Shamefacedness

Shamefacedness is a recoil from what is disgraceful; itis a drawing or shrinking back from what is base. In a broad sense,shamefacedness is a virtue. But, more strictly, it is to be called a praiseworthy passion, and not a virtue. It lacks the full perfection of a habit steadily inclining the will to good.

Shamefacedness has to do with action. It is not shame for the disgrace inherent in a vicious habit, but for the disgrace feared as the result of a bad deed contemplated or already performed. It is the shrinking from deserved reproach or ignominyfor something vile that is proposed for doing, or for a vile thing already done.

A man is more likely to fear and to feel shame before those who are closest to him (his relatives, friends, and acquaintances), than before strangers. People unknown to a person,people in whose society he does not regularly move, inspire small shame; disgrace suffered before the eyes of strangers is quickly forgotten.

A man may become so immersed in evil that he loses shame, and may even boast of doing what is shameful. There are others in whom a lack of shame is not disgraceful, that is, people of sound virtue and aged people; these lack shame, not as by a deficiency, but they regard any shameful action as something so remote from themselves as to be negligible and worthy of no thought or concern. Of course, these persons are so disposed that if (by a well-nigh impossible supposition) they were to do a disgracefulthing, they would be ashamed of it.