ABSTRACT
The term regret fi nds its ancient origins in the Old Norse grate, to weep. It thus designates a capacity as ancient and enduring as the human capacity to effect things worth weeping for. Indeed, implicit in every act, as act , is the possibility that it is, or one day will be, regretted. Conversely, an act that carries no such possibility cannot properly be referred to as an act because it entails no imperative to hold the agent responsible. Behavior conducted under force of compulsion, for example, or under conditions of radical abjection, imposes on me no such responsibility to account for myself, to myself, to another, or publically.
