Honor (ethics)

“ Sirs, all that seems least connected with honor, as we approach the vulgar days of the present, has its origin in honor, and is but an abuse of its principles. If men nowadays are hucksters and traders, if even military honors are purchased, and a rogue buys his way to a peerage, still all arises from the desire for honor, which society, as it grows old, gives to the outward signs of titles and gold, instead of, as once, to its inward essentials,—courage, truth, justice, enterprise. Therefore I say, sirs, that honor is the foundation of all improvement in mankind. ”

“ Scrupulously to guard individual honor, by a high personal self respect, and the practice of every commendable virtue. Once let such a system of education be universal, and we should seldom hear, if ever, of any more duelling. ”

“ If we shall neglect our duty to them and disregard the mute appeal of their honorable scars; if we shall ever cease to treat them with that respect and tender consideration to which their services and their sufferings alike entitle them; or, if we shall forbear to extend to them that generous succour which they need, we shall be alike insensible to the claims of gratitude and the demands of honor. ”

“ Is it honorable to treat with contempt those who object to dueling about silly nothings? Is not this so-called sense of honor mere shallow and rude rodomontade? It is in fact nothing but the cultivation of an entirely false standard of honor—a self-deception very dangerous to young people, because it confuses their moral principles, upon the clearness and firmness of which the character of the true gentleman rests. ”

“ No misconception of national honor could be more grotesque than the fancy that the moral dignity of a nation can better be saved by punishing one's self with an absolutely useless demonstration of willingness to shed more blood and to squander more wealth and to create more misery, than by a wise and decorous acceptance of the inevitable. ”

“ Honor therefore has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to conform. The chief of these are, that we are allowed to set a value upon our fortune, but it is absolutely forbidden to set any value upon our lives. ”

“ Questions of fact, of law, of interest, of substantial justice and right it may sometimes be difficult to determine; but there are rules of evidence, of legal construction, of equity and precedents to aid us. A question of honor is often inaccessible to these aids, for it is a matter of sentiment. Affairs of honor have caused as many follies as affairs of love. ”

“ Those codes came out of the folkways of the time and place. Then comes the question whether it is not always so. Is honor, in any case, anything but the code of one's duty to himself which he has accepted from the group in which he was educated? Family, class, religious sect, school, occupation, enter into the social environment. In every environment there is a standard of honor. When a man thinks that he is acting most independently, on his personal prerogative, he is at best only balancing against each other the different codes in which he has been educated, e.g. ”

“ If morals were in reality not pure, nor principles severe, there was at least the vanity of posing as models of good breeding. Honor was a religion; politeness and courtesy were the current, though by no means always genuine, coin of unselfishness and amiability; the amenities stood in the place of an ethical code. Egotism, ill temper, disloyalty, ingratitude, and scandal were sins against taste, and spoiled the general harmony. ”

“ And what is honored is cultivated, and that which has no honor is neglected.
“And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money, and they honor and reverence the rich man and make a ruler of him, and dishonor the poor man. ”

“ No subject, in the discussion, or decision of which, essential principles, or the vital interests of any branch of knowledge are concerned, can pass, without exciting interest, before the eyes of the community, and least of all is indifference shown when that sacred principle of honor, the firmest safeguard of all we value, is called in question, or impugned. ”

“ Wherefore a special virtue is appointed for the payment of worship and honor to persons in positions of dignity. Yet, forasmuch as science, virtue and all like things render a man fit for positions of dignity, the respect which is paid to anyone on account of any excellence whatever belongs to the same virtue.
Reply Obj. 3: It belongs to special justice, properly speaking, to pay the equivalent to those to whom we owe anything. Now this cannot be done to the virtuous, and to those who make good use of their position of dignity, as neither can it be done to God, nor to our parents. ”

“ So far as its content is concerned, honor seems to me to get its character as duty of the individual from the circumstance that, in preserving his own honor, the individual preserves at the same time the honor of his own social circle. ”

“ He who is actuated by false principles of honor does not feel thus. True honor is internal, false honor external. The one is founded on principles, the other on interests. The one does not ostentatiously proclaim its lofty aims ”

“ Where censure would hurt the child's sense of honor and self-respect, there I suppressed it, in order to teach my colleagues round about by example, that the sense of honor and character which our days do not sufficiently educate, is the best thing in man--that all other feelings, even the noblest, let him fall out of their arms at hours when the sentiment of honor holds him up in its own--that among men whose principles are silent and whose passions scream into each other's ears, their sense of honor alone imparts to the friend, the creditor and the beloved an iron security. ”

“ Honor signifies the aggregate of those rules by the assistance of which this dignity, glory, or reverence is obtained. Thus we say that a man has always strictly obeyed the laws of honor; or a man has violated his honor. ”

“ But justice has in it something permanent and solid; and out of justice arises the real not the false honour.
"Honour!" said Maltravers,—"honour is to justice as the flower to the plant,—its efflorescence, its bloom, its consummation! But honour that does not spring from justice is but a piece of painted rag, an artificial rose, which the men-milliners of society would palm upon us as more natural than the true." ”

“ But because I saw unworthy men ennobled with honors, and myself proscribed on groundless suspicion, I have, for this very reason, adopted a course, amply justifiable in my present circumstances, for preserving what honor is left to me. ”

“ Charity to self would forbid one to seek after an honor, if the honor would prove harmful, or if it could not be obtained in a respectable way. Thus, if an honor rightfully belonged to another, or if it were bestowed in recognition of evil done, or if it would impose obligations for which one knows oneself to be unsuited, or if it could not be attained except by dishonesty, charity to self would urge one to fly from the honor. ”

“ A principle of honor, as long as it is connected with virtue, adds no small efficacy to its operation, and no small brilliancy and lustre to its appearance: but honor, the moment that it becomes unconnected with the duties of official function, with the relations of life,{408} and the eternal and immutable rules of morality, and appears in its substance alien to them, changes its nature, and, instead of justifying a breach of duty, aggravates all its mischiefs to an almost infinite degree ”

“ In the executive action of these three sorts of law the intermediate position of honor also shows itself. While civic law employs physical force as its sanction, while personal morality has no other recourse than the approval or disapproval of conscience, the laws of honor are guarded by penalties which have neither the pure externality of the former nor the pure subjectivity of the latter. ”

“ They leave all principles of honor, all sense of moral responsibility, all sacred domestic ties, behind them, forgetting, or at least ignoring, the significant query, namely, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" ”

“ Honor demands from the individual those kinds of conduct which promote these ends of his society. Since conformity to this demand acquires, on the one hand, an ideal worth, so ideal and so powerful at the same time that honor is preferred to life; since the preservation of honor, on the other hand, has very sensible pleasurable effects upon the individual, and its loss produces equally keen pains, it comes about that honor constitutes an extraordinarily close bond between the whole group and its elements. ”

“ It is quite different from punishment based on the sense of honor, which, in a formal manner, shuts the youth out from companionship because he has attacked the principle which holds society together, and for this reason can no longer be considered as belonging to it. Honor is the recognition of one individual by others as their equal. ”

“ Honor differs from reverence as the effect differs from the cause, or the means from the end; for it is reverence that prompts one to show honor, and honor is meant to excite in others reverence for the person honored. The debt of honor is due those who are superior in jurisdiction, from legal justice; it is due to those who are superiors, but not in jurisdiction, not from legal justice, since the law does not enforce it, but from moral obligation, since it is decent and becoming. ”

“ Such are some of the terrible effects of the law of honour, as the guide of life, which, if it sanction not, tolerates the betrayal of innocence, the ruin of a family, and the murder of a fellow-creature. ”

“ True it is, that, philosophically speaking, it is a false honor which moves all the parts of the government, but even this false honor is as useful to the public, as true honor could possibly prove to private people.
Is it not a very great point, to oblige men to perform the most difficult actions, such as require a great degree of fortitude and spirit, without any other recompence, than the fame and reputation arising from the actions themselves ? ”

“ But in bestowing honor, while one should have at least in general an honorable opinion of others, the duty of external honor does not oblige at all times or in all circumstances; and the same kind of honor is not to be given by or to all persons. Those who show the ordinary signs of charity (as they should) in greetings, salutations, courtesies, and the like, comply sufficiently with the duty of common honor. ”

“ Those repeated injunctions of honor are to be the rule, subject to these exceptions, which transcend the common proprieties when the subject is the rising young gentleman of the period and his goal social success. ”

“ Defense of Honor or Reputation.—When honor or reputation is unjustly attacked, the more perfect course is to bear the injury patiently and to pardon the offense, according to the teaching of Christ. But it is not sinful to defend honor and reputation, just as it is not sinful to defend life, limbs and property. How far may one go in defense of honor or reputation against an unjust aggressor? ”

“ And does his honour oblige him to be a knave too, or to desert those that are knaves? Or, does a robber, who leaves the gang, violate his honour, which was only an obligation to rob?
A good conscience, an honest heart, and clean hands, are inseparable from true honour; nor does true honour teach any man to act against his judgment. It must be convinced before it acts, and mere authority has no weight with it. In human matters, it does not consider what is commanded, but what ought to be commanded ”

“ What true honor consists in, what constitutes an offense to one's honor and how the offended honor can or should be vindicated or restored, are questions which in different places and at different times have received different answers, according to the different conventional conceptions of honor or the different states of civilization there and then prevailing. ”

“ Honour, as I understand it, is not physical or accidental; is not even reputation, which is a species of reflection of honour in the minds of others; it is a state of mind resulting from a voluntary and conscious adherence to certain rules of life and conduct. As such it is entirely your own possession and a creation, a thing of which no one can rob you but yourself; it is at no man's mercy but your own. ”

“ And while you are strengthening yourselves in the resolve to be honorable, let me warn you against taking that utilitarian maxim that "Honesty is the best policy," as an accurate compendium of ethics. It is a very true maxim, if you do not confound the result of honesty with the reason for honesty. ”

“ Does he himself delight in worship? Certainly. Parents and benefactors are honored among us. But why is this honor given? Human nature has regard for mutual wants and, the bestowal of honor is due to the idea that we can be aided by a greater and more enduring power. No one wishes to aid another unless his own wants are satisfied in turn. ”

“ Both honour and reputation are goods that a man can call his own, and has a right to, but on different titles. Honour, some honour at least, appertains to a man simply for his being a man: reputation is won by deeds. Honour is primarily a connatural right: reputation is acquired. An entire stranger has no reputation, but a certain honour is his due to start with.
3. As there is a right to honour and a right to reputation, so insult and detraction are sins, not against charity, but against commutative justice, calling for restitution. ”

“ Trast. (Continuing) Gentlemen, I don't want to be considered immoral. The study of the puzzles of civilization is a thing apart.--You see it lies in the nature of your so-called honor, that it may only be possessed by the certain few, the demi-gods; for it is an emotional luxury that loses value in direct proportion as it is appropriated by the rabble.
Kurt. But that is a paradox. Count. Is it not permitted to everyone to be a man of honor?
Trast. On the contrary. Then the poorest devil in the alley might dispute the honor of a gentleman. ”