Honor for Us: A Philosophical Analysis, Interpretation and Defense

225 Pages·2010·0.747 MB·English

by  William Lad Sessions

HONOR FOR US
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HONOR FOR US
A Philosophical Analysis, Interpretation and Defense
WILLIAM LAD SESSIONS
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright © 2010 William Lad Sessions
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-8834-2 (hardcover)
Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand
Printed and bound in the United States of America by Thomson-Shore, Inc.
To Bill and Alice Sessions
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: ISSUES OF HONOR 1
PART I CONCEPTS OF HONOR 8
Chapter 2
FIVE PERIPHERAL CONCEPTS 10
Chapter 3
PERSONAL HONOR 26
Chapter 4
PERSONAL HONOR, MORALITY AND RELIGION 37
Chapter 5
DEVIANT HONOR 44
PART II HONOR’S REACH 57
Chapter 6
THE HONOR OF WARRIORS 62
Chapter 7
SPORTSMANSHIP AS HONOR 82
Chapter 8
PATRIOTISM AS HONOR 97
Chapter 9
ACADEMIC HONOR 113
Chapter 10
PROFESSIONAL HONOR 140
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viii Contents
PART III HONOR’S FUTURE 154
Chapter 11
IN DEFENSE OF HONOR 155
Chapter 12
HONOR FOR US 172
Selected Bibliography 192
Index 206
Index of names 209
PREFACE
“Dear Reader,” I am tempted to begin — and then to ask, “Who might you
be?” Anyone, I hope, who picks up this book with a ready mind and a willing-
ness to think new thoughts about an old subject. But of course while writing
I have often thought about more specifi c readers: fellow philosophers, to be
sure, as well as my academic colleagues in other disciplines; my many students
over the decades, who have taught me so much; and friends, relatives and
acquaintances who have often asked me how I spend my summers. Beyond
them, my fellow citizens of this faltering American colossus whose founders
were so fond of their “sacred honor.” And, fi nally, though not least, my fellow
dwellers on this imperiled planet. To all I want to say: honor alone will not
save us, but, properly understood, it might just help.
This is a book I would not, could not have written decades ago. I came
to teach at a small undergraduate college in the Valley of Virginia in 1971,
with little expectation of staying and even less awareness of what I was get-
ting into. I did know there was a revered student-run honor system, one of
the best of its kind, but I found many of the customs and traditions of “this
old place,” as a former president of the university called it, to be quaint and
antiquated. I had a lot to learn — and still do — but I have come to under-
stand those traditions, and others like them in other places, more deeply and
sympathetically. Don’t get me wrong. No one who knows me would mistake
me for a Southern gentleman! I did grow up in the South, but it was South
Dakota, and I neither can nor want to obliterate my Midwestern origins.
Still, I have come to appreciate the importance of honor as a value in this
community, and in the last decade I have studied some of the complexi-
ties of honor as a concept (or set of concepts) in any community. In 1999
I began a course brashly entitled “The Concept of Honor” — as if there were
such a single thing! — in order to induce my students to refl ect on their own
understanding of honor — after all, they have to judge their peers’ “honor
violations,” and by what lights? But when we started looking into the matter,
pushing back beyond Robert E. Lee, president of this school after the Civil
War, I found innumerable interesting philosophical questions on all sides,
questions that no one else seems to be addressing today.
It is indeed a bit odd for a contemporary philosopher to be writing a book
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