Rationality Means Being Willing to Say You're Sorry

Abstract

What does a person really want when he asks for an apology? Why do people so often find it difficult to give an apology? Repentance is relevant to personal identity because the unrepentant soul has his own theory of personal identity. The unrepentant person believes he is his preference, and that he is entitled to the behavior that flows from those preferences. This fact can explain why people are so often reluctant to admit wrongdoing, why people place so much importance upon receiving an apology and other behaviors that would be otherwise inexplicable. The unrepentant person uses something akin to a naive economic theory of human behavior. The naive version of homo economicus, or economic man, can never truly be sorry for anything, and as a result, will be almost impossible to live with. A person who identifies himself too closely with his preferences will bring misery to himself and those around him.

Refusing to apologize can have psychological benefits (and we issue no mea culpa for this research finding)

“…However, such strategic omissions still do not explain reluctance to apologize when it is clear that an apology will elicit forgiveness or when it has already been determined that a harm‐doer is at fault and all that is required to reduce punishment severity is a simple apology (Robbennolt, ). Indeed, in many cases, apology is a clearly rational course of action for an offender (Morse, ). If apologies are rational, it suggests that psychological motives may partly underlie their denial.…”