Honor in the sense of "if I do good things I will be respected, if I do bad things people will be repulsed by my very presence, and this system makes me actually materially change my behavior for the better and not just be a hypocrite".
You should read Debt: The First 5000 Years sometime. He talks a lot about honour as a quite universal principal across early and even late communities, and one of his big arguments is that it is deeply tied to our conception of debt, money and morality.
Interesting, I've had that book on my reading list for a while now. Too bad I can't read!
I have. It's an excellent book.
Although, there's a certain implication that coinage "solved" the honor problem by destroying honor.
yes it exists now and it's called reputation, although honour also typically includes moral codes even when people aren't watching and that's a big part of it that also exists now and is called ethics
Yeah, it was an old form of the social contract in some places. It was reasonably effective back in its day I think.
In order for "honor" to work, both sides must agree to the code of honor beforehand.
"You put me in mind of a case I ran into in the American West. A respected citizen shot a professional gunthrower in the back. When asked why he didn't give the other chap a chance to draw, the survivor said, 'Well, he's dead and I'm alive and that's how I wanted it to be.' Jamie, if you use sportsmanship on a known scamp, you put yourself at a terrible disadvantage."
-- Heinlein, Red Planet (1949)
The honor you're describing is why multi-billion dollar companies all have their own "charities" and spend so much money on PR. They want people to believe they do good things so they are respected.
How would we describe honor without the social mediation? Is lying the core component?
I think honor is a little different that just wanting to appear good for social approval. I think that's part of honor, but not the whole thing. I'm not sure if lying is core, but presentation might be.
But I'm not sure what definition I'd give.
I know honor is something that's been academically studied by historians, sociologist, anthropologist etc but I havent read any of their research.
honour is about respecting social conventions, that means that, unfortunately, it is usually conservative, however there is a real cost associated to it, it's not something easy to do, so I am not sure simple charity would describe it, I think we can say it's a relic form of collectivism, sacrificing individual needs or means for a collective benefit. If you're interested about practical applications, tribal justice in Yemen and in general the tribal system there is fascinating, don't get put off by the name, it has a lot of good ideas
They get a tax deduction for it.
Better to spend the money on something vaguely worthwhile than just hand it over to the government which will just waste it.
Sure, codes of honor were invented as a way to make men act in ways that didn't benefit themselves, but benefited their rulers.
Social belonging is a very powerful emotion. Doing what your tribe considers virtuous acts is immensely rewarding in brain chemicals. Likewise being ostracized is powerfully hurtful, and some humans will commit suicide just to stop the pain.
What differentiates the honor you're describing from the basic principles of not pissing people off?
yeah it was just semi-systematised moral & legal guidelines before we got the state to intercede in all that
for a long time most the work of whether someone was guilty of a crime or not was if they had a good reputation, people to vouch for good deeds... an honorable person could commit a real crime no problem
bad question, honor and good are both things with different definitions in different societies at different times.
Stupid Musings ,badly writen :
Honor is not a good things Honor is the Honourable thing , it has its own skale. Thats sometimes really stupid shit. (Duells ?) .
Honor is often connected to Status and the Honor of the First Estate is another kind then the Honor of the Third . And be aware the honor of the third estate is doing stupid shit for the first. For the First Estate sharing half a Cloth with a Beggar is sometimes is all it takes. Its basiclly if you follow your "Mandate" / "Privlige" , and the ruling mandate is protection of the "Landeskinder" , (their 'Landeskinder') Honourable you are therefore if you protect your "Landeskinder".I give you a Honorable Lord He was involved in stuff you might have heard about .. forfilling his "Mandate" . Therefore still remembered Fondly.. "the Wise"
and a Traitor to his Subjects whos traitorism you also remember in a way. You remember them as Hessian . Bye having the name remebered it allready proofs his dishonourment. Because it could have been so many other shitty little Fiefdoms , but they all had more "Honor". And in germany school still give you Schiller - "Kabale und Liebe" to read .. so he is remembered that way. dishonoured. And because this is Dynastie shit its was actually important what we think of them today , in their past doings..
I worded it poorly. Maybe "have there been functioning systems of honor where nobody wanted to accuse each other of deception?"
I don't think so, but in the sense that not everyone would be bound by honor, let alone follow it.
While fictional SF Debris has a great video on distinctions within Klingon honor which talks about the matter in an interesting way https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/yt_worfandklingonhonor.php
