Concept
Honour
Overview
Honour (Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is a quality of a person that is of both social teaching and personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as valour, chivalry, honesty, and compassion. It is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or of institutions such as a family, school, regiment, or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or institutions) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour, and with the moral code of the society at large.
Samuel Johnson, in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was "nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness".
This sort of honour derives from the perceived virtuous conduct and personal integrity of the person endowed with it. Johnson also defined honour in relationship to "reputation" and "fame"; to "privileges of rank or birth", and as "respect" of the kind which "places an individual socially and determines his right to precedence". This sort of honour is often not so much a function of moral or ethical excellence, as it is a consequence of power. Finally, with respect to sexuality, honour has traditionally been associated with (or identical to) "chastity" or "virginity", or in the case of married men and women, "fidelity".
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Honour is discussed.
Dignity The publique worth of a man, which is the Value set on him by the Common-wealth, is that which men commonly call DIGNITY. And this Value of him by the Common-wealth, is understood, by offices of Command, Judicature, publike Employment; or by Names and Titles, introduced for distinction of such Value. To Honour and Dishonour To pray to another, for ayde of any kind, is to HONOUR; because a signe we have an…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is
But such as is given by ordinary people and on trifling grounds he will entirely despise, because these do not come up to his deserts: and dishonour likewise, because in his case there cannot be just ground for it. Now though, as I have said, honour is specially the object-matter of the Great-minded man, I do not mean but that likewise in respect of wealth and power, and good or bad fortune of every kind, he will…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Wherefore the soul also is second (or next to God) in honour; and third, as every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are counterfeit. To decide which are which is the business of the legislator; and he, I suspect, would intimate that they are as…
Plato, Laws
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph
“My honour I’ll bequeath unto the knife That wounds my body so dishonoured. ’Tis honour to deprive dishonoured life; The one will live, the other being dead. So of shame’s ashes shall my fame be bred, For in my death I murder shameful scorn; My shame so dead, mine honour is new born. “Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost, What legacy shall I bequeath to thee? My resolution, love, shall be thy boast, By whose…
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
"Or in what manner are these two objects to be distinguished?"--"I distinguish them thus," replied I: "As honour is the reward of virtue, conferred upon a man by the choice and affection of his fellow-citizens, he who obtains it by their free votes and suffrages is to be considered, in my opinion, as an honourable member of the community. But he who acquires his power and authority by taking advantage of every…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- Turkey
- Government
- India
- Iberian Peninsula
- Duty
- Conscience
- American English
- Social constructionism
- Western world
- Anselm of Canterbury
- Plato
- Property
- Rule of law
- Nobility
- Honesty
- Compassion
- War of 1812
- Social contract
- Samuel Johnson
- Courage
- A Dictionary of the English Language
- Montesquieu
- Chivalry
Place in the tradition
Part of Conservatism.