The Moral Dimension of Guilt: Personal Values and Manipulative Influence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2227-1376-2025-46-pasKeywords:
manipulative influence, moral trauma, moral emotion, guilt, cynicism, value orientations, valuesAbstract
Purpose. The purpose of this article is to conduct a theoretical study of approaches to examining the moral aspect of guilt through the connection between personal values, the moral aspect of experiencing guilt, and manipulative influence.
Methods. The primary research methods were theoretical analysis of literature on the topic, generalization, and systematization of scientific material.
Results. Personal values are formed in the process of socialization. In different approaches, values are divided into social and individual, terminal and instrumental, etc. The hierarchy of an individual’s values comprises their value orientations, which are an important element of their moral consciousness. Guilt is an emotional mechanism that is directly related to the value system and is activated when values are violated or ignored in behavior. By appealing to moral norms and values, guilt emerges as a means of psychological pressure, control, or subjugation.
Conclusions. Guilt as a moral emotion plays an important role in regulating a person's behavior in line with their acquired values. The ability of an individual to experience guilt after violating ethical guidelines based on their value system promotes self-reflection, restoration of interpersonal relationships, and preservation of moral integrity. In this context, guilt emerges as an adaptive mechanism of moral self-regulation that maintains consistency between an individual's values and behavior. At the same time, in the interpersonal and social space, as well as depending on how a person perceives themselves through the prism of their own value, moral dignity, or imperfection, guilt can lose its personal regulatory function and become an object of external manipulative influence.
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