Morality is not enough, honor is important in our understanding of ethics and social change. The brilliance of Appiah is his readability, the simplicity of his ideas, and the thought he provokes. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about the importance of honor in society. In this book, I feel like Appiah takes ethics back from the realm of philosophers back into the everyman's hands. History buffs can learn a thing or two from this book as well. My only complaint is that the book spends very little time on theory building, and devotes most of its content to historical examples. Regardless, to me, this book has convinced me of the importance of honor in ethics and society, which I think is Appiah's main goal here. ( )

De erecode 1e druk is een boek van Kwame Anthony Appiah uitgegeven bij Boom uitgevers Amsterdam. ISBN 9789058755162

Kwame Anthony Appiah, de laureaat van de Spinozalens 2016, laat in dit baanbrekende werk glashelder zien welke rol het begrip 'eer' speelt bij sociale hervormingen. Appiah houdt op 24 november in Amsterdam de Spinozalezing.

Hoe komen wij ertoe bepaalde gewoonten te verwerpen als immoreel nadat wij ze eeuwenlang hebben geaccepteerd? Denk aan het duel in West-Europa, het afbinden van vrouwenvoeten in China en de slavernij wereldwijd. In deze briljante studie laat Kwame Anthony Appiah aan de hand van dit soort historische voorbeelden zien hoe morele vooruitgang tot stand komt. Hij beargumenteert dat bij het afschaffen van bijvoorbeeld de slavernij geen rationele argumenten of wetgeving een centrale rol speelden, maar het begrip 'eer'. De praktijken worden niet meer als eervol gevoeld en wekken schaamte op. Appiah schetst in De erecode de contouren van een andere manier van morele communicatie in een geglobaliseerde wereld.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (1954) is een Brits-Ghanese filosoof. Hij is hoogleraar filosofie aan Princeton University. In het Nederlands verscheen eerder van zijn hand Kosmopolitisme (2007).


Toon minder


Recensie(s)

De Brits-Ghanese ethicus en filosoof Kwame Anthony Appiah is een van de belangrijkste hedendaagse denkers. Hij schrijft veel over kolonialisme, ras en identiteit. In 'De erecode' analyseert hij hoe zich in betrekkelijk korte tijd revoluties kunnen voordoen in ons denken over morele kwesties. Hij gebruikt drie voorbeelden uit de geschiedenis. In de negentiende eeuw kwam een eind aan de eeuwenoude gewoonte van het duelleren tussen Britse gentlemen. Begin twintigste eeuw stierf in China het gebruik van voetbinden bij vrouwen uit. In de negentiende eeuw werd in Groot-Brittannië de slavernij afgeschaft. Het duel in Groot-Brittannië verdween onder invloed van de massapers en de opkomst van de middenklasse. Het voetbinden verdween doordat gevreesd werd voor de naam van China in de wereld. De slavernij paste niet bij het Britse zelfbeeld van 'christelijke natie'. Appiah probeert aan te tonen dat eergevoel in deze casussen een grote rol speelde. Het is een sterke, nog vaak onderschatte emotie (zie de praktijken van eerwraak in Pakistan) en kan een belangrijke factor zijn voor maatschappelijke verandering. Prikkelende these voor maatschappelijke discussie.

Appiah tells the stories of three once-pervasive but now abandoned customs - the duel in aristocratic England, foot-binding in China, and slavery - and one that is still alive - honor killings of women in Pakistan. He notes that the abandonment of these practices did not result from moral arguments alone, as they were always put forward long before. At the same time, it is not simply legislation that caused the revolutions. Collective action among families apparently was important in ending foot binding. The account the working class supporting the abolition of slavery because it degraded manual labor is very nice, but I wonder what historians think. At the end of the book I am not too much wiser on how they do happen, as the stories are quite different for the different cases, although it has to do with shifting codes of honor. ( )

Tsundoku Reviews

Brief Summary: Throughout history honor has remained a strong incentive for human action, yet it is rarely ever researched how this honor has affected change in history. Exploring honor through moral revolutions, Appiah defines what honor really means to us as members of the human world.

The Tsundoku Scale: Middle of the Pile, 5 out of 10.

The Good: The philosophy was a strong, clear, and welcome segment in this book. It’s not on par with ‘if a tree falls and no one is around, does it make a sound?’ kind of thinking but it is still quite thought provoking. Appiah makes some truly interesting points about honor and esteem, individual and group honor, and dignity and morality, that stand out as both significant and relevant. He forces the reader to contemplate honor as an ever changing value that could at one moment in history be an advocate for something as abhorrent as slavery and then in the next moment become one of its strongest dissenters. Further, he successfully manages to separate honor from morality while still keeping honor as something personal and approachable. All the examples in the book, from dueling to slavery and from foot-binding to honor killing, are engaging and full of Appiah’s wry humor and serious declarations.

The Bad: Appiah’s problem is that his book tries to make history a part of honor, rather than honor a part of history. The book constantly loses its focus, perhaps most notably when Appiah describes the satirical honor killing in a movie about Sicily and then proceeds to jump to real life by talking about current honor killing in Pakistan. Both the movie and Pakistan were great examples of honor, but their relevancy to each other was forced and awkward. In much the same way, Appiah’s book often feels a disjointed group of examples spanning history in “moral revolutions” that are in no way connected to one another, and seem more a history of convenience than a history of fact.

Check out Tsundoku Reviews for more great reviews! ( )

The Honor Code discusses dueling (of all things), foot binding, and slavery and how they ended. Then he takes on honor killing and gives some suggestions on what might end them. It's a very readable book about new concepts of honor and dignity, both were formerly used only in reference to the upper classes, and how a sense of morality is not enough to effect moral change.
Here is a favorite quote from the discussion of the campaign to end slavery in England:
Whether or not - and in what sense - they yet formed a single class, working people were often xenophobic and, like the British middle and upper classes, they could be frankly racist about black people. Many of them were nevertheless against slavery. They were against it, I think, for the simplest of reasons: nothing more firmly expressed the idea that labor was dishonorable than Negro plantation slavery in the New World. And labor was what defined "them." Slavery associated the natal alienation and dishonor of the slaves with the work they did in the plantations...Its unequivocal meaning was that manual labor was to be equated with suffering and dishonor.

I recommend this book for anyone wanting to know more about the concept of honor and justice, how they differ and how they can be combined. ( )