Honor in Political and Moral Philosophy

Peter Olsthoorn

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781438455488
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Philosophie politique

In this history of the development of ideas of honor in Western philosophy, Peter Olsthoorn examines what honor is, how its meaning has changed, and whether it can still be of use. Political and moral philosophers from Cicero to John Stuart Mill thought that a sense of honor and concern for our reputation could help us to determine the proper thing to do, and just as important, provide us with the much-needed motive to do it. Today, outside of the military and some other pockets of resistance, the notion of honor has become seriously out of date, while the term itself has almost disappeared from our moral language. Most of us think that people ought to do what is right based on a love for jus-tice rather than from a concern with how we are perceived by others. Wide-ranging and accessible, the book explores the role of honor in not only philosophy but also literature and war to make the case that honor can still play an important role in contemporary life.

1

Honor as a Social Motive

Although the view that virtues such as justice and courage need honor as a reward goes back a long way, it was worked out most systematically by various Roman authors who did not only discern something noble in the longing for honor and a name that never dies, but also ascribed an important function to it. For instance, the Roman historian Gaius Sallust wrote in the first century BC that the greatness of Rome was a result of the competition for glory between those young men who, destined to lead by birth and education, entered the battlefield with a burning desire to beat their peers by being the first to slay an opponent (Catilinae Coniuratio 1–2, 7). Nearly two millennia later, Colonel Ardant Du Picq stated in his Battle Studies that, where the Greeks mainly pondered on the ideal depth of the phalanx, the in military affairs much more successful Romans addressed the question of what makes men fight, and that they had found the answer in making use of the soldier’s sense of honor and shame (1947, 50–5). Although Du Picq is not entirely fair to the Greeks here,1 it is true that they were in general less inclined to the view that virtue needs a reward. Plato, for instance, wrote in The Republic that

good men will not consent to govern for cash or honors. They do not want to be called mercenary for exacting a cash payment for the work of government, or thieves for making money on the side; and they will not work for honors, for they aren’t ambitious (347b).

Although Plato stated in the concluding sections of The Republic that being just will be rewarded in this life with a good name (613), that reward is not presented as a helpful, let alone necessary, encouragement to virtue; a good man will persist in being good even if he gains a reputation for wickedness by it. Plato took a somewhat different position when he tried to sketch a more feasible ideal in his Laws; in that work he wrote about name and reputation as being necessary incentives, and the penalty of public disgracing as an effective disincentive (738, 740d, 754e-5a, 764a, 784d, 926d).

Although in general more practically minded than Plato, Aristotle wrote in the Nicomachean Ethics that reason keeps good men on the path of virtue and that they therefore do not really need their sense of shame—a good man would be ashamed if he did something shameful, however, as he is not shameless (1095b, 1128b). On first sight, this view that reason suffices to keep a good man good might seem at odds with the fact that in the same book Aristotle described honor as being the most important of the secondary goods, and not to be disdained (1123b). Finding a right position towards honor is in fact an important theme in the Nicomachean Ethics, where it is dealt with under the headings of magnanimity (for the great men) and ambition (for the rest of us). Magnanimity, wrote Aristotle, is about finding a mean between vanity and boastfulness on the one hand, and being overly modest on the other. Basically, the virtue of magnanimity, and the two accompanying vices of vanity and pusillanimity, are all about estimating one’s own worth properly, and claiming due honor for it. The person who is too humble fails here just as much as the boaster does. One could even argue that the overly humble person is more to blame because his diffidence will bar him from an active life that, in the case of a man of virtue, would serve the public cause (Nicomachean Ethics 1123a–1125a). Ambition, more relevant to most people, is about finding the (unnamed) mean between seeking honor too much (and that goes under the name ambition) and too little (unambitiousness), and about seeking honor from the right sources and in the right way (Nicomachean Ethics 1125b). Yet, in the end Aristotle’s account of honor is rather unenthusiastic, and entirely consistent with his dismissal of shame: the man of virtue only accepts honor because there is nothing greater to bestow upon virtue, and it only gives him moderate pleasure. He definitely does not need it as a spur to virtue (Nicomachean Ethics 1124a).

Honor and the Romans

Most Roman authors were much more outspoken on the good effects of honor than that: they thought that almost no one is willing to act for the greater good unless there is honor to be earned. Virtuous acts should therefore be seen and, more important, praised at length. Sallust, who sought fame as a man of letters only after other paths to glory (such as politics and the military) were blocked to him at a time (i.e., after the civil war that brought Julius Caesar to power) when, as he saw it, honor was no longer given to the deserving (Bellum Iugurthinum 3–4), opened his account of the conspiracy of Catiline with the statement that

every man who wishes to rise superior to the lower animals should strive his hardest to avoid living all his days in silent obscurity, like the beasts of the field, creatures which go with their faces to the ground and the slaves of their bellies (Catilinae Coniuratio 1).

Other Roman historians held similar views, as did some Roman philosophers, most notably Marcus Tullius Cicero. The latter, besides a philosopher also a lawyer and statesman, is without a doubt the best-known and most subtle representative of the Roman honor ethic, and, until not too long ago, a very influential one, more influential for instance than the Greek philosophers that we today tend to hold in higher regard. In fact, Cicero’s On Duty has been called (alongside Plutarch’s Parallel Lives) the book most influential on the modern world (Strachan-Davidson 1894, 369; see also Long 2008, 56).

In Cicero’s works we find a form of conventional ethics that is, albeit less demanding, as moral and as sophisticated as modern accounts of morality that give center stage to the notion of autonomy. A notion we can safely assume Cicero would have thought unattainable: although the view on honor that underlies the ideal of autonomy—honor is neither needed as an incentive, nor as a heuristic device to discover what is just—has come to be the dominant view only quite recently, it has always had its adherents. Opposing the honor ethic, writes Charles Taylor, there was for instance “the celebrated and influential counter-position put forward by Plato. Virtue is no longer to be found in public life (…). The higher life is that ruled by reason, and reason itself is defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos and in the soul” (1992a, 20). In Greek and Roman antiquity varieties of this counter-position were defended by the Platonists, the Cynics, the Epicureans, and the Stoics (see also Taylor 1992a, 20). Cicero especially opposed the latter two schools, which both tried to convince their respective audiences that honor was definitely not worth pursuing, as it brings more ill than good.

To begin with the Epicureans (their ideas were spread among the Romans through the poet Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura): they held that happiness and peace of mind are the two most valuable things in life. Our Sisyphus-like struggle for honor and glory puts those very things at risk, since failure clearly brings pain, while success only brings the envy of others. Equanimity (and with that a god-like life) can only be attained if we do away with our unwarranted fears, above all that of death, it being the principal source of the ambition for a name that lasts after one’s demise (Lucretius De Rerum Natura III 59). The Epicureans were always keen to ridicule that wish for an eternal fame—why bother about one’s standing when no longer around to enjoy it? But in Cicero’s view, more polemic than truthful—Cicero must have read the work of Lucretius, but misrepresented the Epicurean moral philosophy as hedonistic all the same—Epicurean philosophy was mistaken in seeing man as essentially living for himself, and even self-seeking.2 Although convinced of its being misguided, Cicero feared the consequences of people trying to live by Epicureanism nonetheless, neglecting their duties to the state.3

The Stoics were equally hostile to the notion of honor. Partly because of reasons similar to those the Epicureans held, and partly out of a more demanding view of man that held that people potentially love virtue, and should be able to act accordingly. That this potential is often not realized is because our natural, good inclinations seldom win out over the prejudices of society, which value money, power, and glory over virtue. That we in general listen to the murmuring around us is the main cause of our falling short of the Stoic benchmark, which states that an act undertaken in exchange for a reward, for instance honor or fame, is not virtuous in any way—below the level of perfect virtue everything is equally bad. Imagining that a Cato or Scipio is present might help someone on his path to virtue, yet virtue is only truly attained when being one’s own witness suffices, Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius (On Reformation).

According to Cicero the Stoic definition of virtue was unworkable and even dangerously strict, as it takes away the incentive for trying to be virtuous from those who are not without faults, but mean well (De Finibus IV.21, 55, 63–8, 75–7; Pro Murena 61–5). Although it is conceivable that someone perfectly wise acts virtuously for the sake of virtue, just like the Stoics wanted to see it, such individuals are very rare—Cicero claimed he had never met one (Tusculanae Disputationes II.51). For the not so wise some feedback from peers might, in combination with a concern for reputation, be of help (see for instance Tusculanae Disputationes II.47–50). So where Epicurean philosophy asks too little, Stoic philosophy asks too much, while Cicero himself was proud that he wrote about what the Stoics called “mean duties,” a level of morality that falls short of perfection yet is within reach for the average person (De Officiis III.14–17). Even such a less demanding philosophy is of no use, though, for those who fall below that average level; thieves and cut-throats have to be constrained by “chains and prison walls” (De Officiis III.73). It is a good thing that such nihilists form only a small minority. As Rome “had no central peacekeeping force” (Barton 2001, 18) the beneficial effects of chains and prison walls were bound to be limited. Rome could only flourish as long as honor, shame, and a fear of disgrace governed its citizens (Barton 2001, 23).

Fortunately most Romans remained convinced, despite the influence of Epicurean and Stoic thought, that honor was the highest good for men, and something with an existence in reality. Cicero therefore thought that honor could provide a middle ground between the alleged hedonism of Epicureanism and the strictness of the Stoics.4 Virtuous persons are in general far from indifferent to praise, and this should not be held against them because of the two functions, already mentioned in the introduction, that honor performs. First of all, our concern for how others see us can help us to actually see what the virtuous way to behave is:

We observe others and from a glance of the eyes, from a contracting or relaxing of the brows, from an air of sadness, from an outburst of joy, from a laugh, from speech, from silence, from a raising of a lowering of the voice, and the like, we shall easily judge which of our actions is proper, and which is out of accord with duty and nature (De Officiis I.146).

Also, since we detect faults more easily in others than in ourselves, it is wise to study others to find out what is unbecoming (De Officiis I.146). We do well, finally, to seek advice from men of learning and practical wisdom for guidance; not unlike painters, sculptors, and poets, we should consult the judgments of others to find out what to do and what to leave undone, and what to improve or alter (De Officiis I.147).

Secondly, the concern for reputation motivates to also behave virtuously; although most people are in general not selfish, we cannot expect them to perform their duties from a sense of duty alone. In one of his pleas Cicero stated that “magnanimity looks for no other recognition of its toils and dangers save praise and glory; once rob it of that, gentlemen, and in this brief and transitory pilgrimage of life what further incentive have we to high endeavour” (Pro Archia Poeta 28). What’s more, “deep in every noble heart dwells a power which plies night and day the good of glory, and bids us see to it that the remembrance of our names should not pass away with life, but should endure coeval with all the ages of the future” (Pro Archia Poeta 29).5 According to Leo Braudy, especially Cicero’s later speeches became “more and more filled with allusions to the central importance of the urge to fame as a motivation to public service” (1986, 78). But honor forms not only a spur to virtue, it also keeps us from doing the wrong things; Cicero thought that the censure from our peers is a punishment we cannot run away from and, more important, that no one is insensible enough to put up with the blame of others—that is a burden too heavy to bear.

What confuses matters a bit regarding this second function—honor as an incentive to do the right thing—is that Cicero paid tribute to the exacting Stoic position (and described himself as being Stoic) on some instances in his philosophical work. Cicero took a strict and Stoic stance, for example, when he attacked Epicureanism in De Finibus (II.52–3), or in De Re Publica (I.27), defending the Platonic position that military commands and consulships should be undertaken from a sense of duty, not for profit or glory, and also in De Officiis, arguing that what is morally right is “worth the seeking for its own sake” (III.33). Referring to the tale of Gyges, Cicero stated there that good men “aim to secure not secrecy but the right” (III.38). What is honestum, that is, worthy of honor, still deserves honor when no one honors it (De Officiis I.14; De Finibus II.48; see also Moore 2002, 370).

But on the whole, it is the position that honor is legitimate and necessary motivator that he took most often, also in his philosophical treatises. In the first book of his Tusculanae Disputationes he for instance wrote:

Again, in this commonwealth of ours, with what thought in their minds do we suppose such an army of illustrious men have lost their lives for the commonwealth? Was it that their name should be restricted to the narrow limits of their life? No one would ever have exposed himself to death for his country without good hope of immortality (I.32).

And, in the second book:

Nature has made us, as I have said before—it must often be repeated—enthusiastic seekers after honor, and once we have caught, as it were, some glimpse of its radiance, there is nothing we are not prepared to bear and go through in order to secure it. It is from this rush, this impulse from our soul towards true renown and reputation that the dangers of battle are encountered; brave men do not feel wounds in the line of battle, or if they feel them prefer death rather than move one step from the post that honor has appointed (II.58).

Cicero thought that no one will put aside his or her own interests for the greater good if there is no fame or honor to be earned. He believed this applied to all, citizens and soldiers alike; we should not believe people who claim to be insensitive to fame and glory (De Officiis I.71). Something that of course not only holds true for the average and uneducated, but also for philosophers, even the Stoics and Epicureans: “Do they not inscribe their names upon the actual books they write about contempt of fame?” (Tusculanae Disputationes I.34).

Although it might appear a little ironic in light of his sometimes ambiguous position on the relation between honor and virtue, Cicero emphas...