There is a big difference between regretting the consequences to oneself of bad behavior (e.g., getting caught, paying fines, receiving other social sanctions) and experiencing genuine empathy-based remorse for the injury caused to others. For a person to experience any degree of genuine “contrition” which could prompt them to change their ways, two things must occur: (1) they not only have to feel genuinely badly about what they have done (i.e. guilty), but (2) they must also be internally unnerved about the kind of person they must have allowed themselves to become (i.e. shameful) to have behaved so irresponsibly. Their shame and guilt must then propel them to make of themselves a better person. True contrition always involves what the ancient Greek philosophers termed “metanoia” or “a change of heart.”
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
