Honor and Ethics: Some Initial Reflections

A friend and colleague of mine, Bruce Weinstein, raised a provocative question, tapping the expertise and sounding the sentiments of his many Facebook friends:   

"What do you think of "Live Honorably" as my proposed slogan? I'd use it as a way to let people know how they would benefit from my talks, training, books, and consultations."
It sparked a conversation revealing -- and reflective of -- quite a few different viewpoints on the relationship between honor and ethics.  He also proposed that I weigh in on the matter, so that's precisely what I intend to do here.

Self-Promotion from a Virtue Ethics Perspective

Over the last several months, I've written a series of posts (part 1, part 2, part 3) on Orexis Dianoētikē motivated originally by a Chronicle of Higher Education post, The Art and Science of Academic Self-Promotion.  The issue originally raised was one which is particularly pressing in contemporary academia, where stiff competition for more and more scarce resources is rapidly becoming the "new normal," relatively new social media open up interesting new opportunities for publicizing or promoting one's legitimate achievements, academia remains beset by the radically uneven lighting of its own self-replicating class and tier system  - and yet many people remain chary of engaging in self-promotion, unsure of themselves, noticeably uneasy with the efforts of less restrained colleagues and coworkers.  Still, as in every time and place, some people definitely do cross the lines.

How should one draw the lines, though -- that's a question not so easily answered.  Egregious violations of good taste, collegiality, reciprocity, those we can all get behind, or rather against, forming some kind of consensus.  Practicing a parsimony of publicity -- meeting only whatever requirements of reporting come down from one's chair, or dean, tenure committee, provost -- entering the data supposedly comprising one's career into whatever digital (or God forbid, still paper!) portfolio one's school demands -- that seems the safe route.  But it is the sagacious course to adopt?  It's hard to say, because there seem to be no real rules, except those of rather ad hoc compilations reminding one more of unintentionally stuffy etiquette lists, or prudential "how to make friends and influence. . . " bulletpoint blocks.

HBR: The Secret to Dealing with Difficult People

Tony Schwartz, among other things a blogger on the Harvard Business Review network, recently offered advice about a common issue both in the workplace and in one’s non-work life: the need to deal with difficult people, those who fit this description:

Do you have someone at work who consistently triggers you? Doesn’t listen? Takes credit for work you’ve done? Wastes your time with trivial issues? Acts like a know-it-all? Can only talk about himself? Constantly criticizes?

Such people, of course, are not a new or unique feature of modern society.  In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle discussed such people, as did Plato, Epictetus, Augustine and a number of ancient philosophers in their turn.  Aristotle is particularly interesting to point to, though, because he analyses the emotional response of — and virtues and vices associated with — anger.  I've written about this in greater depth elsewhere on the web (here, here, and here), so I'm just going to mention a few features of Aristotle's theory relevant to Schwartz's advice.

Big Think: How Honor Can Remake Society

The interconnections — and at times discordances — between honor and virtue are complicated, not least because these are multifaceted moral phenomena.  Virtue is multiple and each of the virtues possesses its own determinate specificity.  Honor likewise has more than one sense, manifests in more than one manner, is understood in very different ways, is desired by different people as at times almost unrecognizably similar or analogous goods.

In our contemporary moral language, we — and every culture seems to exhibit something along these lines — possess and use numerous not-entire-synonyms for “honor”:  respect, esteem, admiration — just to name a few.  It’s tempting to try to identify moral phenomena strictly along such linguistic differentials, to say:  respect is this, honor is that — not recognizing that inn reality these blur into each other and bifurcate internally as well.