On Regret

David Charles argues that we should not regret our decisions, but should take responsibility for our decision-making processes.

The decision tree of life is colossal. While physicists and metaphysicians explore the possibility that the multiverse grows larger at every decision, it is the ethicist's lot to consider the paths chosen. That is to say, ethics is generally concerned with the build-up to a decision point. But what happens afterwards? And how do our choices influence our future decision-making? T After a decision has been made and acted upon, the person who made it may be satisfied with the intention, the process, and the outcome. Alternatively, they could be dissatisfied or they could be indifferent.

I wonder if being happy after a decision is the least interesting of these states? This attitude seems almost transactional: Was the objective achieved? Tick. Smile. Move on. On the other hand, being merely nonchalant about the outcome could reflect any of several mentalities, from perceiving the decision as insignificant, to a healthy detachment, to an unhealthy detachment. But perhaps the most nuanced and philosophically rewarding state to examine is dissatisfaction. The feelings stimulated by recognising a decision to have been bad can be intense, difficult to shake off, and complexly woven. There are subtly yet distinctly different possibilities within this set: dissatisfaction itself, disappointment, regret, grief, and potentially, remorse. The way we process any of these emotions will be due to our personal history, and can change our future behaviour.

However, as has been intuited by some philosophers and evidenced by modern neuroscientific research (see for example 'Neural Foundations for Regret-Based Decision Making', Revue d'Economie Politique, 118:1, p.63, Ambrosino et al, 2008), the most powerful of the post-decision emotions appears to be regret.