Summary Of Kwame Appiah's The Honor Code

Webster’s dictionary defines Honor as high respect, good reputation or high moral standards of behavior. Kwame Appiah in his book The Honor Code: How moral revolutions happen believes that honor is tied to the ethical emotions (particularly to pride, shame, and disdain), to one’s social identity, to the value of nationalism and group unity, and to moral motivation in general. He argues that honor is “a system of entitlements to respect,” Two forms of honor exist and these relate to two forms of respect. A person is worthy of “competitive” honor when they merit respect for excelling relative to some honor code. A person is praiseworthy of “peer honor” when they merit respect, not because they meet certain standard, but on the basis of a recognition of an equal status. Achilles fought for competitive honor, (176) whereas the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea dueled, because of

First, the collapse of the duel in late 18th century. The duel died when the existence of aristocrats and gentlemen began to diminish, and new government flourished along with more middle class regime (48). Secondly, the end of foot binding was brought by shame. Christian missionaries who formed anti binding societies, and joined literati. They brought understanding that the practice was a disrespect to the whole country, its civilization and the rest of the world (87). The third is the end of Atlantic slavery, which was abolished because of shame and national honor (113, 114). “National honor reemerged as a theme during the second phase of the British anti-slavery movement” (115). Slavery was eradicated, in the British Empire, when evangelists and reformers stood and convinced the working class to believe that slavery symbolized the shame of labor and therefore stood for their own disrespect. The new working class needed “to live with an image of themselves that allowed them to to self-respect”