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READINGS IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

THEORY

Edited by William Connolly and Steven Lukes Language and Politics edited by Michael Shapiro Legitimacy and the State edited by William Connolly Liberallsm and Its Critics edited by Michael J. Sandel Power edited by Steven Lukes Rational Choice edited by Jon Elster

Liberalism and Its Critics
Edited by MICHAEL]. SANDEL

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New York University Press New York

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On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honour

would be unthinkable without the peculiar constellations of the mogern world. To reject them is unthinkable ethically. By the same token, it is not possible to simply trace them to a false anthropology . The task before us, rather, is to understand the empirical processes that have made modern man lose sight of honour at the expense of dignity - and then to think through both the anthropological and the ethical implications of this. Obviously these remarks can do no more than point up some dimensions of the problem. It may be allowed, though, to speculate that a rediscovery of honour in the future development of modern society is both empirically plausible and morally desirable. Needless to say, this will hardly take the form of a regressive restoration of traditional codes. But the contemporary mood of anti-institutionalism is unlikely to last, as Anton Zijderveld implies.9 Man's fundamental constitution is such that, just about inevitably, he will once more construct institutions to provide an ordered reality for himself. A return to institutions will ipso facto be a return to honour. It will then be possible again for individuals to identify themselves with the escutcheons of their institutional roles, experienced now not as self-estranging tyrannies but as freely chosen vehicles of selfrealization. The ethical question, of course, is what these institutions will be like. Specifically, the ethical test of any future institutions, and of the codes of honour they will entail, will be