The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen Paperback – 18 Oct. 2011

Worth the effort to keep up with a very demanding mind at work.

Review courtesy of www.subtleillumination.comAppiah argues that far from deserving a bad name, honour provides a motivating force for morality; it compels people to be honourable out of a desire to avoid shame.There are two kinds he suggests. Competitive honour is about being better than others; winning a race or gaining victory in war. Peer honour governs relations among equals: being born a lord in medieval England would give you peer honour, to be beheaded instead of hanged if you were found guilty of a crime, for example, even if you were a completely incompetent lord. The modern conception of human rights is perhaps similar to a universal extension of peer honour.Appiah examines three case studies, dueling, footbinding, and slavery, and discusses the role honour had in ending each of them. Each activity had critics long before it actually ended, he points out, but what actually ended them was a shift in the perception of what was honourable, from the activity itself being honourable to the activity being shameful.To my mind, there is some question of correlation versus causation in his case studies, but they are interesting nonetheless. Some of examples feel a bit incomplete, though, or like they were oversimplifications of what is admittedly a very complicated issue. I would tend to prefer Steven Pinker's Better Angels, on a related topic, for that reason. Still, an interesting topic.

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Dueling, foot-binding, slavery and "honor" killings were once considered honorable practices but today most people find them repellent. In THE HONOR CODE Appiah analyzes these four examples to illustrate how traditional beliefs about honor came to be in sharp contrast with evolving views of morality. In each case, arguments against the practices were well known long before they were given up, but knowledge alone wasn't enough. "Honor" killing has not been completely eliminated, but for each of the other practices Appiah details how the development of an expanded, less insular world view or "honor world" changed cultural beliefs and overthrew these long held customs. With this book Appiah is hoping to help spark modern moral revolutions.Appiah talks about what these modern revolutions might be in an excellent September 2010 article in the Washington Post. Just as we look back with horror at slavery and foot binding, people in the future may condemn one or more of our current practices. To determine what might cause our descendants to wonder "What were they thinking?!" Appiah provides three guidelines: first, arguments against the practice have long been in place, second, defenders of the practice cite tradition, human nature or necessity as reasons to continue (How could we grow cotton without slaves?), and third, supporters of the practice engage in strategic ignorance, for instance wearing slave-grown cotton without considering where it comes from. Appiah's contemporary candidates for moral revolutions include industrial meat production, the current prison system, the institutionalization and isolation of the elderly, and the devastation of the environment.Appiah is a philosophy professor at Princeton and his writing is sometimes a little choppy in a logician's proof solving style, but the material is well thought out, timely and fascinating.

Super original book and topic! It provides a new perspective on the concept of honor, and how people die and kill to preserve a system of honor.

Fascinating and profound book by a great and original thinker. Check out the 2016 Reith lectures on BBC radio 4.

For all the handwringing over how to defend ourselves against violent Islamic extremists, the central point raised by Professor Appiah in "The Honor Code" has been widely overlooked: We can do better than accept codes of honor that harm us all. Mainstream Muslims can be supported to rein in and pacify their extreme factions by changing the codes of honor that drive young men to commit acts of violence in the name of a holy cause in the first place. It took some 200 years for Christians to change the codes of honor that gave rise to toxic notions of martyrdom, holy war and infidels during the Crusades, and in today's world of instant communication technology, Muslims who operate under the very same notions should be convertible in much less time -- perhaps in a few short years, and certainly in our lifetimes. As Appiah writes, honor killings in Pakistan have already been reduced by a decline in the acceptability of that practice, and the emergence of such websites as Arabs and Muslims Against Honor Killing (whose slogan is "No honor in honor killing") should give us all reason to be more positive about the future.This book may also encourage us to shift our own codes of honor from ones that encourage our lunatic fringes to produce international frenzy in threatening to burn Korans in public to alternatives that recognize that we pray to the same God as Muslims and share interests of living good lives, experiencing the warmth of family and friends, and raising our children in a healthier, more peaceful world.Appiah exposes the problem of harm done in the name of honor to a bright light. He may have earned himself a major peace prize in so doing. He may have earned for us all genuinely enhanced prospects for peace.

Having done a fair amount of thinking about the idea and importance of honor codes I was disappointed in this book from an analytical point of view. It does not really explain much in that regard. However, considering that there has been practically no work done in this rather significant area, this is certainly a good start, plus the material in it is interesting and needs to be known more widely.From a social scientist perspective, when it comes to analyzing how moral revolutions happen this is relatively light thinking, but again, the author has identified a topic that needs more scientific investigation.In any case this is a book everybody ought to read and do more than just read. What exactly makes honor (codes) so significant and why do they have such little "real" relevance in practically all cultures?

Dueling, foot-binding, slavery and "honor" killings were once considered honorable practices but today most people find them repellent. In THE HONOR CODE Appiah analyzes these four examples to illustrate how traditional beliefs about honor came to be in sharp contrast with evolving views of morality. In each case, arguments against the practices were well known long before they were given up, but knowledge alone wasn't enough. "Honor" killing has not been completely eliminated, but for each of the other practices Appiah details how the development of an expanded, less insular world view or "honor world" changed cultural beliefs and overthrew these long held customs. With this book Appiah is hoping to help spark modern moral revolutions.Appiah talks about what these modern revolutions might be in an excellent September 2010 article in the Washington Post. Just as we look back with horror at slavery and foot binding, people in the future may condemn one or more of our current practices. To determine what might cause our descendants to wonder "What were they thinking?!" Appiah provides three guidelines: first, arguments against the practice have long been in place, second, defenders of the practice cite tradition, human nature or necessity as reasons to continue (How could we grow cotton without slaves?), and third, supporters of the practice engage in strategic ignorance, for instance wearing slave-grown cotton without considering where it comes from. Appiah's contemporary candidates for moral revolutions include industrial meat production, the current prison system, the institutionalization and isolation of the elderly, and the devastation of the environment.Appiah is a philosophy professor at Princeton and his writing is sometimes a little choppy in a logician's proof solving style, but the material is well thought out, timely and fascinating.