Paddy McQueen is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Swansea University. Prior to that, he was a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast and an Irish Research Council post-doctoral researcher at University College Dublin. In addition to various journal articles, he has written three books, the most recent of which is entitled Critical Phenomenology: An Introduction, co-authored with Elisa Magrì (Polity, 2022).

Philosopher Paddy McQueen provides a detailed examination of the nature of regret and its role in decision-making. Contrary to influential philosophical accounts of regret, he argues that we should only regret choices we make that were not justified at the time, based on the information that was available to us. Consequently, he suggests that many of us should have fewer regrets than we do, and we should worry less than we do about whether we might come to regret a decision. In making this case, he engages with important areas of philosophical debate, such as reasons, time and justification, the temporal self, values and valuing, responsibility, the causal framing of events, and self-forgiveness. The result is a complex, novel account of when we should regret the things that we do.
In addition, McQueen explores how experiences of regret are shaped by social discourses, especially those about gender and parenthood. He examines how regret has become politicized in debates about abortion and trans identities and reveals ways in which regret is used to regulate people's reproductive choices. Through this cultural politics of regret, he challenges assumptions about gender identities and the expectations of regret that are attached to certain people's decisions. In so doing, he shows how confronting these assumptions and expectations can help to promote people's autonomy and well-being. Weaving these threads together, McQueen highlights the personal and political significance of regret.

Introduction
Part One: The Philosophy of Regret

Chapter One: Making Sense of Regret
1.1. Introduction
1.2. How To Develop an Account of Regret
1.3. What Regret Is (And What It Is Not)
1.4. The Psychology of Regret
1.5. Are There ?Types? Of Regret?
1.6. The Rational and Intelligible Limits of Regret
Chapter Two: On The ?Fittingness? Of Regret
2.1. Introduction
2.2. The Moralistic Fallacy
2.3. The ?Shape? And ?Size? Of Regret
2.4. Is It Always Unreasonable to Regret?
Chapter Three: Reasons, Mistakes and Justified Decisions
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Practical Identity and Decision-Justification
3.3. ?Epistemically Available? Reasons
3.4. Perspective-Dependent and Perspective-Independent Reasons
3.5. Retrospective Justification
3.6. Reasons And Time
3.7. Self-Transformations
3.8. Akrasia And Regret
Chapter Four: Regret, Agency and Responsibility
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Regret And the Scope of Responsibility
4.3. Against Williams's ?Agent-Regret?
4.4. Description, Intention and The Framing of Responsibility
4.5. Accidents, Apologies and Interpersonal Relations
Chapter Five: Regret, Valuing and Virtue
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Regret, Attachment and Affirmation
5.3. Assessing Wallace's Account
5.4. Regret And Unrealized Values
5.5. Conflicts Of Value and Tragic Choices
Coda: Aristotle and Stoicism
Part Two: The Politics of Regret

Chapter Six: The Social Structuring of Regret
6.1. Introduction
6.2. The Cultural Politics of Emotion
6.3. The Social Contours of Regret
6.4. Pro-Natalism and Regret
6.5. Regretting Motherhood
Chapter Seven: Voluntary Sterilisation and Regret
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Unsuccessful Sterilisation Requests
7.3. Autonomy And Medical Paternalism
7.4. Sterilisation, Well-Being and Informed Consent
7.5. Permanency, Commitment and Choice
7.6. Credibility, Identity and Epistemic Injustice
Chapter Eight: Abortion and Regret
8.1. Introduction
8.2. The Politicisation of Abortion Regret
8.3. The Rise to Prominence of Abortion Regret
8.4. Ripple Effects
8.5. The Normative Force of Abortion Regret
Chapter Nine: Trans Regret
9.1. Introduction
9.2. A Note on Terminology
9.3. The Purported ?Problem? Of Trans Regret
9.4. Personally Transformative Treatment
9.5. Trans Regret and The Authentic Self
Chapter Ten: Living with And Without Regret
10.1. Introduction
10.2. Refusing To Regret
10.3. The Waxing and Waning of Regret
10.4. Self-Forgiveness and Regret
10.5. Looking To the Future
10.6. Regulating Regret
Bibliography
Index