On page 208-209, Nussbaum is distinguishing between guilt
and shame, and she states that “Guilt is an aid in this task [renunciation of
infantile omnipotence] because it contains the great lesson that other people
are separate beings with rights, who ought not to be harmed; whereas shame
threatens to undermine the developmental task entirely, by subordinating others
to the need of the self.” I personally think that she places too much negative
emphasis on shame and too much positive emphasis on guilt.
For example, guilt can very much be the opposite of what she
is arguing. Guilt can occur over eating an unhealthy meal because that
represents your lack of self-will. A man can feel guilty about treating his
wife terribly when he was cranky at work, but rather than a focus on her as a
separate being with rights, he is just guilty that he failed to live up to a
higher standard of kindness, for his own sake. Guilt can also consume your
life. Suppose that person A used to be a bully in middle school. Yes, she went
and apologized to her victims, and they are all doing well despite the trama in
middle school, but she still feels guilt over her character. She acknowledged
that her victims should not have been harmed, but now she just feels guilt that
she is the type of person who would do something as such. It seems that guilt
has an enormous amount of negative consequences as well.
Shame, on the other hand, I do not believe is as detrimental
as she describes in this passage. I understand the idea that primitive shame in
a child develops due to being dependent on caregivers and a lack of
understanding of the self, however, shame does not require that others are
subordinated to the needs of the self. Shame could have been derived from the
infantile omnipotence, but most feelings of shame I do not feel require others
to subordinate to the needs of the individual being shamed. In most cases, I
feel like shame is a self-evaluator. Person B could feel shame at having a bad
picture of him circulated on social media. There is no sense of subordination
of people to cater to person B. Shame is directly at the self, and others can
attempt to relieve the shame, but there is no subordination in order to do so.
I think that guilt and shame are more similar on the range
of “good” and “bad” than Nussbaum argues.
I am not so sure how to think about the subject myself, but I imagine that Nussbaum would respond by arguing a difference between guilt and shame because of their objects.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I mean, the object of guilt is personal action, whereas the object of shame is some unchangeable aspect of yourself.
To use an example, If I feel guilt because I ate too much cake, the object of that guilt is the action of eating too much cake. Alternatively if I feel shame, the object is my being a too-much-cake-eating person.
I don't know if this is the correct distinction... guilt and shame are probably more fluid than that... but I imagine Nussbaum would make that or a similar move to try adnd distinguish the two.