Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

though no one would praise an older man for being shamefaced, since we think he ought not to do anything of which he need be ashamed. [4] For indeed the virtuous man does not feel shame, if shame is the feeling caused by base actions; [5] since one ought not to do base actions （the distinction between acts really shameful and those reputed to be so is immaterial, since one ought not to do either）, and so one never ought to feel shame. [6] Shame is a mark of a base man, and springs from a character capable of doing a shameful act. And it is absurd that, because a man is of such a nature that he is ashamed if he does a shameful act, he should therefore think himself virtuous, since actions to cause shame must be voluntary, but a virtuous man will never voluntarily do a base action. [7] Modesty can only be virtuous conditionally—in the sense that a good man would be ashamed if he were to do so and so; but the virtues are not conditional. And though shamelessness and not shrinking from shameful actions is base, this does not prove that to be ashamed when one a does shameful acts is virtuous— [8] any more than Self-restraint is a virtue, and not rather a mixture of virtue and vice. But this will be explained later.¹ Let us now speak of Justice.