<p>The functionalist approach to blame seeks to tell us what blame is by looking at what blame does. This approach is promising as it seems important to know what we are doing when we are blaming. However, a challenge arises from the inadequacy of existing views in addressing self-blame. In this paper, I first explore how self-blame cannot be accurately understood on existing functionalist theories of blame. Then, I suggest a remedy to this problem by arguing that the point of self-blame is not primarily to protest a wrongdoing, to communicate one’s disapproval or to instill remorse but to commit oneself, morally and psychologically, to acting differently in the future. In essence, I will contend that self-blame bears close resemblances to the concept of self-promise.</p>