Let's Talk About Guilt
Heidi Maibom and Charlie Kurth
Thursday, April 9, 4–5pm | Downtown Main Library, 3 South Room E, 800 Vine St | Register
Guilt tends to be loved or loathed. Those who love it view the emotion as moral ballast: guilt helps us see that we’ve done something wrong and the awful feeling it brings is not just penance, but a goad for us to make amends. Loathers see guilt as an anchor that weights us down. Not only can we be plagued by guilt when we have done nothing wrong—as we see in survivor guilt or the guilt we feel after harming others in a freak car accident—but guilt also too often leads us to self-loathing and depression. What, then, are we to make of guilt? In her inaugural Taft Distinguished Professor lecture, Heidi Maibom is joined by Charlie Kurth to discuss their book, Good Guilt, Bad Guilt: A Philosophical Guide to a Complicated Emotion.