Shame, Humiliation, and Punishment in the Liberal Society

As the number of citizens incarcerated in the United States reaches staggering proportions, there has been an increasing interest in alternative methods of punishment. In particular, a growing number of judges are assigning shaming or humiliating penalties, for example those in which the offender is ordered to wear a sign in public or make a formal apology. I argue that much of the contemporary discussion regarding the justifiability of such punishments assumes that shame and humiliation are the same things. I contend that there is an important distinction to be drawn between the two emotions. On my view, the belief that characterizes experiences of humiliation is, "I am in fact seen as lessened or diminished in the eyes of others whether I deserve to be seen in this way or not." On the other hand the characterizing belief in instances of shame is, "I deserve to be seen as lessened or diminished in the eyes of others whether I am in fact seen that way or not." Shame relates to one's values in a way that humiliation need not, and shame has a moral component that humiliation lacks.;This has important implications when we turn to the issue of justification for these penalties. When the state seeks to humiliate an offender it seeks to diminish or demean him in the eyes of others, regardless of what he values. Since humiliation does not seek to engage with the values of the one being punished, I argue that such punishments are difficult to justify in a decent liberal society. True shaming penalties, on the other hand, are attempts to engage with the offender's moral reasoning and value system. For a liberal society, this raises questions about the legitimacy of using the system of criminal law to inculcate values. I conclude that shaming punishments are only justified under social conditions of communitarianism. These conditions do not obtain in our society at this time, and thus shaming punishments are currently unjustifiable.