Stoicism often gets painted as enabling, or even promoting, a lack of emotions. Despite what many may think, however, Stoics feel just as many emotions as anyone else. The difference is that Stoics understand how emotions work and how best to manage them.

It should be no surprise, then, that the feeling of shame is one that is well within the Stoic’s toolkit to manage.

Shame is particularly interesting because it involves unpleasant feelings around something that has happened in the past. Stoics are encouraged to live in the moment and not dwell on the past.

How, then, does a Stoic think about feelings of shame?

What is shame?

Before diving into how a Stoic might think about shame, let’s first take a moment to define what shame is. Merriam-Webster defines shame as “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.”

It is important to establish that by “painful,” we mean unpleasant. One could very well argue that the well-equipped Stoic would not consider anything truly harmful outside of damage to one’s character.

In layman’s terms, shame is feeling bad about some past action or shortcoming.

Is feeling shame Stoic?

To be crystal clear: anywhere on the human emotional spectrum, you will find the Stoic. This is because Stoics are human beings. Shocking, I know!

Hence, we could conclude that, yes, Stoics are bound to feel shame from time to time. That is part of the human experience.

However, under what conditions might it be appropriate to feel shame?

To answer this question, let’s get to the definition of what it means to be a Stoic. A Stoic is a person who is aiming to live according to the cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. A practical approximation of this would be: a Stoic is someone who aims to act appropriately in the world.

Hence, the true question becomes: when is it appropriate to feel shame?

The two sides of virtue

Stoicism’s core claim is that if you act appropriately, you will flourish. To flourish does not necessarily mean to live in emotional bliss. However, it does mean being content with what happens, knowing that you’ve acted appropriately.

If you wish to be content when you’ve acted appropriately, then the opposite must follow: when you act inappropriately, you should recognize that something has gone wrong.

I will be clear: if you’ve acted inappropriately, it is entirely natural to feel shame about that. This is important to the practicing Stoic because it allows us to grow. We can recognize shame for what it may be: a signal that we have done something wrong by our own standards. Over time, our own standards should move towards those of the Stoic Sage.

Can shame go too far?

One of the challenges with shame is that it can seemingly go on for a long time. Rumination is a real problem, and it can quickly become unproductive. When would it be appropriate to stop feeling shameful?

If shame points us towards a potential failure, we can view it as a teaching tool. The purpose of teaching isn’t to make us feel bad, but rather to help us grow.

Shame, then, can ultimately become a tool for learning about ourselves and improving our character.

When should shame stop? To the Stoic, I would argue that the answer is: when the lesson has been discerned.

One reason we often find ourselves ruminating is because we haven’t quite extracted the core lesson from the failure. Our mind keeps returning to it because we are still trying to understand what went wrong.

That isn’t to say that all rumination is productive. Surely it isn’t. We can continue replaying a failure long after there is anything useful left to learn from it.

In this case, it becomes vitally important to remind yourself that the failure is in the past. You’ve extracted the lesson. You will work on it. And now, you will move on.

Closing remarks

Stoicism gives you a toolkit to manage all your emotions, including shame. Instead of telling yourself that you should or should not feel shame in a particular instance, examine it. Ask yourself: why? Did I actually act against my values? If so, what can I learn from it?

With enough reflection and a tad bit of grace, perhaps you will understand the why. And when you do, you can move on with a slightly improved character than before.

Shame is unpleasant, yes. But no Stoic has ever promised Stoicism to be pain-free. We cannot change the action that produced the shame. That moment is gone. But we can decide what we do with it. To me, that’s encouraging.

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Brandon is most well-known for his podcast, The Strong Stoic Podcast, where he discusses philosophical ideas both solo and with guests. He also coaches individuals to help them be their best selves, writes articles, plays music, manages projects, and several other things.

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