Mexican Independence, Mexican Philosophy, and Luis Villoro’s Integrative View of Remorse
Colloquium
Speaker: Carlos Sanchez, San Jose State
Start: Sep 19, 2025 - 03:00pm
Where:
Description:
This talk is about remorse, understood as a moral emotion distinct from regret. But it is also about freedom, and why we feel remorse, and not regret, when freedom is the motive of our actions. I take this theme from the Mexican philosopher Luis Villoro, who situates the discussion on remorse, regret, and freedom within a particular moment in the history of Mexico—Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito de Dolores” in the early hours of September 16th, 1810. In this context, I claim that Villoro holds an “integrative view of remorse,” one that I distinguish from a “moral weakness view” of remorse common to the Western philosophical tradition (the latter is the view that remorse is the present recognition of a past evil, one done out of ignorance or weakness of will, while the former, particular to Villoro, is the view that remorse is the cost of sticking to our moral commitments—the two views are radically dissimilar.) I end with remarks on why Villoro would make a connection between remorse and freedom in the first place, which will tell us more about the nature of Mexican philosophy itself. 