Reflexive Emotions: Shame, Humor, Humility, Springer, 2025

2012

Shame and The Sharing of Existence is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Date__________________________ _______________________________ Chair of the Thesis Examination Board iii ABSTRACT Our aim with this project is to re-animate shame, to argue that there are in fact two kinds of shame experience. The first, primary shame, refers to the exposure of the self by the primordial other, a moment prior to the interpolation of judgment and morality in which the self apprehends its object state before the other, fixed within its gaze. Primary shame is the revelation that I am insofar as the other sees me. Secondary shame, on the other hand, is the mobilization within the pale of society of this originary exhibition of self. Secondary shame is a social tool for the moralization, regulation, and standardization of citizens; it is an invidious derivative of the primary pronouncement of the affect. We have endeavored to give a phenomenological account of shame that frees it from the ideology of a strictly moral and moralizing teleology, one that opens shame to questions concerning animality, community, and ontology. Can non-human animals experience primary shame? Can we speak meaningfully about communities of shame? Is shame an irrevocable and constitutive aspect of all being-in-the-world? These are the essential concerns of this project. But perhaps, more basically, this project is an attempt to reflect upon, to re-cast and re-invigorate the significance of the role played by others upon the being of the self, to expose a veiled truth: that the being of each resonates with the being of all.

For decades, shame has been understood as a negative, self-conscious feeling with mostly negative interpersonal consequences. As a result, shame is currently perceived as an ugly emotion that motivates social withdrawal, avoidance, and inhibition. The present chapter challenges this view of shame and suggests instead that shame has a positive interpersonal function with positive consequences. Shame is thought to function as a general sociometer, a monitor indicating the danger of being excluded from groups in general. It would motivate affiliativeaffiliated behaviors such as cooperation, prosocial behavior, and approach of others to address this possible exclusion. The chapter starts with a critical overview of existing research that supports the view of shame as an ugly emotion, demonstrating that empirical support for this view is debatable. It then continues with the view of shame as a general sociometer and presents empirical research that supports this view. Together, these fin...

2015

Article: Please follow the link for the open-access published version: http://hdl.handle.net/10077/12221 Abstract: In Shame and Necessity, Bernard Williams engages in a forceful vindication of the ethical significance of shame. In his view, shame is an extremely productive moral emotion because of the distinctive connection that it establishes between self, others and world, through a self-evaluation that is mediated by an internalized other. In this paper, I examine Williams’ conception of the internalized other and contrast it with other ways of conceiving the role of others in shame. I argue that, although Williams’ views contain many important insights, much is to be gained by conceiving the role of others in Sartrean terms instead. The other’s perspective is not merely internalized; it is constitutive of the kind of selfhood that has a capacity for shame.

2017

This dissertation is about one of the most controversial emotions: shame. The foundational question is: What constitutes the experience of shame as both an emotion and a dynamic of power, with an emphasis on women’s gender roles? The topic is inspired by my lived experience. Expressions of my narratives and those of others are integral to this work. The discussion begins with an overview of the history of ideas on emotions and shame. Shame was considered more important than other emotions because of its evaluative cognitive dimension. The overview highlights the continuum of inherited scholarly and culturally based gender stereotypes. Through exploring current interdisciplinary scholarly research on shame, a common theme emerged: the irrevocable presence of the ‘other’ in the shame experience. Discussions around this theme led to two basic principles: 1) the individual and the social

The Journal of Ethics, 2022

This article offers a new account of the moral substance of shame. Through careful reflection on the motives and intentional structure of shame, I defend the claim that shame is an egocentric and morally blind emotion. I argue that shame is rooted in our desire for social affirmation and constituted by our ability to sense how we appear to others. What makes shame egocentric is that in shame we are essentially concerned about our own social worth and pained by the perception of our self as socially worthless. In itself, shame entails no morally pertinent concern about others or understanding of what is morally significant. I contrast shame with the possibility of relating to others-and to oneself-with love and care. Indeed, I propose that love is essential for moral understanding and motivation. The argument of the article unfolds through critical appraisals of the main strategies for defending the moral value of shame. First, against the claim that shame entails respect for others, I argue that shame's sensitivity to the opinions of others is motivated by egocentric self-concern. Second, against the view that shame over failures to live up to moral values is morally valuable, I argue that regardless of whether the values guiding our shame are moral or not, the perspective of shame is oblivious to their moral meaning. Third, against the claim that shame is crucial for self-understanding, I argue that the desire for affirmation that drives shame is a powerful source of self-deception.

Sophia, 2020

Shame in the deep sense of fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Philosophical imaginary, disciplinary identity and misogynistic vocabulary testify to a collective, underlying, unprocessed shame inherent to the (Western) philosophical tradition like Le Doeuff (1989), Butler (2004) and Murphy (2012) have pointed out. One aspect of collective philosophical shame has to do with disgust of or denial of embodiment insofar as it poses a threat to ideals of sovereignty and rationality (Nussbaum 2006). Embodiment reveals finitude, being dependent and exposed to others (Sartre 1984; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Landweer 1999; Zahavi 2014), and ultimately points to human vulnerability as rooted in an experience of fear of shame (Gilson 2016). If the inability to process shame of embodiment has resulted in disembodied notions of the human being that may lead to defensiveness, aggression or violence, how can a constructive processing of shame based on an embodied notion of the human being result in a way of philosophical thinking that is more vulnerable? And how can philosophical thinking that has its point of departure in vulnerability, neither in the sense of the victim nor the hero but as a self-conscious emotion, lead to philosophical dialogues that can unsettle vicious cycles of shaming and blaming and are productive for deepening philosophical reflection? Susan Brison's (2002) work on sexual violence will finally be discussed as an example of such a philosophy. Shame in the deep sense of collective fear of exposure of human vulnerability (and not in the narrower sense of individual transgression or fault) 1 has been identified as one mood or disposition of philosophical thinking. Shame has been a political affect within Western philosophy, a collective, ethical and social emotion that has determined some Sophia https://doi.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of every thing that is real about us, ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins. George Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman Note: Parts one and two of this essay are largely precis of another man's book. Accordingly, I must begin by acknowledging my debt to Dr. Donald Nathanson for all material in those sections on affect theory and shame, and for such understanding of these as I have gained and re-package here. The misunderstandings are my own.

Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, 2008

Sourcing Buber and Levinas, this is a project in dialogical ethics in which I offer a constructive critique of the discourse of intersubjectivity and its failure to consider shame as proper and fitting to every human relation. Current shame literature predominantly relegates the emotion of shame to a curious epiphenomenon of subjectivity, perhaps adaptive in evolutionary terms, but more probably psychopathological. This thesis denies the claims that shame is reducible to brain states, or constituted by beliefs. Rather, shame as a moral emotion is a pre-thinking apprehension of what is real in human relation. Shame is an apprehension of asymmetry in the dyadic relation; shame gives the conscious subject information about her relations that can be, but need not be, secondarily conceptualized. In these relational apprehensions is the very origin of moral responsibility, and so it is not only a dangerous but a catastrophic move to ignore the experiences of shame and their ethical implications. I will suggest that intersubjectivity is not a metaphor for relation, but is a literal space between two human beings in dialogue, where their consciousness resides during the activity of being present to each other. I situate this claim within an externalism model of consciousness: the meeting of subject and object involves a between where consciousness of the subject meets the object. In the case of intersubjectivity, I am speaking not just of subject-object relation, but of the special case of two conscious subjects who meet each other and establish an intentional between of dialogue. This dialogical relation need not be of two conceptualizing, self-conscious subjects; indeed, I will argue that the fundamental moral ground occurs in the between of naïve sayings to and apprehensions of each other. Shame is one of those naïve apprehensions of the relational between; specifically, it is an apprehension of asymmetry and distance between the two. If shame were the only mode of intersubjective awareness, then relation could not be maintained. Shame would constantly push the dyad apart with its apprehensions of the distance that comes with asymmetry. I suggest that empathy is the other mode of participating in and apprehending intersubjectivity, and that empathy apprehends the symmetry and mutuality of subjects in relation. But if empathy was the only mode of apprehension, the relation would also collapse into a state of indistinguishable alikeness of the two. Instead, in every particular relation, both apprehensions are in play. Shame and empathy exist in a dialectical tension that maintains the relation of intersubjectivity. The claim that unrestrained empathy can lead to a failure in relation and moral responsibility might seem counterintuitive, particularly in light of contemporary praise for empathy as a moral emotion par excellence. In this thesis, however, I will suggest that empathy is not sufficient for ethical deliberation. Empathy is an apprehension that the proximate other is a person like me, but this accesses only half of the metaphysical reality of relation. When engaged by the thinking self, empathy without shame leads to the belief that others are like me; this projection is at its core a reduction of the other. Apprehensions of the difference, distance, and asymmetry of the vulnerable other in relation balance the mutuality that occurs when the subject apprehends the other’s similarities. In other words, shame is the ground for subsequent understanding that the other is not like me, such that response and responsibility demonstrates proper discretion as the complement to mutuality. Shame apprehends the alterity of the other, and this moral fact must moderate an inordinate enthusiasm for what is revealed by empathy. Human beings do not always exist in intersubjective meeting. There are several alternatives to intersubjectivity in conscious living. The subject may move from a naïve openness to the relation to conceptualizing the other as object rather than as another person. In this move, the intersubjective space is transformed by the thinking subject to a subject-object relation. Or, the subject may move away from the other to engage non-human objects in the world or ideas in her own mind as objects for her intentionality. These are natural forms of consciousness. But moral consciousness requires attending to the moral facts of the relational between. A fitting shame has been misunderstood and unappreciated in current ethical discourse of relation. Too often shame is confused with either shaming or thinking about shame, both of which interfere with naïve being-in-relation. I will suggest that neither is shame proper, but rather misplaced shame, inordinate shame, or second-order thinking about shame, all of which to varying degrees compete with a sustained participation in relational reciprocity. My intention is to return shame to its proper place in dialogical ethics, while still accounting for the many forms of unfitting “shame” that are of concern in their own right. There have been a number of conversation partners of assistance in this project, with the richest contributions coming from the works of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas is keenly aware of the naïve sayings of the other that present in the form of accusation. Accusation apprehends and reinforces the asymmetry of the dyadic relation. In a dialogue of accusation, both shame-disgrace and shame-discretion are present as forms of apprehending the accusation; these forms of shame delineate the terms of moral responsibilitiy. But accusation and asymmetry are only part of the story when constructing a relation of reciprocity. I draw in particular from Martin Buber and his articulation of the I-Thou relation to comment on the role of mutuality in dialogue. I suggest that Buber’s mutuality involves empathy as an apprehension of the other, complementary to fitting shame. By placing the dialogical concepts of Levinas and Buber in proximity, I suggest that there is a fuller appreciation for the sayings of each to the other in dynamic reciprocity: co-subjects, as dyad, speak shame and empathy to each other in the very origins of being-in-relation. In that very speaking is moral response and responsibility. In each chapter of this thesis, I have offered specific case studies about physician-patient relation and medicine. This serves two primary purposes. The first is to provide a specific relation that is marked by readily observable asymmetries, so that the importance of shame to relation is more apparent. It can be too easy to consider dialogical ethics in terms of relations more prominently marked by mutuality, such as friendship or kinship; notably, shame is also properly present to relationships with strong mutuality and empathy, if not so easily discerned. The case studies are meant to illustrate particular instances of asymmetry in a conceptually-accessible kind of relation. The second purpose is to consider the application of my thesis to a specific kind of relation and its community. Can a thesis on moral shame and its fittingness to relation give guidance to understanding moral responsibility in the physician-patient relationship and in medical professionalism? What ethical considerations arise for physicians who do or do not experience fitting shame in their patient relations and in the medical community? These questions represent just the beginning of testing theoretical claims in actual practice. My hope is that my analysis will help restore shame to its proper place in dialogical ethics, and counteract a troublesome trend towards malignant, intrusive empathy as a solitary justification for certain ethical judgments and actions. Empathy is an insufficient ground for personal and community responsibility. Our ethical responsibilities as subjects and co-subjects in community must be better responsive to fitting disgrace and discretion in our primary relational spaces. It is shame that is spoken by the face of the vulnerable other, inviting me to a genuine dialogue with another who is like me in certain respects, but unlike me in a way that is revelatory of who and what I am, and also of my potential for and call to responsibility. I end with the suggestion that shame prompts the request that the vulnerable other remain present to me in speaking and provoking shame, so that I habituate the disposition of responsibility for her sake and for my own.

2014

Mainstream psychology views shame as a unitary construct that is conclusively pathogenic. In the present research a tentative theoretical framework that encompasses adaptive and maladaptive forms of shame based on the interface between shame and different forms of self-esteem was developed. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate shame-inducing situations in the Malay context and the role of different self-conceptions in steering multiple forms of shame and their corresponding behavioural outcomes. The results indicated that though shame was engendered by a broad range of situations, the most common situational determinant of shame was negative evaluation. An unexpected inducer of shame that appeared in the analysis reflected a generalised state of shame. Coding analysis yielded to a number of self-conceptions. An adaptive form of shame was evoked as a result of private feelings of self-discrepancy. Maladaptive forms of shame were elicited as a result of feeling persistentl...

2018

The feeling of shame has a longstanding role in the relations between individual and society. In this article we shall distinguish between shame and shaming and try to understand the social and cultural function of shame. Even though shame is a feeling that has a physiological basis, the way in which we experience emotions differs from culture to culture since it is the meaning that we attach to an event that evokes the emotion rather than the event itself (Ben-Ze’ev 1996). In order to understand the phenomenon of social shaming in the present we must examine the social origins of this phenomenon in Western culture. The methodology most fitting to examine this cultural construct is the genealogical method, by way of which we shall come to see that shaming is not an essentially new phenomenon in Western culture, but only a new mode of expressing old patterns.