You followed a fair procedure and still left feeling as though you had betrayed someone. Virtology asks whether the discomfort concerns the decision itself or the approval you hoped would accompany it.
By Isabella Becker · 13 min read
English editorial edition of Isabella Becker’s Portuguese essay, translated and adapted for international readers. The article presents Virtology’s interpretation; its specific theoretical mechanisms should be distinguished from independently established clinical findings.
You applied a procedure you had good reason to consider fair. It was part of your responsibility, and you applied it as you would for anyone else.
Then the person looked at you. No shouting, perhaps not even a complaint. Just disappointment, carrying the suggestion that they had expected something different from you.
You completed the task and left. The rest of the day was occupied by an uncomfortable question: could you have done it another way?
Sometimes that question identifies a real problem with the decision. Sometimes it keeps searching for a version in which you could have upheld a reasonable boundary and received the disappointed person's approval at the same time.
The experience can be familiar in very different roles.
Work that involves applying a procedure. An auditor, teacher, administrator, nurse or inspector maintains a justified requirement and leaves feeling disloyal.
Asking for what was agreed. An overdue invoice, a repayment or an unfulfilled commitment becomes difficult to mention without first apologizing.
The “everyone does it” conversation. You decline an unfair shortcut and feel like the difficult person in the room.
A family expectation. You will not cover a lie, lend money you cannot spare or join a plan you consider harmful.
A group's questionable arrangement. You express concern or do your part differently, and the distance between you and the group becomes noticeable.
The late-night review. You search again for words that would have made a sound decision welcome to the person it disappointed.
These scenes do not establish that your decision was right. That must remain open to examination. The question is what happens after you have assessed the act, its purpose and its effects as carefully as the situation requires.
The voice that makes disagreement feel like wrongdoing
Eduardo Casarotto's Virtology describes the superego as internalized beliefs, values and principles acquired from authorities and sustained by fear of punishment rather than by the ego's own discernment.
Two aspects of the definition matter. The content has an external history: someone taught, rewarded or enforced the rule. Its present force may depend on the expected cost of disobeying, even if you have not recently examined whether it fits.
Casarotto contrasts that with an ego capable of considering a rule and deciding whether to endorse it. His developmental language concerns the capacity for examination; it should not become a label of personal inferiority applied to someone who feels anxious.
The distinction is not between having rules and having none. A rule can be inherited, examined and chosen again. What changes is the relationship to it.
This becomes especially interesting when two sets of rules collide: the formal requirement and the group's unspoken expectation about making an exception.
A Brazilian example of a wider social tension
The Portuguese essay discusses jeitinho, a Brazilian term often used for finding an informal way around a difficulty. Depending on the situation, it can refer to flexible problem-solving or to bypassing a rule in a way that is unfair.
The essay focuses on the second kind, and on some settings rather than the country as a whole. In those settings, the tacit expectation may be to bend the formal rule for an acquaintance or to avoid disrupting an informal arrangement.
Someone who follows the public procedure can then be treated as the one who has broken the social agreement. What earns acceptance within the group may conflict with what the role legitimately requires.
This is the source's cultural interpretation, not a statistical claim about Brazilians, and similar tensions can arise elsewhere under different names: favoritism, insider exceptions or pressure not to challenge established practice.
For an international reader, the central question is recognizable. What happens when doing something you judge to be fair threatens acceptance by the people around you?
The discomfort may arise because the group's expectation and your considered responsibility are asking for different things.
When an internalized rule points in the wrong direction
If belonging has become closely attached to keeping the group comfortable, another person's disapproval may feel like evidence that you have acted badly.
Casarotto proposes that this can explain guilt in a professional who merely carries out a justified responsibility. The rule operating internally is not necessarily “apply the procedure fairly.” It may be “remain someone the group approves of.”
That interpretation is useful only after checking the circumstances. The person objecting may have a legitimate grievance. The procedure may need discretion or revision. A role does not establish the fairness of every action performed within it.
Where the decision does withstand examination, the mismatch becomes clearer: the feeling is responding to a threatened relationship with approval, rather than identifying a new defect in the act.
The feeling is still real. It simply needs interpretation rather than immediate obedience.
Why belonging can give the moment such force
Casarotto connects the urgency of belonging with an evolutionary account of social survival. In the source, he distinguishes bodily regulation from social affiliation and explicitly treats the bridge between them as theoretical.
That distinction should be retained. The brainstem's role in sustaining bodily functioning is not evidence that it independently calculates status or produces every response to rejection.
The proposed account describes why a social signal can feel more urgent than a mild preference for being liked. A disappointed face may be experienced as a threat to acceptance, with bodily discomfort arriving before a careful interpretation.
But the urgency does not prove that the present danger is imaginary. Exclusion can have real professional and personal costs. A hostile group may retaliate against someone who questions its practices.
The useful inquiry therefore has two parts: what expectation does this moment activate inside you, and what consequences actually exist outside you?
The moral-network explanation in the source
The book sketches a distributed account of how norms acquire force. It describes attention to a possible violation, social interpretation of intention and harm, and executive processes involved in deciding how to respond.
Casarotto uses that account to suggest how an internalized group norm might produce discomfort when you refuse to participate in the group's exception-making.
This is a theoretical interpretation, not a demonstrated three-step sequence measured in the person reading this article. There is no single anatomical location from which the morality of a principle can be read.
Likewise, the source's language about alarm limiting reflective functioning should not be taken literally as the prefrontal cortex switching off. Stress can make reflection feel more difficult without turning a complex brain network into an on-off device.
The practical implication is modest: when possible, give yourself enough space to assess the decision outside the most charged moment, and seek supervision where the decision requires it.
Two forms of guilt in Virtology's framework
Casarotto distinguishes superego guilt, organized around external approval, from Self guilt, understood as an internal signal that conduct has departed from a more considered direction.
These are categories within Virtology. They are not separate clinical diagnoses, and real experience may contain both concerns at once.
Question raised by the feeling
What may need attention
Did I cause avoidable harm or act against a sound commitment?
Examine the act, acknowledge what was wrong and consider an appropriate repair.
Was I fair, but unable to accept the other person's disappointment?
Examine the expectation of approval and how much authority it has over the decision.
Am I uncertain about the rule or its application?
Seek evidence, consultation or supervision before deciding the discomfort is only about approval.
Scroll horizontally to compare all columns.
The distinction prevents two opposite mistakes. You do not want to carry guilt solely because someone disliked a fair boundary. You also do not want to dismiss a valid concern about harm as merely an old need to be liked.
A face and an act are not always easy to separate. Another person's reaction may contain information you had missed. The point is to investigate that information without treating their approval as the final test of whether you acted well.
The extra condition: the decision must be welcomed
The source locates the difficulty in an added expectation: fulfilling a role feels tolerable only if the person affected also responds approvingly.
An inspector may hope an adverse finding will be warmly received. A corrections professional may feel distressed when a justified boundary does not bring personal approval. These examples should not excuse disrespect or abuse by an authority figure. Professional conduct and humane treatment remain obligations regardless of the reaction received.
The issue is the condition attached to doing the work. A person whose immediate interest you have disappointed may remain disappointed even when you explain the decision respectfully.
You can aim for clarity, fairness and proportion. You cannot guarantee their emotional response.
Casarotto describes the intended change as lightness: carrying out a considered responsibility without making your ability to bear it depend on being liked for doing so. Lightness here means less unnecessary inner struggle, not taking the consequences for others lightly.
Two ways rules can become dehumanizing
The source warns against opposite errors.
A setting without reliable procedures can become arbitrary. People may depend on personal favor rather than a fair arrangement, and those without influence can be disadvantaged.
Rigid application can also become inhumane when it ignores the actual case, the purpose of the rule or legitimate discretion. A rule can become a shield against having to think.
Casarotto's distinction concerns whether the person has exercised discernment. Following a requirement because you understand what it protects differs from following it simply because examination feels unsafe.
That does not give an individual permission to invent exceptions outside their authority. It means using the appropriate channels for judgment, clarification, review and accountability.
The underlying question is not whether you appear strict or accommodating. It is whether the decision is reasoned, proportionate and open to correction where correction is warranted.
When being the good child becomes an unstable promise
One developmental story in the source begins with learning that doing the right thing brings approval. That arrangement may work well for years at home or school.
Later, the person enters a setting where the informal expectation conflicts with the formal responsibility. They uphold the procedure and receive disapproval instead of the response their earlier rule predicted.
Casarotto interprets some guilt through that collision: the person may conclude that they did something wrong because approval did not arrive.
This is a possible history, not a proven explanation for everyone who was a conscientious child. Other histories and current pressures may produce similar discomfort.
Still, the question can be revealing. Are you evaluating the act through its purpose and consequences, or through a promise that sound conduct should always make other people pleased with you?
Adulthood can require revising that promise without giving up conscientiousness itself.
The virtues that support a different response
Virtology places Individuation near the center of this work: distinguishing a considered direction from a persona maintained chiefly to be accepted.
The source links it with Humility and Purity of heart in its discussion of belonging. Humility concerns loosening the demand to preserve importance in every disagreement. Purity of heart asks whether the intention presented matches the motive actually directing the action.
The possible alternatives are more varied than submission or dramatic opposition. You can disagree calmly, remain connected without dissolving your judgment and contribute without needing to be the most conspicuous person in the room.
This does not mean becoming indifferent to feedback. It means giving feedback an appropriate place among the evidence, rather than allowing an anticipated expression of disappointment to determine the whole decision.
From outside, the act may be unchanged. The difference appears before and after it.
Beforehand, you know why the procedure exists, what it protects and where uncertainty requires consultation. You do not have to invent that reasoning while trying to obtain approval from someone disappointed by the result.
Afterward, you can review new information without putting the entire decision on trial again solely because the person remained unhappy.
Casarotto describes this as a shift from pride directing the response to pride becoming information. Applied here, discomfort becomes something you notice: that person is upset, and I should consider whether there is anything to clarify or correct. It does not automatically become an instruction to undo the decision.
The source's account is a developmental aspiration, not a promise that mature people never replay difficult encounters. Some decisions remain emotionally demanding even when made well.
The useful marker is whether reflection produces a next step or simply restarts a search for approval that you cannot require.
Before the idea becomes a defense of rigidity
Nothing in this essay establishes that every rule is fair, that everyone who complains is mistaken or that your unease should always be dismissed.
There are unjust rules, disproportionate applications and cases that require review. Recognizing them is part of responsibility.
A reflection question can help: if the person had accepted the decision warmly, would I still be concerned about its fairness? A yes points toward a concern worth examining. A no may suggest approval is central, but it does not settle the issue; people can overlook harm when nobody objects.
Consider evidence beyond the reaction: the actual effect, the purpose of the requirement, comparable cases and any appropriate review process.
The distinction being sought is between a reason to change the act and a wish to change how someone feels about you. They can resemble each other internally while calling for different responses.
When the environment needs to change
If following a fair arrangement repeatedly leads to exclusion or retaliation, the pattern also says something about the setting.
Internal work cannot remove a coercive workplace culture. You may need a trusted colleague, supervision, worker representation or other appropriate professional support. The available routes depend on your role and circumstances.
The same is true in families or groups that make belonging conditional on covering harmful conduct. A clearer understanding of your motives does not make the external pressure disappear.
This is where the individual question meets the institutional one. Humanized Systems introduces the Instituto Virtudes' concern with structures that support humane conduct, rather than asking individuals to carry every contradiction alone.
Separate the act from the hoped-for response
Choose a manageable recent scene. Avoid recording identifiable confidential information from your work.
Describe what happened in one factual sentence.
Column one: was the act justified? Write yes, no or uncertain, with a brief reason. If no or uncertain, identify an appropriate review or consultation rather than using the exercise to reassure yourself.
Column two: what response did I want? Describe the imagined agreement, warmth or absence of disappointment.
Column three: was that response something I could reasonably require? Consider the other person's interests and the difference between respectful conduct and emotional approval.
At the end of the week, look for a recurring expectation. The notes are a reflection aid, not a measurement of neurosis or a substitute for professional supervision.
The cultural rule beneath the written rule
An institution can have one public set of principles and another set of rewards that governs everyday belonging. Noticing the difference raises a larger question about what a culture teaches people to seek and fear.
That question connects with God Bless America, where Casarotto develops structural Americanism. The English translation is available. The Brazilian examples in this essay illustrate a local tension; they should not be collapsed into a claim that every culture operates identically.
The broader theoretical account belongs to Foundations of Virtology, whose English translation is in progress. Editorial evaluation materials can be requested through Isabella Becker.
If conflict is followed by persistent vigilance, disrupted sleep, repeated replaying of scenes or increasing avoidance, seek professional support. Also consider the conditions in which you are working. A notebook need not carry a problem that requires supervision, care or institutional action.
About this English edition
Translated and edited from the Portuguese essay; original artwork retained.
