Guilt and Morality

Consider a morally sound sociopath. Someone who both determines right and wrong and decides to perform righteously for purely intellectual reasons. Although he would take them into consideration, he is not very much influenced by societal, cultural, or emotional factors. He decides what is right by reasoning and internal argument, considering primarily the consequential aspects of his actions, as well as their intrinsic morality.


His task seems more difficult (although probably less emotionally stressful) than one who feels significant pressure from those factors the sociopath is numb to; most importantly the fear of guilt. Most of us have felt significant guilt, and fear of that sensation or state of mind encourages those individuals to more carefully consider their actions - not because of the consequences or even the intrinsic morality of said actions, but because of how they might feel as a result of them; that they might feel a painful sensation of anxiety, guilt, or shame as a result of their action.

In this way fear of guilt is morally analogous (or perhaps even equivalent) to fear of punishment.

I say this because of the frequent and often complete irrationality of guilt. It is often experienced by those who are perfectly innocent (most particularly and extremely in children). Much more often, it is not experienced by those who are morally questionable or reprehensible, but have performed their actions in a situation that insulates them from their consequences, or where they are congratulated for them and surrounded by approving individuals (e.g., many soldiers). The sensation of guilt is a terribly unreliable indicator of both the morality and consequences of an action. Given its emotional nature, this is hardly surprising.
[ I would make the same claims about the reaction of disgust or repulsion with regard to morality ]

The conclusion I would like to make is that righteousness is not only more difficult and impressive for the sociopath to achieve, but also that it is a substantially more noble accomplishment.

Of course, one may argue that the sociopath's superior action may be attributed more to habit than moral striving, but this accusation is not anymore true of him than so than someone who fears guilt.

Conscience is usually defined to include intellectual judgement alongside the more common meaning which implies intuition and feeling.

tl;dr: Not feeling guilt and still managing to avoid actions that ought to generate guilt is more impressive than avoiding those actions while fearing guilt.