Honour?

[guthrie]

What is it? Why is it, or rather what purpose does it serve?

As a starting point, I was thinking it can be seen in both social, personal and religious lights, both for its purpose and effects. For example, socially, if you have honour, it has advantages in situations, whether people know you wont rip them off, thus facilitating excahnge of goods etc. Or else you will fight to keep it, which is motivation to get out there and do something.
Then religiously, it helps both as a means of keeping people in line, through far of what god will do if you dont follow the honourable path, or as a goad to action, whereby you will be punished for being dishonourable.
Personally, you can gain from both social and religious standpoints, and in an individual sense an ideal of honour can motivate you when required, in a deeply personal way unrelated to religion or society.

Discuss.

 

[coolsoldier]

Unlike Ethics, Morality, and Justice, which are generally based on personal interpretation, Honor is based on the social interpretation. So basically it's morality on someone else's terms. That's my take, anyway.

 

[Mystech]

Well ethics morality and justice can all be based largely on broad perceptions of social interpretation as well, and so can honor be an intensely individual thing.

I suppose honor is very closely related to morality, in that it's a sense of doing right. Though it does get a little complicated when you run into situations in which honor demands that you act in a way you view to be immoral (for instance, suppose I were to view lying as immoral, yet I gave my word [which in this hypothetical world I prize higher than any other possession of mine] that I would see some goal through to the end, and I have come to an impass where only telling a lie will be able to allow me to keep to my word). It's all rather complicated, and I suppose that pride comes into play somewhere in there. I suppose that honor is a set of ethics which allows one to stay proud and feel as though they are a good person.

 

[Riomacleod]

Ethics-Based on personal opinion, or knowledge, of how to get along in the current soceity. These actions may or may not be empirically evil or good, but the ethical dilema is to get through the day while pissing off as few people as possible.

Morality-This is personal or impersonal depending on who you ask. I'd say that Morality is objectively living a Good life (note the capitalization) in a Platonic Ideal.

Justice-This is even more impersonal. Justice is the nature of balance in the world. Eventually good things happen to good people and eventually bad things happen to bad people.

So where does Honor fit?

Honor is a specific code of ethics which exist in a cultural setting. Japan had a system of Honor. Europe had a system of Honor. The South had a system of Honor. It's a manner of keeping people in line with their superiors. It's not a suprise that it is very honorable to enact your orders with swiftness and with accuracy, but very dishonorable to decide your superiors were wrong.

 

[invisibleone]

Originally posted by Riomacleod
Ethics-Based on personal opinion, or knowledge, of how to get along in the current soceity. These actions may or may not be empirically evil or good, but the ethical dilema is to get through the day while pissing off as few people as possible.

Morality-This is personal or impersonal depending on who you ask. I'd say that Morality is objectively living a Good life (note the capitalization) in a Platonic Ideal.

Justice-This is even more impersonal. Justice is the nature of balance in the world. Eventually good things happen to good people and eventually bad things happen to bad people.

So where does Honor fit?

Honor is a specific code of ethics which exist in a cultural setting. Japan had a system of Honor. Europe had a system of Honor. The South had a system of Honor. It's a manner of keeping people in line with their superiors. It's not a suprise that it is very honorable to enact your orders with swiftness and with accuracy, but very dishonorable to decide your superiors were wrong.

In other words, what you are saying is that honor is built upon a social heirarchy in which commoners must respect and please their superiors or risk making them upset. It sounds more like bullying!

 

[Riomacleod]

In other words, what you are saying is that honor is built upon a social heirarchy in which commoners must respect and please their superiors or risk making them upset. It sounds more like bullying!

I thought that was pretty obvious, and impossible to ignore if you look at history.

 

[Mystech]

Originally posted by invisibleone
In other words, what you are saying is that honor is built upon a social heirarchy in which commoners must respect and please their superiors or risk making them upset. It sounds more like bullying!

Haha, there seems to be an awful lot of those, doesn't there?

I can certainly see how your statement here can be true some of the time, it wouldn't be too hard to use someone's own sense of honor against them, or to instill them with one that serves your own ends (I think Japanese Culture around WWII displays this pretty well), but at the same time I don't think that it's necessarily true all of the time. As I said Honor can be something of a personal thing, and be a positive part of a person's character rather than a way for someone to control them.

 

[thefountainhed]

Every culture or subculture has its honour code. The main purpose of honour is to perpertuate the exisntence of that (sub)culture. It is part of the moral code and sometimes the only moral code. Honour in the military is duty and obedience; honour in family is loyalty and selflessness; honour in relationships can be honesty, duty, respect, obedience; in religion, it is used indirectly as religion is based on a particular society. etc.