Abstract

Near the end of someone’s life, or when a chapter in their life closes, they may nurse regrets but no longer be able to act to change the situation they regret having caused. This paper asks what is the point of such vain regrets and contrasts them with the typical case where regret is effectual. Regret usually involves both anger at oneself for what one has done and sadness at having done it. Richard Wollheim takes regret to be an attitude of hostility to oneself resulting from a fall in one’s secure sense of self as an ongoing person. His account is considered and rejected as unable to reveal the point of vain regrets. Sartre’s description of the emotions is adapted to the case of regret with its dual affective character. His idea of anger as a substitute for the suppression of another consciousness is used to show how regret involves a rejection of one’s previous way of seeing the world, by contrast with one’s present view. This enables us to see how regret, even when vain, can reinforce, rather than undermine, one’s sense of self and provide a form of self-understanding.