Aristotle On Shame

As regards a weekend discussion at AVI's, shame actually functions similarly to justice-as-lawfulness in Aristotle's ethics. Yet he is much less willing to assert that shame's encouragement of virtuous behavior is a kind of virtue than that justice-as-lawfulness is at least sort-of like virtue.
Shame should not be described as a virtue; for it is more like a feeling than a state of character. It is defined, at any rate, as a kind of fear of dishonour, and produces an effect similar to that produced by fear of danger; for people who feel disgraced blush, and those who fear death turn pale. Both, therefore, seem to be in a sense bodily conditions, which is thought to be characteristic of feeling rather than of a state of character.

The feeling is not becoming to every age, but only to youth. For we think young people should be prone to the feeling of shame because they live by feeling and therefore commit many errors, but are restrained by shame; and we praise young people who are prone to this feeling, but an older person no one would praise for being prone to the sense of disgrace, since we think he should not do anything that need cause this sense. For the sense of disgrace is not even characteristic of a good man, since it is consequent on bad actions (for such actions should not be done; and if some actions are disgraceful in very truth and others only according to common opinion, this makes no difference; for neither class of actions should be done, so that no disgrace should be felt); and it is a mark of a bad man even to be such as to do any disgraceful action. To be so constituted as to feel disgraced if one does such an action, and for this reason to think oneself good, is absurd; for it is for voluntary actions that shame is felt, and the good man will never voluntarily do bad actions. But shame may be said to be conditionally a good thing; if a good man does such actions, he will feel disgraced; but the virtues are not subject to such a qualification. And if shamelessness-not to be ashamed of doing base actions-is bad, that does not make it good to be ashamed of doing such actions. Continence too is not virtue, but a mixed sort of state; this will be shown later. Now, however, let us discuss justice.

In a way this is a strange conclusion, because justice-as-lawfulness is going to end up turning on either fear or shame: the coward is pushed to the front by law, but only because he fears being put to death for disobeying the law, or because he fears being shamed as a coward by his community. The law's requirement is a rational principle, though, whereas shame is merely an emotion -- one that might be rightly or wrongly felt.  

Even so, it is 'conditionally a good thing,' shame -- the condition being that it produces right action. Virtue is not good only conditionally, because it produces right action essentially.

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