The Ethics of Inducing and Responding to Guilt and Shame

If agents are to consider intentionally inducing guilt or shame, as so many do, guidelines are needed to ensure that the practice is ethical and has the desired, and significant, effects. Guidelines to shape responses to environmental guilt and shame are also necessary even they are not intentionally induced given their prevalence in human experience. Chapter 8 addresses these concerns by articulating a set of “conditions” or characteristics needed in the shamer, shamee, their relationship, the broader community and the physical system in order to ethically respond to or induce guilt or shame. These conditions include relationality; trust in, credibility of and authority of those shaming; moral support; values; a vision of identity that takes account of human limits and failure while maintaining the possibility of at least partial success; participatory processes; identifying with an other; critical self-assessment and transformation; and action. As maintaining all of these conditions at once is difficult at best, intentionally inducing shame is even more ethically challenging than suggested previously. Because these conditions are also needed to respond to guilt and shame, people should foster them regardless of their intent to induce guilt or shame.