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Honor Ethics

~ Devoted to the study of honor as an ethical value

Honor Ethics

Monthly Archives: November 2012

Welcome Peter Olsthoorn

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by dan demetriou in announcements

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On behalf of honorethics.org, I am pleased to welcome Peter Olsthoorn as a contributor.

Peter Olsthoorn teaches ethics at the Netherlands Defense Academy. He has written several articles on honor in political theory and military ethics, as well as the monograph Military Ethics and Virtues: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the 21st Century (Routledge, 2010).

A description of his Military Ethics and Virtues:

Although long-established military virtues, such as honor, courage and loyalty, are what most armed forces today still use as guiding principles in an effort to enhance the moral behavior of soldiers, much depends on whether the military virtues adhered to by these militaries suit a particular mission or military operation. Clearly, the beneficiaries of these military virtues are the soldiers themselves, fellow-soldiers, and military organizations, yet there is little that regulates the behavior of soldiers towards civilian populations. As a result, troops trained for combat in today’s missions sometimes experience difficulty in adjusting to the less aggressive ways of working needed to win the hearts and minds of local populations after major combat is over. It can be argued that today’s missions call for virtues that are more inclusive than the traditional ones, which are mainly about enhancing military effectiveness, but a convincing case can be made that a lot can already be won by interpreting these traditional virtues in different ways.

This volume offers an integrated approach to the main traditional virtues, exploring their possible relevance and proposing new ways of interpretation that are more in line with the military tasks of the 21st century. The book will be of much interest to students of military ethics, philosophy, and war and conflict in general.

Some of Peter’s articles of special interest to honorethics.org readers would be his:

“Honour, face and reputation in political theory,” European Journal of Political Theory

“Honor and the Military,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy

“Honor as a Motive for Making Sacrifices,” Journal of Military Ethics

Welcome aboard, Peter! We look forward to your contributions.

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David Brooks on character: the Western hybrid of honor and Judeo-Christian mores

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by dan demetriou in history of honor, honor code, honor in contempory media, honor in literature, philosophy of honor, stories of honor

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I missed this insightful talk by David Brooks this summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The talk is entitled “The Character Code.” Here’s the abstract:

We’re in a world full of good people, but who don’t have a clear vocabulary for character.  We don’t have a moral system. Here, David Brooks puts forth Western civilization’s ancient recipe for being a better person—and how we forgot it.

Essentially, Brooks argues that the Western character code is a hybrid of the Greek honor model (excellence, competitiveness, pride) and the Judeo-Christian model (obedience, self-abnegation, humility).

I think he ignores the cultural ubiquity of the honor code. He suggests for instance that chivalry was an attempt to combine classical “Greek” honor values with Christian ones, when in fact a devotion to the honor code was quite indigenous among the Pagan Europeans the medieval Christians were trying to covert, as writers from Tacitus to William Ian Miller and George Fenwick Jones point out. Nonetheless, this is a very interesting talk. You can find the transcript here.

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Recent events:

Kansas State mini-conference: "Perspectives on Modern Honor"

Book series: Honor and Obligation in Liberal Society

Honor and Ethics Mini-Conference

Contributors

  • Andrea Mansker
  • Craig Bruce Smith
  • Dan Demetriou (administrator)
  • Graham Oddie
  • Jim Peterman
  • Joe Thomas
  • Lad Sessions
  • Laurie M. Johnson
  • Mark Collier
  • Mark Griffith
  • Paul Robinson
  • Peter Olsthoorn
  • Robert Oprisko
  • Ryan Rhodes
  • Shannon French
  • Sharon Krause
  • Steven Skultety
  • Tamler Sommers
  • Tony Cunningham
  • Valerie Soon

Recent posts

  • Two new books on honor by contributors Tamler Sommers and Craig Bruce Smith
  • Jordan Peterson on the play/honor (agonism) ethic
  • Honor and the Military Photo Scandal
  • HonorShame.com write-up of Honor in the Modern World
  • “Ethics for Adversaries” blog

Contributors’ Books

Johnson and Demetriou's Honor in the Modern World

Peter Olsthoorn's Honor in Political and Moral Philosophy

Joe Thomas' Leadership, Ethics and Law of War Discussion Guide for Marines

Anthony Cunningham's Modern Honor

Laurie Johnson's Locke and Rousseau: Two Enlightenment Responses to Honor

Peter Olsthoorn's Military Ethics and Virtues: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the 21st Century

Tamler Sommers' A Very Bad Wizard

Lad Sessions' Honor For Us

Andrea Mansker's Sex, Honor and Citizenship in Early Third Republic France

Laurie Johnson's Thomas Hobbes: Turning Point for Honor

Shannon French's The Code of the Warrior

Sharon Krause's Liberalism With Honor

Robert Oprisko's Honor: A Phenomenology

Graham Oddie's Value, Reality, Desire

Paul Robinson's Military Honour and the Conduct of War

Jim Peterman's Philosophy as Therapy

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