks his seeing the truth, seeing therefore his guilt, and as a result needing redemption.

    What can we deduce about reality, what aspect of reality shows itself in and through Raskolnikov’s remorse, if we assume it is not reducible to evolutionary-psychological-social categories? The reality of the pawn-broker. Not as the empirical person she was (very unlikeable). Indeed, in a purely worldly sense the world might have been better off without her.  But as a child of God or a human being loved by Christ. In secular terms (more superficially) as a human being and thus as an absolute limit to the will. Her human reality is revealed through his remorse, his pained recognition of guilt.

    As said, before the murder he had objectified her, reducing her to a louse to be exterminated. In doing so, he denies her a soul and sets up an ontological divide between the valuable or superior human, the one who has a claim to be, and the all-too-human who makes no claim on the superior men to exist.  Through his remorse, she is restored to reality – not just as an individual, but as an absolute moral limit, an entity who ought never to have been killed.

   Remorse discloses the preciousness of every human life, as contrary to worldly common sense as that might seem. The moral dimension of the humanity of the victim is revealed not in theoretical reflection but in the existential weight of guilt. Guilt “proves” we are the kind of being (or creature) that can be de-meaned and violated or destroyed, and that doing so pollutes the soul of the evil-doer, opening up a spiritual abyss that only forgiveness or redemption can close.

. . .

   The true nature not only of the crime but also the punishment is disclosed (Never was a novel better titled!). At first, Raskolnikov sees punishment externally, as something imposed by the state. But after his transformation, he accepts it as something he must undergo, not merely to satisfy the law, but as part of his moral and spiritual redemption. Dostoevsky shows his readers the essence of punishment as a kind of purgation. It is not just retribution but a path toward the restoration of the soul. This we see in the epilogue where Raskolnikov, now in Siberian exile, experiences the beginnings of rebirth through Sonia’s patient love and through an inner awakening. This is a very Christian universe. Sonia is like a window through which Christ’s truth-love shines through, clarifying the reality of things. But I don’t think it depends on an explicit affirmation of Christianity. Pure love is possible among non-Christians as well. It is the purity of the love that matters i.e. the absence of the “fat, relentless ego” (Iris Murdoch) from the love.

. . .

 Again, what aspects of reality does true remorse disclose?

Remorse discloses moral reality. If morality were merely a social construct or an evolutionary mechanism ensuring social cohesion, Raskolnikov should have been able to "construct" a justification and remain free of guilt. But he cannot. His remorse reveals that morality is not a human invention but an absolute structure of reality, something one collides with. (It is not proof of this, granted. The reader is still free to see him as pitifully dominated by conventional morality. But again, I am assuming here for the purposes of ontological deduction that the remorse is authentic.)  His remorse is not reducible to regret over consequences; it is a fundamental recognition that he violated something real and inviolable.

    Other people, fellow travelers to the grave, fellow sinners if you will, are absolute limits to our will and thus “good, very good” at core, no matter how badly our actual lives cover this up. The reality of the pawnbroker as a human being transcends Raskolnikov’s will. He wanted to see her as a mere object, but remorse forces him to recognize that she was never reducible to his conceptual scheme. This supports an ontological claim: human beings are not just material beings but bear a reality that demands recognition beyond mere social agreements.

    Punishment cannot be eradicated from our nature. Punishment is not arbitrary or merely a social construct. Rather, it is written into the structure of being itself. Guilt demands atonement. If punishment were purely a social or psychological construct, Raskolnikov could have eluded it psychologically. But he finds no peace until he embraces suffering as necessary for redemption. Thus suffering, when borne rightly, can have a transformative role in human existence. It is not just punitive but purgative.

. . .

    Of course, many moderns are skeptical of remorse, seeing it as a hangover from Christian morality and metaphysics, a kind of conditioning Raskolnikov couldn't free himself from. And there are of course inauthentic forms of remorse most ontologically significant emotional responses – sentimentality being at the top of the list, but also a kind of behavioral conditioning. But again, rejecting the power of remorse to reveal the person wronged and the nature of the wrong and the damaged soul of the wrong-doer seems to turn life in its head, and results in a terrifying nihilism. If it were no longer even intelligible that a man could suffer genuine remorse for murder, we would be in a brave new world indeed.

     The skepticism toward remorse, particularly in modernity, stems from a broader rejection of moral reality as real and the suspicion that guilt is a social construct rather than a metaphysical condition of human existence. If genuine remorse were debunked, then moral crime would no longer have an inner reality but would be merely breaches of convention. This leads to a chilling consequence: there would be no inner transformation of the wrongdoer, only external correction by force or re-education. This is precisely what many totalitarian regimes attempted by erasing remorse through ideological conditioning. Moreover, the rejection of remorse follows from what Weber called the disenchantment (Entzauberung) of modernity (science-capitalism-technology), where everything real about the inner life is explained away by psychology, biology, or sociology. No metaphysical truths allowed! (Even my man Wittgenstein could not really get out of this cage.) If remorse is just an illusion, then crime is merely an error in judgment or social maladjustment, not something that damages the soul of the wrongdoer. This is terrifying because it implies that human beings would no longer be responsive to their own moral failures in any deep, spiritual sense. i.e. it implies nihilism. 

. . .

Not all remorse is genuine. Some is mere sentimentality, social conditioning, or self-pity. How do we distinguish real remorse from inauthentic forms? Here are some possible criteria:

a) Authentic remorse is oriented toward the person wronged. False remorse is self-centered (e.g., "I feel bad because I got caught"). True remorse is outward-looking. It sees the reality of the wronged person, not just the consequences for the wrongdoer. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s remorse is initially inauthentic (fear of being caught), but through Sonia, it becomes authentic – he recognizes his victim has a shared humanity with him, a soul.

b) Authentic remorse cannot be resolved through mere external actions. Some forms of guilt can be "managed" socially (e.g., paying a fine or apologizing to satisfy expectations). But real remorse demands something deeper: an internal transformation. The fact that we recognize unforgivable acts (e.g., betrayal of a loved one) intimates that remorse points beyond external correction.

c) Authentic remorse is not merely emotional but transformative. Sentimentality can mimic remorse but is fleeting. Genuine remorse leads to a reorientation of the will. The person does not merely feel guilty but becomes someone new. Raskolnikov’s confession is an act of transformation, not just a relief of guilt.

d) Authentic remorse is an encounter with an objective reality. If remorse is merely a psychological state, we should be able to suppress it. But real remorse forces itself upon us; it insists on its reality. Thus remorse is not just a feeling but an encounter with a reality beyond the self.

If remorse were entirely dismissed as mere conditioning, the result would be nihilism. The denial of remorse would make crimes against human dignity meaningless beyond pragmatic consequences.

. . .

   This is just a footnote, but I wonder how deeply this train of thought is connected to Christianity and may even be a prima facie argument for it. I don't think atheism can account for remorse in the full sense. For example, Sartre – a more consequential atheist you will never find – lets remorse into to his thinking through the backdoor, as it were. His description of "bad faith" is just a secularized version of remorse. A person who deceives himself about his moral failures (e.g., a Nazi official denying responsibility) experiences existential anxiety. Though Sartre denies absolute morality, he truthfully maintains that human beings experience an unbearable sense of alienation when they fail to live authentically. Rather than conscience or God or love, I suppose it is to the self that one must confess and seek forgiveness? And without morality being real, if the universe is indeed indifferent and meaningless, if the only source of meaning is human subjectivity, on what ground should the Nazi suffer from bad faith for denying responsibility?

    I read Camus’ The Fall as a student. In the world of that novel, where no moral reality is recognized, remorse becomes paralyzing rather than redemptive. Because of his awareness of his moral failures and the hypocrisy he recognizes within himself. Clamence, once a successful and seemingly virtuous lawyer, has a moment of revelation when he did not do anything to prevent a woman's suicide. He heard her scream for help but did nothing. There is no higher power and no moral reality in Camus’ world. Thus Clamence's remorse is not entirely one of genuine moral recognition or true repentance. It seems part of his self-loathing alienation from others. He sees himself as a coward. He speaks of a fall from grace, both in a personal sense (his shift from self-righteousness to self-contempt) and in a broader, existential sense, reflecting humanity's fall from innocence or purity. But that narrative signifies nothing real. It is rather a metaphor for a psychological state. As he tells his story to an anonymous listener in Amsterdam, his remorse acts as a form of self-punishment and a way to justify his continued sense of superiority over others (the fat, relentless ego is very much still there; he remains untransformed). His constant self-examination and confessions are, in part, a defense mechanism against guilt at a higher level of self-consciousness. So while remorse haunts him, it is also a kind of mask for his continued, though tortured, self-assertion.

      This seems an honest account of remorse in a godless world. Clamence is unable to seek redemption. His remorse becomes unbearable because there is no higher moral reality to resolve it. Remorse becomes a trap. Since there is no God to forgive him, Clamence develops a nihilistic philosophy, claiming that everyone is guilty, so remorse is meaningless. Yet, he cannot escape it. It is a picture of Hell in my view. Thus even in an explicitly atheistic setting, remorse is still inescapable. Camus intimates that remorse demands something more than mere psychological management. But since Camus cannot bring himself to recognize a moral reality, given his uncritical acceptance of modernity, he does not resolve this tension.

    Another book I read as a student was Kafka’s The Trial. is a surreal, dystopian depiction of guilt and punishment. Josef K. is arrested without knowing why and subjected to an inscrutable legal system. While there is no explicit "remorse" in a conventional sense, Josef K. gradually moves from dismissing his guilt to suffering from it. Unlike Raskolnikov, Josef K. never actually commits a crime, but he feels guilt growing within him. Why? For living in a certain social form? This implies that guilt and remorse are not just responses to legal or social condemnation but existential conditions, and honestly that makes no sense to me without some pretty strong metaphysical commitments. In Kafka’s world, there is no grace or forgiveness – only endless, inescapable guilt.

   To me, these are honest, courageous attempts to deal with remorse in a godless universe and reach similar conclusions. The contrast with Dostoevsky could not be starker.

. . .

     It is interesting to consider Nazi criminals in this context (standing for a whole slew of others). How rare true remorse seems to have been. Many high-ranking Nazis either clung to justification (e.g., Eichmann’s bureaucratic rationalizations) or displayed only a pragmatic form of regret. Unlike Raskolnikov, who is shattered by his guilt, most of them seemed unable to undergo a transformation that would fully reveal the full reality of their wrongdoing. This absence of remorse might be more revealing than its presence, showing that sustained participation in evil requires a fundamental blindness that cannot easily be undone.

      Perhaps the guilt was too horrible to a mere human to bear? (This would not only apply to Nazi criminals.) This is why most former Nazis either denied, minimized, or rationalized their actions rather than facing them. True remorse, in the sense of Raskolnikov’s existential awakening, would require an almost supernatural courage, indeed grace; a willingness to see the true horror of what they did. If (genuine) remorse means truly seeing the victims as real, in all their humanity, then for a Holocaust-maker, that act of seeing could be spiritually annihilating. It is a terrifying thought. True remorse demands that we see reality as it is, and for those who have committed unspeakable horrors, that reality is too terrible to look at. This is why so many perpetrators cling to denial, justification, or moral numbness: a self-defense against truth. Hell.

      Human beings in general live in a fantasy. It requires effort and virtue even to let a little reality in. On such a level as we are talking about, there is something sublime about genuine remorse, something that rises above the human-all-too-human. I think of it as grace. The "defense mechanisms" have to collapse. And yet, the rare cases of authentic remorse when they do appear are extraordinary. They stand out precisely because they break through the wall of self-deception and evasion. If such a Nazi truly repented, it would not only be a personal transformation but a metaphysical event, a rupture of normal human psychology. It would be as if the man or woman had been resurrected from spiritual death.

    When the defense mechanisms fail, what is left is the soul utterly naked, stripped of all illusions. Genuine remorse is not just an emotion but an event, an encounter with reality in its most unbearable form.  Most people (I don't exclude myself) cannot bear to see themselves as they are, to stand before the abyss of their own sinfulness, without some comforting narrative to shield them. (How comforting many postmodern "discourses" can be to those who can believe them! Have there ever been bigger philosophical liars than Foucault and Derrida?) It requires a kind of inner death, a death of the false self, the one who can justify, evade, or explain away. There is something awe-inspiring, sublime in those moments when remorse is not just regret or guilt but a total collapse of self-deception, an absolute submission to the moral reality of what has been done. And yet, it is a kind of suffering that most would rather die than face. (Hell)

     Yet these rare cases of true remorseful insight are authoritative. They judge all the rest. These rare moments of pure, unclouded remorse are like a leak from another world (Gaita) breaking through the fog of self-justification and evasion that characterizes most human lives (not excluding myself). They are authoritative not because they compel agreement by force, but because they uncover a reality that, once seen, cannot be unseen. This is why genuine remorse judges not just the person who experiences it, but all who would seek to explain it away. It renders shallow notions of morality empty by comparison. Even those who do not feel it themselves are, in a sense, judged by it because its very existence refutes their rationalizations. There is even something prophetic about it. It is as those who suffer true remorse bear painful witness to moral reality.

     Gaita was right to focus on remorse. But I see no reason to refrain from drawing metaphysical inferences.

. . .

   Socrates thought evil was a form of ignorance. If a man knew, really knew an act was evil, he could not do it. This account of remorse explains that. The truth one knows on the other side of remorse transforms the soul in such a way that the man could never do such a thing.

. . .

  Ultimately, remorse is mysterious. modernity often seeks to flatten mystery, to explain it away or render it trivial. Modernity is a gigantic ideology that functions as a defense mechanism. But reality resists such efforts, and the deepest experiences like remorse, love, grief, remorse, wonder, and joy continue to break through, refuting modernity.

  Remorse follows from the individual conceived as knowable by love.