ABSTRACT
Moral guilt covers the traditional or common sense interpretation of the concept ‘guilt’. It is tied directly with a breach of morality, and associated with a fairly simple sequence of events. Moral guilt normally stimulates a need to repair, or make up, in order to remove the threat of retaliation, or to win back lost love; and to ease the punishing pressure of guilt within the individual self. Hamlet is the quintessential example of pure dispositional guilt. He has committed no crime, he has breached no moral code, and yet he is paralysed by guilt. A large slice of what individuals in modern societies do is to be explained in terms of guilt over failure, or a fear of failure. Everyone cherishes ideals about their life, built up through childhood and youth, images of how to live and how not to live.
