PhronesisChronic self-blame is characterized here as a wrong attractor in the space of self-evaluative stances: a stable, self-reinforcing configuration that diverges systematically from the ground state of calibrated accountable self-assessment (S^0). We formalize the culpability-expansion architecture as a mechanism in which a subject habitually inflates their causal contribution to negative outcomes, minimizes the contributions of others and of systemic factors, and interprets ambiguous evidence as confirming personal fault.
A central observation is that this pattern provides a paradoxical sense of agency: if I am the cause, then I could have prevented it, and thus the future remains within my control. This control-through-culpability dynamic deepens the basin, making voluntary exit energetically costly. We develop nine propositions formalizing the basin geometry, the displacement cost of responsibility-inflation, the dynamics of learning-foreclosure, and the conditions for return.
The return path involves evidence-based attribution, a principled distinction between accountability and punishment, and the replacement of shame-oriented self-assessment with learning-oriented self-assessment. Throughout, we treat chronic self-blame not as a moral failure but as a structural displacement from a calibrated ground state — one that forecloses the genuine learning that accurate attribution makes possible.
Implications for therapeutic and philosophical approaches to self-evaluation are discussed.