Ari Lewenstein
Professor Birney
Personal Honor Code
The appeal of appearing honorable to society has not changed since the writing of The Iliad. Although the ways through which we acquire honor have changed, a fundamental desire to be seen as honorable has remained. The difference now comes in the cost and benefit analysis of honor, and the actions that bring one honor. In the time periods we’ve studied, for the most part the acquisition of honor came along with the acquisition of fortune and riches. Warriors would sack cities, and be rewarded with honor and their spoils.
Our modern system of honor has almost no basis in physical achievements. An athlete such as Lance Armstrong did not have honor because of his seven Tour de France victories. His comeback from cancer and subsequent philanthropic work provided the basis for his image as an honorable person. Although he has been revealed as a fraudulent champion, his image has not been as fully tarnished as it could have been. People often hesitate just before declaring him “a bad person” because they understood the good his success has done in the world. Clearly now there is some distinction to be made between honorability and physical achievement, we do not accept physical achievements if we feel they are tainted by practices we consider dishonorable. We still consider unfairly achieved accomplishments inferior and amoral, but unlike ancient times, such dishonorable accomplishments have some benefit.
Consider the correlation today between honorability and affluence. As is clearly shown by movements like Occupy Wall Street, the general feeling is that wealth and honor do not go hand and hand. Adherence to an honor code can even impede the accumulation of wealth. Thus, except in rare cases, the value of honor must be weighed directly against the weight of wealth. In deciding how I personally live my life, I can’t possibly choose between the two options, instead, I choose to follow a personal philosophy of doing whichever will allow for the greatest net positive to result from my actions.
Realistically, not everything I do is honorable. I’ve downloaded music illegally; I’ve borrowed money without giving it back and committed other acts of disrepute, both big and small. However, for me my ultimate goal is always to leave behind a positive benefit to the world. If that means that at some times I need to do things that are less than honorable, so be it. I’m willing to do such things if it ends up helping the world in some tangible way. Honor systems in general are almost impossible to quantify until a situation has been met. Thus justifying an honor system to the point of violence, or to extremes such as death is impossible for me. I have no basis for how I’d act in these situations, and thus any reaction I had at the time. Ultimately I think that personal honor codes are nice, but are attempts to idealize predicted reactions in difficult situations. Such codes are nice, but creation and adherence to a personal honor code are two completely different things.