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.