QA 21. (Feb 10) Crying shame (Thinking about race again)

  • Posted by Helen Douglas
  • On February 14, 2010
Samantha Vice, a philosopher at Rhodes University, has been thinking about the moral condition of white South Africans. Is it possible to live a virtuous life here, given the continuing privilege that comes with whiteness? Believing that this will be “very difficult”, she argues that shame is “the morally appropriate emotion to feel”. She concludes, […]
Read More

QA 2. (Feb 08) A question of shame

  • Posted by Helen Douglas
  • On April 12, 2008
A Cape Town woman, convicted – yet again – of fraud, was sentenced to stand in a public street wearing a sign that listed her crimes, and apologise to those she had harmed. A higher court reviewing the sentence overturned it on the grounds that such public shaming violated the constitutional principle of human dignity. […]
Read More