Introduction. The problem of determining guilt in criminal law has a long history of research. The understanding of guilt ranges from social condemnation to personal phenomenology. Guilt, which includes a person’s mental attitude towards an act, has become the subject of this psychological and linguistic study. Methods. The dialectical method was used as a framework for understanding the subject of this study. An explanatory extralinguistic method was used to understand the semantics of root and derivative concepts. The interdisciplinary nature of the problem predetermined the integrative nature of the study. Results. In this paper, we have examined mental attitudes within the paradigm of the cultural-historical approach, where an attitude represents not an action evaluation, but an action meaning. Guilt as a psychological attitude is revealed through the attitude of the subject of the action towards the object of the action, the event, and towards themselves as the subject of the event, which fills the objective and subjective components of the crime. It has been determined that guilt as a psychological attitude includes a goal, transformative actions, self-control, and self-assessment. This makes it possible to consider guilt through the prism of the guilty person’s subjectness, revealing their psychological attitude in a system of behavioural reactions. The concept of “admitting guilt” is presented and the role of conscience in this moral act is formulated. New directions for research into the psychology of guilt in criminal law are formulated.