The Philosophy of Shame
A BBC World News interview this morning on NPR focused on a new law proposed in the UK which would criminalize the act of a client who pays for sex if the prostitute is being controlled for another’s gain. The point being to cut down on pimping and human trafficking. During the interview a proponent of the new law argued with an opponent. The opponent was a London businessman who had been, at various points in his life, a client of legally-regulated prostitutes in places such as Australia. (I would give names and more details, but I haven’t been able to track the story down.)
Central to the debate was whether it was right to punish the client if he had no way of knowing whether the prostitute was under another’s control. At one point during the interview, the proponent asked the opponent, let’s call him “John,” whether he wouldn’t be ashamed if he were to find out that he’d had sex with a woman who was being coerced or forced by another into prostituting herself. John said no of course not, how could he feel retroactive shame for something he wasn’t aware of at the time. The proponent of the law seemed equally adamant that he should feel shame.
This got me wondering about the philosophy of shame and its manifestation and whether the two coincide. Or, put another way, shame is a feeling induced by our circumstance and nature, but is there a rational philosophy of shame that can explain why it would appear in some and not in others given the same circumstances.
I’ll begin with two statements:
1. Shame requires a feeling in the current moment that one has acted wrongly in a past moment.
2. The definition of “wrongly” depends upon the way the person feeling the shame assesses right and wrong in the current moment.
As John pointed out during the discussion, if he knowingly had sex with a prostitute who was being coerced he would feel ashamed. Whereas, if he didn’t know but found out later, he wouldn’t feel ashamed.
This forces me to be more precise about my definition of “wrongly.” We need to feel responsible for the wrongness of our actions.
Another man, let’s call him Paul, under the same circumstances might well feel retroactive shame because he felt that he shouldered some of the collective responsibility for having sex with a prostitute who he knew was perhaps being coerced.
Is there some kind of universal adjudication under which Paul is right to feel shame and John wrong not to, or vise versa?
From a practical perspective, it would seem that it’s all a matter of degrees. If John and Paul prior to visiting the prostitute understood that more than half of all prostitutes were under coercion, we might be inclined to say that Paul is right to be ashamed and John is wrong not to be.
On the other hand, John may have made a determination that the prostitute is unlikely to be under coercion because she works in a legally-regulated and licensed brothel…
However, there does seem to be some definitive logic to the idea that shame shouldn’t be connected purely circumstantially to one’s awareness of guilt. If no other aspect of the circumstances has changed, finding out that one has transgressed without realizing it shouldn’t rationally, in and of itself, induce feelings of shame. In this much, I think I agree with John.