Shaming Legal Sanctions in the Context of Psychology of Shame

The study is focused on the practice of resorting to a sense of shame in the process of imposing sanctions for offenses. The practice involves organization of special shaming procedures acting as an independent punishment or addition to the basic punishment. Among the countries with the legal culture of the modern Western type, this practice has become most widespread in the United States. The relevance of discussing shameful legal sanctions is associated with the shortcomings of the basic form of punishment applied in the legal systems of our time, i.e. deprivation of liberty. In the philosophy of law and social ethics, the status of shameful legal sanctions has given rise to a broad discussion. This article analyzes only one argument. The opponents of shameful legal sanctions rely on characteristics of shame as a moral emotion. Within the framework of criticism of this moral emotion based on the results of J. Tangney research, shame appears as a depressogenic experience blocking empathy and provoking agression. Thus, its use in the penitentiary system can result in negative consequences. However, many provisions of the psychological criticism of shame are not supported by more recent studies. At the moment, this emotion has to some extent been rehabilitated. This leads to an important conclusion regarding shameful legal sanctions. The socio-ethical validity of their use can not be based on contradictory data of the general psychology of shame. To determine rationality or irrationality of these sanctions, special sociological and psychological studies of the influence of shaming procedures on the further behavior of law-breakers and witnesses of shaming, as well as on the psychological climate in the community, are necessary.

morality, social ethics, psychology of morality, punishment, alternatives to imprisonment, shaming legal sanctions, shame, fault, psychological criticism of shame

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