ABSTRACT
People who constantly reproach themselves for mistakes or lapses of one kind or another are usually considered to have an excessive sense of personal responsibility. Self-reproach is punishment for having done or not done something. The focus of moral reproach is the evaluation of the act itself, the transgression. The act is evaluated according to some principle or personal ideal. Such general principles or ideals define what should have been done, and, it is presumed, might have been done by anyone. Only in certain exceptional cases of obvious incapacity might this presumption be overlooked. It is this presumption that any choice is available to anyone that justifies moral evaluation and, specifically, self-reproach and the punishment, the shame, it entails. Actually, of course, an empathic understanding of the transgressor’s reasons and point of view is not only irrelevant to the assignment of moral responsibility and the attitude of reproach or self-reproach.
