Aristotle Shame And Shamelessness

Aristotle discusses in Book 2 Chapter 6 about Shame and Shamelessness. He defines shame as “pain or disturbance in regard to bad things, whether present, past, or future, which seem likely to involve us in discredit; and shamelessness as contempt or indifference in regard to these same bad things” (Aristotle, pg. 85). Aristotle makes an intriguing conclusion when he says that if we take these definitions as previously stated above to be true, we feel same at such bad things as we think are disgraceful to ourselves or to those we care for. The point Aristotle is making when he talks about shame is that people only feel shame when they care what the opinion of others is of them. When a person cares about another person’s opinion are those who
The one thing that stays the same from person to person is that they feel shame in the eyes of others. We care about some individual’s perception of us and when we have done or are doing acts that would hurt their opinion of us if they found out we feel ashamed. For example, if a teacher is proud of a student because he or she is doing so well in class and that student admires the teacher they would obviously care about their opinion. Now if the student were cheating in this teacher’s class they would feel ashamed because their acts would discredit themselves to someone they admire. The student knows that if the teacher found out they would have a different opinion on them, which is what brings about shame. It also displays shame because it is open to someone else’s eyes. When we fall short of the standard we know we should hold ourselves this is why we don’t want to be seen by anyone. We feel more shame when we are constantly around people who know of our disgrace. Aristotle has an example when Antiphon is cudgeled to death by order of Dionysius. When the people came to kill him they were covering their faces as they went through the gates. Antiphon says, “Why do you cover your faces? Is it lest some of these spectators should see you to-morrow? (Aristotle, pg. 89). This illustrates that they felt shame from what they were doing