The Sense of Honor: Political Resistance and Early Modern Political Theory
The sense of honor, or the desire to become recognized and praised by others for doing what appears to be right, has almost disappeared from contemporary Western life and the horizon of political theory. According to the dominant historical narrative, influential early modern thinkers harshly criticized honor for its hierarchy, brutality, hollowness, and hence its incompatibility with modern democratic values; they thus abandoned it in favor of equal human dignity.
Casting doubt on this narrative, this book focuses on the writings of three unlikely friends of the sense of honor—Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Kant—and their neglected attempts at preserving and modernizing this controversial motivation. Contrary to the common interpretations of their moral philosophy and political theory, they managed to keep the essence of honor intact by inheriting the medieval legacy of chivalric honor passed down to them especially via Machiavelli, Hobbes, Mandeville, and Montesquieu. Moreover, these makers of modern political theory also aspired to improve the sense of honor's compatibility with modern social and political circumstances. According to them, the sense of honor is a unique motivation that creatively, if not paradoxically, integrates an individual’s sensitivity to and independence of social opinion. Owing to this distinctive intersubjective psychological structure, the sense of honor can motivate modern citizens to indignantly and fearlessly resist social and political injustice without themselves becoming unjustly resentful and reckless. In motivating such self-restrained resistance, then, the sense of honor is the ally, rather than the nemesis, of equal human dignity in any modern society yet to be free from disrespect, prejudice, and the abuse of power.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Four Stories of Honor
Chapter 1: Political Resistance and Lost History of Honor
Part I
Chapter 2: Chivalric Honor and Its Legacy
Chapter 3: Machiavelli on Honor and Citizenship in a Corrupt Republic
Chapter 4: Honor and Resistance in Modern Monarchy: Hobbes, Mandeville, and Montesquieu
Part II
Chapter 5: Rousseau and Democratization of Honor
Chapter 6: Smith's Honor Ethic for Justice in Modern Commercial Society
Chapter 7: Kant on Honor and Disobedience in a Constitutional Regime
Conclusion: Honor and Us
(Manuscript under review. Full book proposal available upon request.)