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Should We Feel Survivor's Guilt

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Many people debate if survivor's should feel survivor's guilt or not. Survivor's guilt is a deep feeling of guilt often experienced by those who have survived some catastrophe that took the lives of many others. Some people believe survivors of life or death situations should feel survivor's guilt. Other beleive they shouldn’t. Survivor's of life or death situations should not feel survivor's guilt. A reason survivor's of life or death situation should not feel survivor guilt, is because it’s illogical, it wasn’t their fault.I “The Moral Logic of Survivor's Guilt”by Nancy Sherman is an editorial article about people taking responsibility when they don’t necessarily need to. In the text it states, “...we often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can reasonably be held responsible for.” (The Moral Logic of Survivor's Guilt, page 154). This displays that a survivor shouldn’t take responsibility for someone else’s death when it wasn’t their fault. This explains that survivor's shouldn’t feel survivor's guilt when they couldn’t do anything to help save another person. Another reason why survivor’s …show more content…

They believe this because it helps with the healing process. They are misinformed because they wouldn’t need to go through a healing when it wasn’t their fault and when they couldn’t do anything to help save someone. No one would blame someone else’s for not saving another person when they had no chance of getting them out of danger and surviving at the same time. In “The Seventh Man” it states, “...K.’s parents never chided me for having taken their son down to the shore in the midst of a typhoon.” (The Seventh Man, page 140). This means that a person shouldn’t feel guilty for someone else’s death when they had no chance of saving them. Survivor's wouldn’t need to feel survivor's guilt when they couldn’t help save others in the signs of

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