Reasons to Blush

Abstract

Undoubtedly investigation of the physiological mechanisms involved in facial flushing and increased skin temperature will make a significant contribution to understanding the blush yet it cannot provide the whole story. One obvious consideration is that the blush is, as far as is known, a uniquely human response (as Mark Twain wrote in Following the Equator, 1897, ‘Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to’) and explanations have to take this into account. What is it about being human that makes us prone to blush? Answers to this question refer to a unique moral sensibility or to an advanced degree of self-consciousness, and transcend the physiological level of explanation.