Philosophy

Table of Contents - July 2011 - Volume 86, Issue 03  

Research Article

Plato's Attempt to Moralize Shame1

Dan Lyons

Abstract

I'd like to trace here a great rhetorical-philosophical project which runs through the writings of Plato – his attempt to moralize norms of honor and glory, his attempt to harness the powerful feelings of shame and glory to the ineffectual norms of justice.

(Online publication June 24 2011)

Dan Lyons (1930–2010) was Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University for thirty-four years, specializing in the ethics of shame and glory and in the creation of computer assisted logic programs. He is the author of Democracy, Rights, and Freedoms : What are they? What good are they? (Peter Lang, 2000) and with Jann Benson of Strutting and Fretting: Standards of Self-esteem.

Footnotes

1 This article was written by the late Daniel Lyons (1930–2010), who taught philosophy at Colorado State University for more than 30 years. The article was originally written in the 1970s and was part of his lifelong project to understand and draw attention to the moral psychology of glory and humiliation. It has been edited by his children, Sarah M. Lyons and Jean L. Lotus, and Thomas M. Lyons of Chicago State University. Dan's wife Mary Lyons checked the footnotes and added some revisions. The article was brought to light by Philip Turetzky of Colorado State University who also contributed to the editing. The Lyons family would like to thank Adrian Moore of St. Hugh's College, Oxford for bringing the article to the attention of Anthony O'Hear, editor of this journal to whom we are grateful for publishing it.