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Abstract
This article deals with the notion of honor and its relation to the willingness to make sacrifices. There is a widely shared feeling, especially in Western countries, that the willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good has been on a reverse trend for quite a while both on the individual and the societal levels, and that this is increasingly problematic to the military. First of all, an outline of what honor is will be given. After that, the Roman honor-ethic, stating that honor is a necessary incentive for courageous behavior and that it is something worth dying for, is contrasted with today's ruling view in the West, which sees honor as something obsolete and archaic and not as a legitimate motive for courageous behavior. The article then addresses the way honor continues to have a role in today's military, despite its diminishing role in Western society at large.
Notes
1. ‘The soldier will have to develop (…) some sort of humanitarian cosmopolitanism that exists besides feelings of patriotism’ (Kümmel Citation2003: 432).
2. ‘Like every theory, the I/O thesis contains an implicit understanding of motivation. Is motivation rational or subjective, oriented toward moral concerns of altruism, strongly affected, perhaps, by internal emotional concerns, or is it efficient and rational, concerned primarily with objective calculation? The problematics of action are concerned with the relative weight of idealism and materialism. In philosophic terms, it is as old as the struggle between romantics and utilitarians’ (Moskos and Wood Citation1988a: 25). And, ‘motivation of members in an institution rests more on values than on calculation, whereas the opposite is true in an occupation’ (Moskos and Wood Citation1988b: 280).
3. The Greek philosopher Aristotle didn't think much of honor, because it is not under our control, but something that can be taken away from us. On the other hand, according to Aristotle honor was the most important of the secondary goods and praise an important incentive to perform noble deeds (Nicomachean Ethics 1101b, 1113b and 1123b).
4. The Roman historian Sallust wrote that the greatness of Rome was a result of the competition for glory by those young men, who, destined to lead by birth and education, entered the battlefield with a burning desire to beat their peers by being the first to slay an opponent (Catilinae Coniuratio, 1–2, 7). This is rather the opposite of the current state of affairs, according to Moskos (Citation2002).
5. Elsewhere, however, Cicero adheres to the Stoic position (see for instance De Re Publica I.27, De Officiis III. 33, 36 and 38, and Tusculan Disputations II. 52–53).
6. Aristotle, however, held that a mature person never goes astray. Therefore ‘a good man’ doesn't need the sense of shame to keep him on the path of virtue—reason keeps him on track (Nicomachean Ethics 1095b and 1128b). See for an author following Aristotle on this point: Bonadonna (1994: 19).
7. See for exceptions for instance Walzer (Citation1983: 252) and Fukuyama (Citation1995: 7).
8. This view has been made popular by authors as Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow and David Riesman. See for other-directedness: Riesman (Citation1950).
9. Benedict (Citation1967: 156–157) and Dodds (Citation1951: 28–50) made this view popular. See also Williams (Citation1973: 47).
10. ‘In the scheme of Kantian oppositions, shame is on the bad sides of all the lines.’ (Williams Citation1993: 77).
11. See on politics and business Fukuyama (Citation1993: 229, 233).
12. ‘According to Hobbes, the sovereign is able to “guarantee” the security of all members of society except those in the sovereigns army, for they must be sacrificed in order to preserve all else’ (Mattox Citation2002: 308).
13. However, moral education in the armed forces should aim at reaching a higher ‘Kohlbergstage’ (Toner Citation2000: 165).
14. Interestingly, the U.S. Army adopted Maslow's theory of a hierarchy needs, but the 1983 leadership manual did not address Maslow's fourth need: that for esteem and recognition (Brinsfield Citation2002: 403).
15. Also outside the military, the correctness of the view that the West is no longer a shame culture is a matter of some dispute: ‘It is accepted that the world of Homer embodied a shame culture, and that shame was later replaced, in its crucial role, by guilt.’ However, ‘[t]hese stories are deeply misleading, both historically and ethically’ (Williams Citation1993: 5).
16. ‘Lofty ideas and ideals we must have, if only to assure that man will go forward. But it is unworthy of the profession of arms to base any policy upon exaggerated notions of man's capacity to endure and to sacrifice on behalf of ideals alone’ (Marshall Citation1947: 153).
17. The soldiers described by Marshall were clearly on the conventional level: the attitude of troops caught and corrected on flight ‘is usually not unlike that of a small boy caught in the act of playing hooky’ (Citation1947: 150).
18. Alas, these famous studies are rather old and their methodology and conclusions debated. Marshall for instance, supposedly drew his conclusions beforehand, and later fabricated the evidence to support them (Gat Citation2001: 302n98).
19. According to Moskos (Citation1969) soldiers are also not very willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the group either. They develop primary group relations mainly because their chances of survival are best served that way. A soldier needs the support from his fellow soldiers, and the only way to get that is to provide such support himself. So, Moskos states, the Hobbesian picture of man is essentially correct. Blake and Butler (1976), however, suggest that in Vietnam enlisted men sometimes did make sacrifices for their comrades in a way that didn't serve their own survival.
20. This gives at least some substantiation to Victor Davis Hanson's remark that modern sociological insights that ‘soldiers fight only instinctually – largely to preserve their battle comrades, not for some wider abstract and ethical idea’ are ‘cynical’. Harry F. Noyes makes a similar point: the sociological view is a half-truth, a incomplete cliche, cynical and dangerous (Citation1989: 23–27). Hanson and Noyes make a straw man of the sociological view however, by assuming that according to this view the buddy group is the only thing that matters in combat. See for a reaction: Fisher (Citation1991: 12–14).
21. Clearly, it is not only the honor in the small group that can work as a check, but also the honor of a regiment or of the armed forces as a whole. This is esprit de corps: the shared identity of those belonging to a larger unit consisting of people who do not interact with each other on a daily basis. Michael Ignatieff describes how the regimental honor of the Canadian armed forces was badly damaged for quite a while after some Canadian soldiers tortured a Somali civilian (Citation2001: 28–29).
22. But see for an account of honor belonging firmly to the sphere of ought, linking honor to extended benevolence, and debunking the idea of regimental honor because it ‘tends to pervert and transfigure both greatness of mind and extended benevolence, but especially extended benevolence’ (Westhusing Citation2003: 195–212).
23. Cicero than adds, however, that ‘[w]e are now, to be sure, on very slippery ground; for scarcely can the man be found who has passed through trials and encountered dangers and does not then wish for glory as a reward for his achievements'.
24. According to Williams however, it is not so that ‘the reactions of shame depend simply on being found out’ (Citation1993: 81).
25. See for instance Stern (Citation2004).
26. See also Kaplan (Citation2002: 108–109) and Watson (Citation1999: 55–72).
27. See also Gabriel and Savage (Citation1978).