Anthony Cunningham, Modern Honor: A Philosophical Defense

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The word ‘‘honor’’ is used in many different contexts with many different meanings. Many colleges have honor codes, most of which focus on academic integrity. Other institutions have a broader conception of honor, which includes prohibitions against lying and stealing as well as tolerating these actions. We often refer to people as honorable or dishonorable. Honor killings occur in some countries when it is thought that a family member has shamed her or his family. We also read about conceptions of honor in historical fiction and nonfiction that cause people (almost always men) to fight or duel. Anthony Cunningham suggests that the negative aspects of honor of the type mentioned above have led to its decline as a viable concept. Anthony Cunningham seeks to rehabilitate honor from this demise in his work, Modern Honor: A Philosophical Defense. He begins the book by describing President Barrack Obama’s reasoning for not releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden’s body. He quotes Obama as follows: ‘‘You know, that’s not who we are...we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies...we don’t need to spike the football’’ (p. 1). It is this incident and Obama’s words that, according to Cunningham, reflect a ‘‘sense of honor,’’ (p. 2) and it is this concept that he plans to examine and argue for as a viable concept. Cunningham immediately confronts and responds to a possible objection when he proposes that, ‘‘a well-entrenched vision of life and character – a humanistic one that highlights human flourishing, dignity, loving relationships, and significant achievements – is fully compatible with a robust sense of honor’’ (p. 2). This is an important claim for Cunningham, and one that he relies upon a great deal. To establish the framework for his inquiry, he points out that his conception of honor will: be ‘‘consistent with the facts of our empirical psychology’’; ‘‘not start from complete scratch,’’ as he will reference commitments and attachments that we already possess; and involve conceptual analysis to ‘‘illuminate elusive truths that