Abstract
This chapter engages in an analysis of the concept of honor. It begins with a critique of the evolutionary account of honor, according to which retribution and revenge are evolutionary adaptations the purpose of which is to deter future harms. In fact, there is a better explanation of honor that gives it a non-instrumental explanation, while allowing that the prevention of future harm is a side effect of the exercise of honor. In order to defend one’s honor, one has to demonstrate a willingness to stand up to the wrongdoer in a confrontation involving significant physical risk. In the modern world, the state has taken on this role on behalf of the victim, by bringing the wrongdoer to justice. We then turn to a defense of the moral value of honor. Although honor is often taken as an obsolete value, in fact it can be understood as rooted in the value of individual dignity and autonomy. Honor is often misunderstood as being merely “external,” i.e. as consisting entirely in public reputation, but a careful analysis shows this to be a misinterpretation. Honor, properly understood, is a legitimate and even essential moral value.
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Notes
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This is not of course to claim that societies have never let deterrent motivations trump retributive ones. There are innumerable examples of societies that punish the innocent for deterrent purposes. However, it is clear that such a practice violates basic moral intuitions, and it is usually tyrants or dictators that use such techniques. Moreover, even in such cases, it is clear that deterrence is functioning as a rational, conscious motivation, rather than as an unconscious guiding impulse, contrary to what the “unconscious deterrence” thesis suggests.
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Principles of Legislation, (1830, 77).
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See also Olsthoorn (2005), arguing that we need a revitalized concept of agency that can accommodate self-sacrifice.
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Krause also claims it “transcends the partisan divide between Left and Right in contemporary American politics” (2002, 30). Krause believes that honor belongs on the side of desires and passions (id., 23). I am not convinced, for honor seems no mere feeling or impulse, but a mediator between the cognitive and the affective.
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Hirschman (1997), Thomas Hobbes, De Cive I.2 (honor and self-interest as the two competing motivations).
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E.g. Wood (1991, 97).
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D’Souza (1995, 341).
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1945, Vol. II, Book 3, Chap. XVIII, p. 242, n.1.
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Pitt-Rivers (1977, 1). For Pitt-Rivers, honor is “both internal to the individual and external to him” (1968, Vol. 6, 503). Cf. also Kiernan, recognizing that honor “has always a twofold nature, external as well as internal” (1989, 17); and Wyatt-Brown, noting that honor “both internal to the claimant, so that it motivates him towards behavior socially approved, and external to him, because only by the response of observers can he ordinarily understand himself.” (1982, 14); Ikegami declares that “Japanese and Western scholars alike now largely agree that honor has both an internal and an external dimension” (1997, 23).
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Book III, Canto ii, v. 7. Cf. Montesquieu: “And is it not impressive that one can oblige men to do all the difficult actions and which require force, with no reward other than the renown of these actions?” (1989, Part I, Chap. 7.)
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Benedict’s study has been severely criticized for its methodology. As Ikegami points out, Benedict “never visited Japan and never learned its language” and repeatedly took legends, myths, and stories out of their historical context (1997, 373). Moreover, it has been charged that the context in which the book was written, in which Benedict was asked by the United States government to provide a study of the enemy whom we were currently fighting, led her to overemphasize the “alien” character of the Japanese. However, my specific concern here is not the accuracy of Benedict’s portrayal of Japan, but her portrayal of the honor ideal more generally.
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Season 4, Episode 5 (2010) was entitled “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” and featured Don Draper reading passages from the book on the centrality of shame in Japanese culture. Benedict’s book as a result moved up in Amazon’s best seller list soon after the episode.
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Compare Parker (2001) (dueling demonstrates sincerity of one’s word and independence from material interests).
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The History of England, 1:486–7 (quoted in Donald Siebert (1997, 69)).
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See Lloyd-Jones (1991, 270).
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Id., 32. Again, the evidence for this assertion is quite problematic, relying on a single, perhaps apocryphal, anecdote. Nor does he provide any evidence as to the relative prevalence of lying in honor cultures as distinct from virtue cultures. He does however concede that men in honor cultures did “place a positive value” on being truthful (id.).
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Note the contradiction between this view and the previous ones, which held that people are mere social conformists or concerned only for the opinions of others. As Bernard Williams remarks, “Which is supposed to be the trouble, that these people thought too much about others’ reactions, or too little?” (1994, 100).
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Orlando Furioso, Canto LXXI (Quoted in Montaigne, “Of Glory,” in Montaigne (1958, 472)).
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Kaufman, W.R.P. (2012). Making Sense of Honor. In: Honor and Revenge: A Theory of Punishment. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 104. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4845-3_7
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