On being sorry
(conversation in the grad room)
S: My wife always says "you're not *really* sorry, you're only sorry you got caught".
Me: I think you can be genuinely sorry if you did something by accident, but not on purpose.
E: ..or if you did something deliberate that had unforeseen consequences.
Me: Right. But if you intended it.. by the time you've made the decision and acted on it, you're not sorry anymore.
We missed the case where someone has to prioritise tasks such that someone is unavoidably harmed in pursuit of a more important goal. In that situation you can easily be sorry that there wasn't an otherwise-identical action that didn't cause that harm. Did we miss anything else?
S: My wife always says "you're not *really* sorry, you're only sorry you got caught".
Me: I think you can be genuinely sorry if you did something by accident, but not on purpose.
E: ..or if you did something deliberate that had unforeseen consequences.
Me: Right. But if you intended it.. by the time you've made the decision and acted on it, you're not sorry anymore.
We missed the case where someone has to prioritise tasks such that someone is unavoidably harmed in pursuit of a more important goal. In that situation you can easily be sorry that there wasn't an otherwise-identical action that didn't cause that harm. Did we miss anything else?