"I have never doubted," says Diderot, "that the state of our organs and senses has much influence both on our metaphysics and our morality." This, I may observe, does not in the least show that in a society of human beings, not blind, but endowed with vision, the sense of physical shame is a mere prejudice of which philosophy will rid us.
The fact that a blind man discerns no ill in nakedness, has no bearing on the value or naturalness of shame among people with eyes.

And moreover, the fact that delicacy or shame is not a universal human impulse, but is established, and its scope defined, by a varying etiquette, does not in the least affect the utility or wisdom of such an artificial establishment and definition.

The grounds of delicacy, though connected with the senses, are fixed by considerations that spring from the social reason.

It seems to be true, as Diderot says, that the born-blind are at first without physical delicacy; because delicacy has its root in the consciousness that we are observed, while the born-blind are not conscious that they are observed.

It is found that one of the most important parts of their education is to impress this knowledge upon them.[66] But the artificiality of a moral acquisition is obviously no test of its worth, nor of the reasons for preserving it.