政治哲学工作坊第四十八讲：亚里士多德论羞耻：羞耻与荣誉、高尚相关联

This lecture will be devoted to showing that the interpretation of shame as a superficial concern with reputation or external recognition comes about as a result of overlooking the connections that Aristotle makes between love of honor and love of the noble. Indeed, Aristotle has a complex view of the role that our sense of shame, as a sensitivity to honors and reproaches, plays in the social practices of praise and blame, a view that enables him to establish a robust link between love of honor and the concern with one’s own virtue and with the nobility of one’s actions. As a result, learners with a sense of shame can perform actions that are not only externally indistinguishable from those of virtuous people, but are also ultimately oriented towards the same noble goals and are similarly done for the sake of the noble. They therefore fulfill at least partially the core motivation requirement for virtuously-performed virtuous action, and for this reason their actions constitute the right kind of practice towards the acquisition of virtue. If this interpretation is correct, then those who have a sense of shame already have the right kind of orientation towards the noble that, sustained by good laws, can allow them to make progress towards virtue.

本次讲座将会致力于展示一种对亚里士多德“羞耻”概念的解释，即将“羞耻”理解为一种对名望或者是外界的认可的肤浅的担忧，而这种解释是忽视了亚里士多德在爱荣誉与爱高尚之间所建立的联系的结果。的确，亚里士多德对于羞耻的作用有一种复杂的观点：我们的羞耻感，作为一种对荣誉和耻辱的敏锐觉察，在社会的称赞和谴责实践中发挥作用。这样一种关于羞耻的看法使得亚里士多德能够在爱荣誉与关切自己的德性和行为的高尚之间建立一种稳健的联系。因此，有羞耻感的学习者能够如此行动：他们的行为不仅从外表来看与有德性的人的行为难以区分，而且最终都导向了相同的高尚的目的，都是出于高尚本身的缘故。由此，他们至少部分地满足了依照德性而行动的道德行为的核心动机要求，并且出于这个原因，他们的行为构成了获得德性的正确实践。如果这种解释是正确的，那么那些拥有羞耻感的人已经拥有了指向高尚的正确目标，而这一目标在良好法律的支持下可以让他们在德性上取得进步。