If blame is not possible then accountability is not possible.
Therefore, if accountability is good then blame is good.

Should one do it? and if one does it then the next obvious step must be to forgive yourself. But why even blame yourself when you're coming to terms with yourself later on anyway.. — Nimish

You seem to be asking, "Why accuse if you are going to forgive?"

Is self blame harmful? Should one do it? and if one does it then the next obvious step must be to forgive yourself. — Nimish

Depends what you did and why. I'm not a big fan of 'forgiveness' as such - it often has a Christian flavour to it. I'm more of a fan of contextualising what has happened and understanding one's own behaviour to be the product of situational factors. This allows for understanding rather than forgiving - whatever that means. Understanding gives you the option of doing 'better' next time. Is there a connection for you between forgiveness and personal responsibility? Assuming responsibility and changing one's behavior in the future can be more beneficial than merely assigning blame, which often amounts to a passive judgment.

@Nimish The disgusting, the unlawful, lazy, and immoral parts of ourselves seem to demand for judgement. . . punishment. . . retribution. Right? To abstract the deficient in ourselves into a being of equal reality to ourselves with whom we can wrap our hands around their throat. To flog their back and stone the irrationality out of their veins.

The truly virtuous aren't so if they let the criminals within themselves run free, right? So should that mean that we put on a show to ourselves? To prove to ourselves that we are in fact moral individuals?

If I judge myself with such internal vitriol and there is no one around to bear witness nor any ulterior motive in sight then have I become that pure altruistic soul who knows its moral law by heart?

Morals and the values we hold to aren't just mere statements but require actions as well as judgement in a constant social court of the public but also internally.

Is self blame harmful? Should one do it? and if one does it then the next obvious step must be to forgive yourself. — Nimish

No, it isn't the next obvious step. The true self-blame asks for "what could I have done differently to prevent it?" So, the forgiveness is suspended until the next time when an opportunity arises to prove to yourself that you could be forgiven.

There are situations in which one could not forgive themselves. You've heard of people killing themselves for the harm they caused others.

Depends what you did and why. I'm not a big fan of 'forgiveness' as such - it often has a Christian flavour to it. I'm more of a fan of contextualising what has happened and understanding one's own behaviour to be the product of situational factors. This allows for understanding rather than forgiving - whatever that means. Understanding gives you the option of doing 'better' next time. Is there a connection for you between forgiveness and personal responsibility? Assuming responsibility and changing one's behavior in the future can be more beneficial than merely assigning blame, which often amounts to a passive judgment. — Tom Storm

People tend to quickly confuse themselves when it comes to forgiveness. A concrete example is best. You run into the back of my car. We both know you are at fault. You say, "Sorry, I will pay for the damages." I say, "Don't worry about it."

That is an instance of forgiveness. You did something wrong and thereby incurred a debt, and then the debt was forgiven. That's forgiveness.

blaming yourself actually leads to personal growth by accepting responsibility for your actions — Nimish

Yes, agreed.

It may often be necessary to analyze the situation again, until you can finally blame yourself instead of the environment or other people.

It is by systematically accepting the blame for others that you rise to the top, and it is by always blaming others that you sink to the bottom.

This has relatively little to do with religion. It has much more to do with leadership, and with where you belong in the hierarchy.

You say, "Sorry, I will pay for the damages." I say, "Don't worry about it."

That is an instance of forgiveness. You did something wrong and thereby incurred a debt, and then the debt was forgiven. That's forgiveness. — Leontiskos

As I say, I am not a big fan of the term forgiveness. In relation to the OP I would suggest that the issue is more likely to be one of needing a new way viewing oneself rather than needing to forgive. If we recognize that we are imperfect beings who sometimes make mistakes and inadequate choices, we can roll with challenges and mistakes more readily and improve our approach.

As I say, I am not a big fan of the term forgiveness. In relation to the OP I would suggest that the issue is more likely to be one of needing a new way viewing oneself rather than needing to forgive. If we recognize that we are imperfect beings who sometimes make mistakes and inadequate choices, we can roll with challenges and mistakes more readily and improve our approach. — Tom Storm

Your posts make me think you do not understand forgiveness, as they are replete with false dichotomies. For example, you here diminish forgiveness and promote the recognition of imperfection. And yet, without the recognition of imperfection forgiveness is utterly impossible. Recognition of imperfection is not an alternative to forgiveness, it is its prerequisite. This is but one example of the odd dichotomies I see.

You did something wrong and thereby incurred a debt, and then the debt was forgiven. That's forgiveness. — Leontiskos

:up: You bring out the essentially social dimension of this neatly.

- Thanks, and I think it is worth noting that when one applies a primarily social phenomenon within the bounds of a single individual things can quickly become fraught (e.g. the notion of forgiving oneself).

Your posts make me think you do not understand forgiveness, — Leontiskos

Could well be.

Have you come across Rom Harre’s The Social Construction of Emotions or Catherine Lutz's Unnatural Emotions?

Lutz's study of the Ifaluk especially is a good illustration of how it is really a Western habit of thought to believe that the self-regulation of behaviour is an internal affair rather than an external negotiation carried out within the context of the collective "emotional economy".

How do you define forgiveness and can you describe why it is important?

- I have not, but as I read the first few pages of that chapter I think Lutz is right on the money. For Aristotle and Aquinas anger is a social and moral virtue, and therefore the well-developed person must needs get angry in certain situations, and the health of the society can depend on this. Thanks for the article.

On point:

Since [justifiable anger] is literally treated as the moral sensibility of a person, the total absence of [justifiable anger] in an individual could be condemned by others. — Catherine Lutz, Morality, Domination and Understandings of ‘Justifiable Anger’ among the Ifaluk, p. 209

If we recognize that we are imperfect beings who sometimes make mistakes and inadequate choices, we can roll with challenges and mistakes more readily and improve our approach. — Tom Storm

Why should we frame ourselves in this fashion? Is it anything more than a way of thinking that grew out of the Enlightenment and its Romantic reaction? The modern moral economy.

How could we be actually "imperfect in our being", except as some over the top social judgement? Why do we have to be the one that changes to fit the norms rather than thinking strategically about how we can tip the social game-playing in our own favour?

So what I am saying is that you are just uncritically going along with this idea that it really is all on us as individuals to police our behaviour and strive to find that upright citizen apparently lost somewhere in our inner confusions and emotional turmoil.

This is certainly the game that modern society would like you to play. Socially, and nowadays economically. "If you suck at life, you need to pull yourself together and try a hell of a lot harder, sonny boy."

And how can you ever feel forgiven for failing if you are in fact being socially labelled as just innately "a failure"?

Of course, traditional societies can be far more constraining on the self even if everyone realises that they are just following the cultural norms. Putting on the required masks.

And the modern world can be lived in a guilt-free and openly negotiated fashion. If we live in families or societies that can own up to their mistakes and roll with them, then forgiveness gets easier in both directions.

It becomes the smoothly flowing economy of debts incurred and debts paid. Messages received and new attitudes promised on both sides of the equation.

I think forgiveness has far more to do with dealing with your reaction to an event, than it has to do with your thoughts on the actor.

When forgiving one's self, @Leontiskos makes a great point that it's a social activity, so applying 'forgiveness' to oneself smacks, to me, much more of dealing with one's inner confusion than it does 'forgiving a wrong'.
I have done plenty that weaker men would have killed themselves over the guilt from - I am not happy about any of that actions, but I have forgiven myself. To quote science fiction:

"I've looked at how I can defeat them, and I know that if I can understand them, I can love them." - Ender Wiggin

I think "to love" is as good as "forgive" but does something closer to what @Tom Storm is getting at. Understanding, contextualising and accepting do something rather spectacular to one's mentality while doing nothing at all for the actor.

And the modern world can be lived in a guilt-free and openly negotiated fashion. If we live in families or societies that can own up to their mistakes and roll with them, then forgiveness gets easier in both directions.

It becomes the smoothly flowing economy of debts incurred and debts paid. Messages received and new attitudes promised on both sides of the equation. — apokrisis

This is interesting in the way that it illustrates the shift from the individual emphasis to the social emphasis.

Guilt is universally recognized as a problem and there are two primary solutions on offer: a culture of admission of mistakes and forgiveness, or a culture which repudiates the concepts of blame and debt.

Along the same lines, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle says that the belief that someone acted at least partially involuntarily is what makes forgiveness possible. Even the simple admission, "My bad: I regret how that turned out. It wasn't what I wanted," is a variety of involuntariness that can go a long way to predisposing the aggrieved party towards forgiveness.

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"I've looked at how I can defeat them, and I know that if I can understand them, I can love them." - Ender Wiggin — AmadeusD

So then what is it about understanding that predisposes one to love? And it is worth asking whether the principle also holds when we are not speaking about persons or even animals. In understanding the ocean am I disposed to love or appreciate it more? The moon? A motorcycle?

Why should we frame ourselves in this fashion? Is it anything more than a way of thinking that grew out of the Enlightenment and its Romantic reaction? The modern moral economy.

How could we be actually "imperfect in our being", except as some over the top social judgement? Why do we have to be the one that changes to fit the norms rather than thinking strategically about how we can tip the social game-playing in our own favour?

So what I am saying is that you are just uncritically going along with this idea that it really is all on us as individuals to police our behaviour and strive to find that upright citizen apparently lost somewhere in our inner confusions and emotional turmoil.

This is certainly the game that modern society would like you to play. Socially, and nowadays economically. "If you suck at life, you need to pull yourself together and try a hell of a lot harder, sonny boy."

And how can you ever feel forgiven for failing if you are in fact being socially labelled as just innately "a failure"?

Of course, traditional societies can be far more constraining on the self even if everyone realises that they are just following the cultural norms. Putting on the required masks.

And the modern world can be lived in a guilt-free and openly negotiated fashion. If we live in families or societies that can own up to their mistakes and roll with them, then forgiveness gets easier in both directions.

It becomes the smoothly flowing economy of debts incurred and debts paid. Messages received and new attitudes promised on both sides of the equation. — apokrisis

My point was far more modest than all this. I was essentially saying (in relation to the OP) that it may be useful to recognize that we make mistakes and therefore not blame ourselves when we do. Naturally we can do the same for others.

I don't know much about forgiveness or what it means. Which is why I asked you about it earlier.

I think "to love" is as good as "forgive" but does something closer to what Tom Storm is getting at. — AmadeusD

Could be.

I think forgiveness has far more to do with dealing with your reaction to an event, than it has to do with your thoughts on the actor. — AmadeusD

Yes, that sounds like a useful frame.

So then what is it about understanding that predisposes one to love? And it is worth asking whether the principle also holds when we are not speaking about persons or even animals. In understanding the ocean am I disposed to love or appreciate it more? The moon? A motorcycle? — Leontiskos

Oooh, yeah, good distinction.
I think "love" indicates soething to do with an actor, not an object. I don't think one can love something which does not have aspects to love. And personally, I don't 'feel' Love applies to ought but deliberative beings. I don't love lower animals, nor I do i think it's open to me. But dogs? More than most humans. Probably because I understand how horrific their ability to make decisions are. Children too. Adults? They have to do some work. Most don't want to be understood.

So blaming altogether seems to be a pointless thing. — Nimish

If the car won't start, one needs to identify the fault in order to fix it. Whether one forgives the car or not does not seem to affect things much.

If there is a car crash, again one needs to identify the fault; sometimes it might be the brakes, and sometimes it might be the driver. There was one recently in which a child was killed - the fault was in the driver, but it was not alcohol, but epilepsy. The driver was unaware of their epilepsy because they had not been diagnosed. They were found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.

Blame can thus be seen to have a social function of regulation and justice in distinction from, and over and above, fault finding and repair. Self blame is then part of the social function - the drunk driver ought to have known better, but the undiagnosed epileptic driver could not have known better. Self blame functions to regulate the psyche to be more thoughtful of others. "Don't drink and drive." is good advice, whereas "Don't be an undiagnosed epileptic and drive." is useless advice.

Yes.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

You ask, "Is self-blame a good thing? Is it the same as accountability? Or is blame just a pointless concept."

Blame is not a pointless concept, but whether self-blame is good, bad, or indifferent seems highly situational.

In the real world, bad things happen -- sometimes by accident, sometimes by acts of commission, sometimes by acts of omission, sometimes just by being somewhere, anywhere, when something unfortunate happens. Identifying yourself as the culprit might be quite appropriate, if you are indeed the agent intending and causing something bad to happen. If you are not the agent, then stop blaming yourself.

If, for instance, you deliberately leave the gate on the pasture open and the cows wander off--you ought to blame yourself for bad consequences.

Often though, blame is difficult to locate. If you mailed your insurance premium 15 days before it was due, but the post office didn't deliver it on time and you lose your insurance, blaming the precise agent of your misfortune might be difficult. You could still blame yourself--you could begin reciting all sorts of things you could have, should have, or would have done, and why you are to blame for losing your insurance.

Blaming one's self can fall into some vague category of neurotic psycho-pathology, or maybe just be totally useless behavior.

If you find that you frequently engage in self-blaming, it's probably something you should stop doing.

IF you have acted to deliberately cause misfortune, then sure, you are blameworthy. Blame and guilt can direct us to examine just exactly what the hell we are doing, and why.

Sometimes people blame themselves a lot because they feel deeply inadequate or deficient. For such conditions, one should get some therapy.

As I say, I am not a big fan of the term forgiveness. In relation to the OP I would suggest that the issue is more likely to be one of needing a new way viewing oneself rather than needing to forgive. If we recognize that we are imperfect beings who sometimes make mistakes and inadequate choices, we can roll with challenges and mistakes more readily and improve our approach.
@Tom Storm

Your posts make me think you do not understand forgiveness, as they are replete with false dichotomies. For example, you here diminish forgiveness and promote the recognition of imperfection. And yet, without the recognition of imperfection forgiveness is utterly impossible. Recognition of imperfection is not an alternative to forgiveness, it is its prerequisite. This is but one example of the odd dichotomies I see — Leontiskos

There are many forms of imperfection, including decisions that seemed to be optimal at the time they were made but in hindsight, with the benefit of knowledge not available during the original decision process, now appear imperfect. I don’t forgive someone for mistakes they make due to understandable limitations of knowledge. Only a particular sort of imperfection is a prerequisite for forgiveness, and that is blame. We learn and grow by doing what Tom Storm described as modifying our ways of interpreting events. Each of us differs in how much emphasis , if any, we place on imperfections that deserve a judgement of blame, and thus provide an opportunity for forgiveness. When it comes to making sense of the imperfections of others, It sounds to me like blame and forgiveness are more useful concepts for you than they are for Tom.

But, would this not lead to the self-proclaimed guilty person carrying the blame through life, seeking to make things right until they deserve forgiveness and suffer in the process thinking about what they could have done differently, all while an opportunity good enough might take some time to show up. Leaving them in this uneasy mental state.
A example for this may be the lore underlying the character of 'Peter Parker' from 'Spider-Man' where Peter's uncle dies in a attempt to stop a armed thief who is the same thief Peter let go earlier while he ran away stealing from somebody Peter was betrayed by minutes ago.Peter allowed the thief a easy escape despite having all the tools to stop him.
Peter blames himself, and seeks revenge and when he does get it, its not enough for him to be forgiven.
He continues helping people, but deep in heart he carries the burden for the one thing he could've done right, all while he never gets an opportunity big enough such that he could forgive himself.
Now, what should he do so that he is able to afford forgiveness? and is him forgiving himself is just him doing what he thinks his uncle would want him to be doing at the moment. But I can't think of something that his uncle would've wanted him to do which would be different than what he would want if he was still alive and the thief incident never happened. So in conclusion Peter has to just forgive himself and move on doing the things his uncle wanted him to do beforehand because no event big enough could allow him to redeem himself in his eyes.
My understanding of forgiveness comes from this video right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hzA9jrmk7s

Oooh, yeah, good distinction.
I think "love" indicates soething to do with an actor, not an object. I don't think one can love something which does not have aspects to love. And personally, I don't 'feel' Love applies to ought but deliberative beings. I don't love lower animals, nor I do i think it's open to me. — AmadeusD

Okay, but even with that distinction in hand we could still ask what it is about understanding deliberative beings that predisposes us to love them. Is it that their deliberations become transparent and familiar to us, and this in turn somehow makes it easier for us to love them?

Classical authors have highlighted the interesting fact that there is a positive correlation between understanding and love, and it may be that this fact has value for overcoming the 'is'-'ought' gap, insofar as we associate understanding with 'is' and love with 'ought'.

I don’t forgive someone for mistakes they make due to understandable limitations of knowledge. Only a particular sort of imperfection is a prerequisite for forgiveness, and that is blame. — Joshs

On the contrary, see:

Along the same lines, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle says that the belief that someone acted at least partially involuntarily is what makes forgiveness possible. Even the simple admission, "My bad: I regret how that turned out. It wasn't what I wanted," is a variety of involuntariness that can go a long way to predisposing the aggrieved party towards forgiveness. — Leontiskos

And:

If there is a car crash, again one needs to identify the fault; sometimes it might be the brakes, and sometimes it might be the driver. There was one recently in which a child was killed - the fault was in the driver, but it was not alcohol, but epilepsy. The driver was unaware of their epilepsy because they had not been diagnosed. They were found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. — unenlightened

If there is a car crash, again one needs to identify the fault; sometimes it might be the brakes, and sometimes it might be the driver. There was one recently in which a child was killed - the fault was in the driver, but it was not alcohol, but epilepsy. The driver was unaware of their epilepsy because they had not been diagnosed. They were found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
— unenlightened
1h — Leontiskos

It seems to me that if you’re going to apply the concept of forgiveness to this particular example you’re stretching its meaning well beyond the way it is commonly used.

- That's fair. I was trying to elaborate the general principle of my first quote. "Letting someone off" requires some variety of involuntariness, and forgiveness is one species of letting someone off.

The point is that for Aristotle forgiveness requires not only culpability but also some measure of involuntariness. When you focus on blame to the exclusion of all else you overlook this, and you also overlook the fact which many have pointed out, namely that blame is a transitional state, not an end in itself. Your excessive aversion to blame of any kind reifies it in a way that makes it an end in itself. You thus fall into ignoratio elenchus, and your case depends on a necessary imputation of bad motives to your interlocutor. Your argument presupposes that they must be interested in blame as an end in itself.

We learn and grow by doing what Tom Storm described as modifying our ways of interpreting events. Each of us differs in how much emphasis , if any, we place on imperfections that deserve a judgement of blame, and thus provide an opportunity for forgiveness. When it comes to making sense of the imperfections of others, It sounds to me like blame and forgiveness are more useful concepts for you than they are for Tom. — Joshs

Yes, I think this is the case.

Is it that their deliberations become transparent and familiar to us, and this in turn somehow makes it easier for us to love them? — Leontiskos

Something like this. We see ourselves. Self-interest is somehow shared interest in these cases.. or something approximating that squared circle of care.

it may be that this fact has value for overcoming the 'is'-'ought' gap, insofar as we associate understanding with 'is' and love with 'ought' — Leontiskos

IN practical terms, it probably solves it. But the arguments remain unchanged :P