Guilt and Accountability

Are we accountable for our emotions? What about our thoughts? Can a thought or emotion be immoral, or only an action? When should we feel guilty? Can guilt be both good and bad depending on the circumstances? These are a few of the questions that came to my mind while reading the article and discussing it in class. Personally, I believe that we can only be held accountable for our actions, not our emotions or thoughts. I believe it is possible to have objectively immoral thoughts or emotions in certain circumstances, but as long as you are not acting immorally such things are not condemnable and you should not feel guilty for them. I do not believe that you have any control over how you feel or think. I do think that you might, after a lot of practice, hard work, and determination, be able to change your opinions or attitudes about a particular matter, but that is a very particular sect of thought and you cannot assume that all thought processes could be changed so easily. If you have no real control over your thoughts or emotions then you are not accountable for them. You are only to be held accountable for your actions, and immoral actions are the only things you should feel guilty for. There is no point in feeling guilty about anything that is outside of your control, it is not healthy to feel guilt about such things. The proper time to feel guilty is when you knew an action was immoral and you chose to do it anyways.