In the present study, we tested the idea that emotions are afforded to the extent that they benefit central cultural concerns. We predicted that emotions that are beneficial for the Turkish concern for defending honour (both anger and shame) are afforded frequently in Turkey, whereas emotions that are beneficial for the Japanese concern for keeping face (shame but not anger) are afforded frequently in Japan. N = 563 students from Turkey and Japan indicated how frequently people in (...) their culture experience a range of interpersonal anger and shame situations, and how intense their emotions would be. As predicted, participants perceived emotional interactions to occur frequently to the extent that they elicited culturally beneficial emotions. Moreover, the affordance of culturally beneficial emotions differed in predictable ways not only between cultures but also within cultures between situations with close vs. distant others and male vs. female protagonists. (shrink)

One of three basic types of desire, claims Aristotle, is thumos (‘spirit,’ ‘passion,’ ‘heart,’ ‘anger,’ ‘impulse’). The other two are epithumia (‘appetite’) and boulêsis (‘wish,’ ‘rational desire’). Yet, he never gives us an account of thumos; it has also received relatively little scholarly attention. I argue that thumos has two key features. First, it is able to cognize what I call ‘social value,’ the agent’s own perceived standing relative to others in a certain domain. In human animals, shame and (...) honor are especially important manifestations of social value. Second, thumos provides non-rational motivation to pursue what affirms the agent’s social value and avoid what denies it. Interpretations that hold thumos just is anger, or that its object is the fine (kalon), I argue, are mistaken. My account also explains the role of thumos in moral education. In a virtuous agent thumos will be affectively attuned to the correct social rankings; it will take the practically wise, the lovers of the fine, or moral exemplars, as authorities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTwo studies examined anger and shame, and their associated appraisals and behavioral intentions, in response to harm to an in-group's social-image. In Study 1, 37 British Muslims reported incidents in which they were devalued as Muslims. In Study 2, 108 British Muslims were presented with objective evidence of their in-group's devaluation: the controversial cartoons about Prophet Muhammad The appraisal of harm to social-image predicted anger and shame, whereas the appraisal of offense only predicted anger. Anger was a more (...) empowering response than shame, as anger predicted willingness for public confrontation, institutional punishment, and written disapproval. In contrast, shame only predicted written disapproval. Furthermore, independent of individual differences in identification as Muslim, a mediation model showed that individual differences in honor orientation pre... (shrink)

Introduction; Aidos in Homer; From Hesiod to the Fifth Century; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Euripides; The Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle; References; Glossary; Index of Principal Passages; General Index.

Insults elicit intense emotion. This study tests the hypothesis that one's social image, which is especially salient in honour cultures, influences the way in which one reacts to an insult. Seventy-seven honour-oriented and 72 non-honour oriented participants answered questions about a recent insult episode. Participants experienced both anger and shame in reaction to the insult. However, these emotions resulted in different behaviours. Anger led to verbal attack (i.e., criticising, insulting in return) among all participants. This relationship (...) was explained by participants’ motivation to punish the wrongdoer. Shame, on the other hand, was moderated by honour. Shame led to verbal disapproval of the wrongdoers behaviour, but only among the honour-oriented participants. This relationship was explained by these participants’ motivation to protect their social image. By contrast, shame led to withdrawal among non-honour-oriented participants. (shrink)

Aims The aim of this study was to examine if it is plausible to interpret the appearance of shame in a Swedish healthcare setting as a reaction to having one's honour wronged. Methods Using a questionnaire, we studied answers from a sample of long-term sick-listed patients who had experienced negative encounters (n=1628) and of these 64% also felt wronged. We used feeling wronged to examine emotional reactions such as feeling ashamed and made the assumption that feeling shame (...) could be associated with having one's honour wronged. In statistical analyses relative risks (RRs) were computed, adjusting for age, sex, disease-labelling, educational levels, as well as their 95% CI. Results Approximately half of those who had been wronged stated that they also felt shame and of those who felt shame, 93% (CI 91 to 95) felt that they had been wronged. The RR was 4.5 (CI 3.0 to 6.8) for shame when wronged. This can be compared with the other emotional reactions where the RRs were between 1.1 (CI 0.9 to 1.3)–1.4 (CI 1.2 to 1.7). We found no association between country of birth and feeling shame after having experienced negative encounters. Conclusions We found that the RR of feeling shame when wronged was significantly higher compared with other feelings. Along with theoretical considerations, and the specific types of negative encounters associated with shame, the results indicate that our research hypothesis might be plausible. We think that the results deserve to be used as point of departure for future research. (shrink)

Attitudes like shame and contempt seem to be at odds with basic tenets of Kantian moral theory. I argue on the contrary that both attitudes play a central role in Kantian morality. Shame and contempt are attitudes that protect our love of honour, or the esteem we have for ourselves as moral persons. The question arises: how are these attitudes compatible with Kant's claim that all persons deserve respect? I argue that the proper object of shame (...) and contempt is not the humanity within a person, but rather her self-conceit, or the false esteem that competes with love of honour. (shrink)

Part I. An introduction to honor: introduction; honor and value; honor and identity -- Part II. External honor: prestige; shame; face; esteem; affiliated honor; glory -- Part III. Internal honor: honorableness; dignity -- Part IV. The politics of honor: rebellion and revolution; lessons from honor -- Appendix I: key concepts.

In the Phaedrus, the expression τὰ γεγραμμένα φαῦλα ἀποδεῖξαι, „to demonstrate the inadequacy of its own written” could mean „to make a palinody.” The requirements to define someone as a philosopher that Socrates provides describe in theoretical and normative form what the dialogue has already represented in its dramatic form. Plato has targeted the speech of Lysias and the first speech of Socrates as belonging to a literary genre that is still in statu nascendi: a sophistic conference in which the (...) writing is supposed to be read aloud and there is established a particularl emotional relationship between the reader and listener with the subordination of the latter to the former. For Socrates this relationship should be different and the speeches as well as books should have a completely different intent, content and form: philosopher must offer to the one whom he loves a chaste and virtuous conduct: such conduct, in its imitation of the divine, is precisely what distinguishes him from other scholars: τιμιώτερα. The philosophical relationship must involve a different kind of reading: a silent one that can neutralize the deleterious and seductive effects of the voice. This does not imply, however, that all books are the same. Philosophical writing is not a palindrome on a statue, like a picture. Its qualifying element is the linear and irreversibile sequence. Time flows between one segment and the next. Thus, thoughts presented in writing move in space, whereas characters that have thoughts in them also move over time, changing and modifying themselves. That is precisely how philosophical writing, such as the platonic dialogue, can reproduce logos. (shrink)

The concept of honor continues to be among the most widely misunderstood of human ideals. It has long been claimed that honor is an essentially external ideal, motivated by shame at one's appearance before others rather than an inward sense of guilt, the implication being that honor is a superficial moral ideal and one superseded by the higher ideal of the moral conscience. This account does not, however, stand up to scrutiny; honor is a genuinely "internal" value as much (...) as virtue, and when properly understood cannot be understood as somehow more superficial or less morally advanced than the modern ideal of virtue. (shrink)

In the Doctrine of Right, Kant claims that killings motivated by the fear of disgrace should be punished less severely than other murders. I consider how Kant understands the mitigating force of such motives, and argue that Kant takes agents to have a moral right to defend their honour. Unlike other rights, however, this right of honour can only be defended personally, so that individuals remain in a 'state of nature' with regard to any such rights, regardless of (...) their political situation. According to Kant, we should be lenient in these cases because the malefactors are caught between two kinds of authentic normative demand, at a point where the proper authority of the state collides with a certain authority which individuals must claim for themselves. (shrink)

The concepts of ‘honour and shame’ have emerged in contemporary missiological discourse as a key tool for ministry among ‘shame cultures’. While a recognition of different cultural values is an important step towards contextualisation, the soteriological models presented in these discussions are primarily based on a number of hidden assumptions which require further investigation: that shame is overcome by an outpouring of honour; that shame is a problem between humanity and God; and that the (...) ‘honour system’ of this world is a viable model in which to locate salvation. We review these assumptions and instead propose an understanding of salvation for shame based on the rejection of honour, the subversion of shame, the death of the shameful body and rebirth in new community. (shrink)

A number of theological writers have averred that principally our Lord Jesus Christ came to die not only for our sin but also for our shame. After establishing the case for this by highlighting the honor-shame significance of the cross through both theological and psychological theory and research, this article further argues that Jesus did not die for our natural and healthy shame but for our corrupted shame. The paper then concludes by explaining from the theological, (...) humanity, and missional perspectives, why it is important for us to make the distinction between healthy and corrupted shame that Jesus died for us. (shrink)

Given its psychological and sociological importance, especially in non-liberal societies, honor may be the most undertheorized normative phenomenon. Philosophical neglect of honor is due partly to the doubtful moral bona fides of honor: honor-typical motives have been usually viewed by philosophers in both the Christian and liberal West as either non-moral or immoral but replaced by morally sounder ones. More practically, honor (and what is usually translated into the English “honor”) connotes a number of apparently contradictory meanings, further bedeviling analyses. (...) Four particularly salient conceptions of honor emerge in the anthropological, literary, and philosophical literature on honor: honor as prestige, honor as the ethos characteristic of “cultures of honor,” honor as honestas, and honor as agonism. (shrink)

Through a detailed analysis of Xenophon's defence against a charge forhybrisamong the Ten Thousand, this paper discusses violence, reputation and hierarchy in Greek military and social contexts. Contrary to other recent treatments of the episode, the study highlights the centrality of honour/shame dynamics and of desert in establishing and upholding social order, showing that these notions are found consistently in numerous examples as early as Homer. Addressing the apparent lack of strict discipline in Greek armies, the paper concludes (...) that shame and peer pressure had a strong normative power in acknowledging and reconciling personal claims and common interests within a group. (shrink)

Sometimes victims cannot defend themselves against the threat posed to them, but they can nevertheless harm or even kill their aggressors. Since they cannot defend themselves, it is unclear how such harming can be justified under the title of self-defense. According to the “Honor Solution,” by violently resisting their aggressors, victims do (partially) defend themselves because they protect their honor. Blake Hereth recently argued that this solution is incompatible with the feminist commitment that sexual assault victims ought not to be (...) shamed or dishonored. The purpose of my paper is to reject Hereth's criticism and defend the Honor Solution. (shrink)

Until fairly recently it was not uncommon for political theorists to hold the view that people cannot be expected to act in accordance with the public interest without some incentive. Authors such as Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith, for instance, held that people often act in accordance with the public interest, but more from a concern for their honour and reputation than from a concern for the greater good. Today, most authors take a more (...) demanding view, maintaining that people are to be just solely from a love for justice, not from a fear of losing face. In this article today's prevailing view, which sees honour as something obsolete and archaic and not as a legitimate motive, is contrasted with the older view that honour is important for both knowing what moral is and acting on it. Subsequently, it is argued that the ethics of honour, especially in the form it took in the works of Hume and Smith, can still be of value, exactly because it is less demanding. (shrink)

After a century-long hiatus, honor is back. Academics, pundits, and everyday citizens alike are rediscovering the importance of this ancient and powerful human motive. This volume brings together some of the foremost researchers of honor to debate honor’s meaning and its compatibility with liberalism, democracy, and modernity. Contributors—representing philosophy, sociology, political science, history, psychology, leadership studies, and military science—examine honor past to present, from masculine and feminine perspectives, and in North American, European, and African contexts. Topics include the role of (...) honor in the modern military, the effects of honor on our notions of the dignity and “purity” of women, honor as a quality of good statesmen and citizens, honor’s role in international relations and community norms, and how honor’s egalitarian and elitist aspects intersect with democratic and liberal regimes. (shrink)

We investigated the role of honour concerns in mediating the effect of nationality and gender on the reported intensity of anger and shame in reaction to insult vignettes. Spain, an honour culture, and The Netherlands, where honour is of less central significance, were selected for comparison. A total of 260 (125 Dutch, 135 Spanish) persons participated in the research. Participants completed a measure of honour concerns and answered questions about emotional reactions of anger and (...) class='Hi'>shame to vignettes depicting insults in which type of threat was manipulated. It was found that Spanish participants responded especially intensely to insults that threaten family honour, and that this effect of nationality on emotional reactions to threats to family honour was mediated by individual differences in concern for family honour. (shrink)

A constructive interpretation of the Confucian conception of shame is offered here. Xunzi's discussion is considered the locus classicus of the Confucian conception of shame as contrasted with honor. In order to show his conception as an articulation and development of the more inchoate attitudes of Confucius and Mencius, and excursion is made into the Lunyu and the Mengzi. Aristotle's conception of shame is used as a sort of catalyst, an opening for appreciating Xunzi's complementary insights.

Women in the Crossfire seeks to understand the practice of honor killing from a variety of cultural and disciplinary perspectives and analyzes empirical research on honor killing, including a large original study published here for the first time. The book examines the root causes of honor killing both in human psychology and cultural evolution, and it recommends specific measures for protecting potential victims and ending honor killing altogether.

이 글의 목적은 아리스토텔레스의 윤리학적 저작들에서 논의되는 고귀한 것(to kalon)의 주요한 측면 하나를 추적해 보는 것이다. 우선 그 저작들에서 고귀한 것이 탁월성과 연계되어 이야기되고 있는 구절들, 그 중에서도 특히 고귀한 것이 수치스러운 것(to aischron)과 대비되면서 함께 이야기되고 있는 구절들을 살펴보고, 그 저작들에서 고귀한 것-수치스러운 것의 짝이 칭찬(받을 만한 것)-비난(받을 만한 것)의 짝과 밀접하게 연관되어 이야기된다는 점을 확인한다. 이것은 탁월성과 연관되어 이야기되는 고귀한 것의 의미를 규명하는 중요한 실마리가 어떤 것들이 왜 칭찬받을 만한 것이 되는가를 규명하는 것임을 의미한다. 필자는 이 물음에 관한 (...) 몇 개의 중요한 단서들을 수사학 1권 9장의 내용 속에서 이끌어낸다. 이어지는 두 단락에서는 명예와 고귀한 것의 관련성이 검토된다. 이 부분에서는 고귀한 것들 중의 하나이자 가장 전형적인 예로 이야기되는 명예가 진정한 탁월성을 갖춘 행위자의 행위와 어떻게 복합적으로 관련되어 있는가가 논의되고, 소위 시민적 탁월성에 관한 아리스토텔레스의 논의 속에서 이 복합적 관련성이 어떻게 모습을 드러내는지가 분석된다. 마지막 단락에서는 이상의 논의가 아리스토텔레스의 습관화 이론과 관련되어 가지는 함축이 어떤 것인가가 검토된다. (shrink)

The idea behind right and wrong is premised on ethics. There have been controversies about the philosophy of right and wrong in Western and African thoughts. There is a perception that the essential difference between right and wrong is honor-orientation versus justice-orientation, which is believed to be based on shame and guilt. With the aforementioned, the researcher sought to explore the comparative analysis on guilt and shame in Western and African ethics using a qualitative research design to make (...) the investigation. It was discovered that Western ideas and beliefs are quite different from those of African society. Western ethical standards have been used wrongly to scan African ethics and ethical conducts and these African ethical conducts have not been given elaborate investigation and clarification. It concluded that using Western ethical standards to judge African moral ideas is biased and demeaning to philosophical scholarship. Some recommendations on extensive analysis and interpretation of moral values on the scale of guilt and shame as well as a rethink on morality as it relates to ethics and corporate existence were made. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good by Marta JimenezJerry GreenMarta Jimenez. Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 224. Hardback, $70.00.Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good is a close examination of an underappreciated topic in Aristotle's theories of moral psychology and moral development: shame. Jimenez argues that shame is a sui generis (...) emotion that plays a crucial role in the habituation of moral virtue in young humans who are not yet virtuous and therefore cannot fully see the moral landscape as accurately as the fully developed virtuous adult. On this view, shame acts as a protovirtue that orients the developing moral agent toward "the noble" (τό καλόν), using social cues to learn not only what actions should be avoided or performed, but also what makes those actions shameful or noble, allowing them to eventually see beyond these external correlates of the noble and develop a grasp of nobility itself. Shame is therefore an indispensable tool for cultivating the emotional, perceptual, and cognitive abilities of a person on the path to virtue.The treatment of shame presented here is meant to bridge what Jimenez calls the "moral upbringing gap." On the one hand, nonvirtuous people are able to engage in the same behavior as virtuous people: they can, in principle, eat moderately, stand firm in battle, use their money judiciously, and so on, in a way that is externally indistinguishable from the virtuous. But there is no guarantee that performing these behaviors will lead the nonvirtuous person to develop the psychological traits necessary to perform virtuous actions as the virtuous person does them, with the correct motivation, emotion, and reasoning (e.g. performing a virtuous action enthusiastically, because it is the right thing to do, in a clear-eyed, informed way). Jimenez argues that shame can bridge this gap between action and affect by using signs like the disapproval of others or the depictions of literary exemplars such as epic heroes, not only to see what actions should be done or avoided, but also to begin to appreciate how and why these actions are in fact noble. So understood, shame is directed at the noble itself, not merely at the things that tend to be superficially associated with the noble (such as the pleasures of social praise or the inconveniences of ill repute).The chapters of this short book naturally fall into three groups. The first section (chapters 1 and 2) focuses on common interpretations of shame's role in Aristotle's ethics and objections to these interpretations. Chapter 1 studies the moral upbringing gap discussed above, with emphasis on moral motivation; chapter 2 focuses on the role of pleasure and pain. Both chapters draw heavily on classic works on the topic, such as Miles Burnyeat's "Aristotle on Learning to Be Good" (in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. A. O. Rorty [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980], 69-92) and Nancy Sherman's The Fabric of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).The middle section of the book describes the nuances of moral development in Aristotle's moral psychology. Chapter 3 is a case study on the varieties of states that resemble courage; this chapter may initially appear to be a digression, but it highlights the many distinct psychological components of true virtue, giving us a better sense of just how complex the path toward moral development is, and hence what role shame would need to play in this development. Chapter 4 focuses on honor, with special attention paid to the importance of genuine approbation of praiseworthy actions from reputable sources.The final section of the book examines shame itself and the indispensable role it plays in moral development. Chapter 5 argues that shame is a sui generis emotion, not quite a full disposition (hexis), but more than a mere passion (pathos). This chapter also argues that we need not posit any special distinctions to harmonize two key passages on shame from books IV.9 and X.9 of the Nicomachean Ethics that may appear to be in tension. Chapter 6 shows how shame operates in moral development and why it is a... (shrink)

The photographs that circulated on social media depicting the atrocious acts committed by the Turkish military forces in southeast Turkey are indicative of an aesthetic construction of militarized masculinity that serves as a metonym for the nation‐state. As violence is aestheticized in a gendered fashion in these depictions, the Kurdish resistance movement is shamed as feminine. Gendered shaming, in this context, conjoins racialization and gendering as subjugating mechanisms of the state. Women's peace movements seek to disrupt this heteropatriarchal logic of (...) the state by countering the tripartite alignment of masculinity‐power‐domination with politicized art. In refusing the shame attributed to femininity, the shame that the state desires the Kurdish body to signify, they transfigure shame into honor and resistance. (shrink)

Introduction : why worry about dignity, honor, and values -- Escape from dignity to honor : an overview -- The honor game -- Divine human glory : in the image of God -- The concept of dignity that underlies human rights -- Respect : the value of our singularity -- Escape from dignity and respect.

According to a prominent narrative, the problem of recognition arises in the modern period in opposition to premodern notions of honor. This chapter invites us to reconsider this narrative by examining two views of honor in ancient Greek thought. I first show that Homeric honor includes contestable norms of reciprocal respect and esteem for individual virtue. I then show how Plato appropriates the Homeric view in his ethical psychology yet articulates a competing view of the nature and value of honor. (...) By showing that ancient Greek honor is more continuous with theories of recognition than has been appreciated, this chapter offers fresh perspectives on a central strand of ancient Greek ethics and its relevance to social and political thought. (shrink)

This essay distinguishes between honor-typical and authoritarian behavior in humans and animals. Whereas authoritarianism concerns hierarchies coordinated by control and obedience, honor concerns rankings of prestige determined by fair contests. Honor-typical behavior is identifiable in non-human species, and is to be expected in polygynous species with non-resource-based mating systems. This picture lends further support to an increasingly popular psychological theory that sees morality as constituted by a variety of moral systems. If moral cognition is pluralistic in this way, then the (...) question of moral agency is better considered in terms of particular moral modes, one of which will be “honor-agency.” The universal principles of honorable conduct suggest a handful of criteria for counting as an honorable agent (human or otherwise), and these criteria can be specified without commitment to any particular account of what it takes to be an agent in general. (shrink)

This article offers a new interpretation of the Athenian institution of ostracism and explores its significance for our understanding of democratic politics. A popular scholarly trend interprets ostracism as an instrument for pursuing conflict among aristocratic politicians, in accordance with a view of Athenian democracy as dominated by a restricted elite competing for power and prestige. This article aims to reassess this picture by investigating ostracism in the light of recent studies of honour, which have stressed honour's potential (...) for balancing competition and cooperation within communities. By using the ostracism of Themistocles as a case study, it argues that ostracism was a manifestation of an institutionalized concern for honour in Athenian democracy. On the one hand, ostracism could punish politically active citizens who, in excessively enhancing their own honour, failed to respect democratic equality. On the other, it could be employed for tackling shameful behaviour which placed the agent below the community's standards of honour. The article then sets ostracism against Athens’ broader institutional framework and argues that Athenian democracy was not so much concerned with policing intra-elite conflict as much as it was designed to foster a balance between competitive and cooperative values and ensure broad participation in the political domain. (shrink)

In this article, Amy Shuffelton addresses school shootings through an investigation of honor and masculinity. Drawing on recent scholarship on honor, including Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity and Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code, Shuffelton points out that honor has been misconstrued as exclusively a matter of hierarchical, competitive relationships. A second kind of honor, which exists within relationships of mutual respect between equals, she suggests, merits theorists' further consideration. In its hierarchical mode, honor is often a source of (...) violent action, but honor in its egalitarian mode can play an important role in peacemaking. Shuffelton turns to Homer's Iliad and Adrienne Rich's “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying” to explore honor's potential. Linking both kinds of honor to masculinity and the issue of gun violence, this article contends that to address gun violence in and outside of schools, masculine honor needs to be “reissued” as a matter of egalitarian relationships based on honest communication. (shrink)

I'd like to trace here a great rhetorical-philosophical project which runs through the writings of Plato – his attempt to moralize norms of honor and glory, his attempt to harness the powerful feelings of shame and glory to the ineffectual norms of justice.

Drawing on 2 years of field research conducted between 2008 and 2010 in London’s Kurdish community, I discuss the practical and ethical challenges that confront researchers dealing with violence against women committed in the name of ‘honour’. In examining how feminist methodologies and principles inform my research, I address issues of researcher positioning and the importance of speaking with, rather than for, marginalised groups. I then explore the difficulties of operationalising this position when dealing with honour-based violence. Using (...) the interview data from the 2008–2010 study and a case study of the trial of Mehmet Goren (who was convicted in 2009 of murdering his daughter Tulay for supposedly dishonouring their family), I discuss the socio-cultural norms and values underlying honour codes, examining both the position of men and women in relation to the maintenance of family honour and the regulation of women’s sexuality and conduct. In particular, I explore the difficulties inherent in obtaining and understanding victims’ own personal narratives, especially in legal settings, while simultaneously showing how it is only through empowering women to speak for themselves that we will be able to bring about the deep societal changes needed to eradicate honour-based violence. (shrink)

This article investigates how religion-based social norms and values shape women’s access to employment in Muslim-majority countries. It develops a religiously sensitive conceptualization of the differential valence of genders based on respect, which serves to produce inequality. Drawing on an ethnographic study of work practice in Berber communities in Morocco, aspects of respect are analyzed through an honor–shame continuum that serves to moralize and mediate gender relations. The findings show that respect and shame function as key inequality-producing mechanisms. (...) The dynamic interrelationship between respect and shame has implications for how we understand the ways in which gender inequality is institutionalized and produced across different levels. Through these processes, gender-differentiated forms of respect become inscribed in organizational structures and practices, engendering persistent inequality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.2 (2000) 179-211 [Access article in PDF] Gifts of Humiliation: Charis and Tragic Experience In Alcestis Mark Padilla Charis is always what bears charis. (Soph. Aj. 522) Not for many does charis breed charis. (Anaxandrides fr. 69 PCG II) A gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity is a contradiction. --Mary Douglas on Marcel Mauss Whether or not in the spring of 438 B.C.E. Euripides (...) anticipated that his festival audience would find his production of Alcestis to be a thought-provoking pro-satyr play, its twentieth-century "readerly audiences" most certainly have. The play has prompted a steady stream of critical studies on a broad range of themes and issues. The trends in the most recent century's approaches to Alcestis are not necessarily tidy, but one critic has summarized them as having three movements: interest prior to World War I in the play's lighter, comic elements; emphasis on Euripides' use of folktale elements, beginning in the 1920s; and exploration of the play's more sinister elements since World War II. 1My analysis here references this scholarly tradition in the service of an ethical-sociological reading focused on the issue of "charis," a theme interwoven in the play's complex narrative levels of irony and fairy tale, tragedy and satyr drama, and dark and light characterization. I argue that it is possible to view Alcestis' offer to die for Admetus as a kind of gift, a gift that in turn effectively devalues the kinds of gifts Admetus [End Page 179] is able to give. In his attempts to restore the efficacy of his own level of traditional aristocratic gift giving, he is driven to extremes. He offers not to remarry; misleads Heracles about the death of his wife; and renounces his father. These acts, however, further lower his standing. Admetus' attendance at the funeral and homecoming then lead to an experience of tragic understanding, an anagnorisis that offers him perspective on the relative merits of his honor code and complicates the reconciliation scene at the play's end.Charis and Gift Giving Charis has a root meaning of "something which delights" (cf. khairo). In usage, charis more typically conveys two ideas: a "favor" that one does for another, and a feeling of "gratitude" that one has for receiving a favor. 2 The term thus lends itself to a sociological inquiry involving the cultural logic of "gift giving." For example, as part of a study of violent social relations in the context of honor/shame societies, William Miller has discussed the problem of "requiting the unwanted gift." Another member of the recipient's society may have chosen to give him such a gift not in the spirit of generosity but, on the contrary, as a way to shame him, providing him, as it were, with a "gift of humiliation." 3The notion of gift giving as a sociological institution was pioneered by Marcel Mauss. Working within a framework formulated by Emile Durkheim, Mauss posited the idea that gift giving is not identified with "charity," for it typically implies the expectation by both giver and recipient of a return gift; more importantly, gifts belong to a larger dynamic that establishes social rank and assigns identity. 4 The sociologist [End Page 180] Pierre Bourdieu has argued that in gift-exchange cultures, individuals who offer gifts think simultaneously on two levels of engagement: they give in a fashion that serves to exploit and dominate the recipient, yet their words and posture can convey altruism and concern. Bourdieu has been criticized for universalizing observations made during fieldwork among the Kabyle in Africa; but his principle that primitive honor societies lack institutional means for economic relationships, and that individuals thus employ elaborate schemes of manipulating codes of honor to further their needs and ambitions, 5 speaks to the heart of the social logic which Euripides' Alcestis thematizes and renders theatrical. 6 [End Page 181]This reading of the play thus follows the work of other classical scholars who have analyzed the dynamics of gift exchange in Greek society... (shrink)

A provocative history of the changing values that have given rise to our present discontents. We pursue power, pleasure, and profit. We want as much as we can get, and we deploy instrumental reasoning—cost-benefit analysis—to get it. We judge ourselves and others by how well we succeed. It is a way of life and thought that seems natural, inevitable, and inescapable. As David Wootton shows, it is anything but. In Power, Pleasure, and Profit, he traces an intellectual and cultural revolution (...) that replaced the older systems of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality with the iron cage of instrumental reasoning that now gives shape and purpose to our lives. Wootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought—from Machiavelli to Madison—to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore in the work of writers both obscure and as famous as Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith. The new instrumental reasoning cut through old codes of status and rank, enabling the emergence of movements for liberty and equality. But it also helped to create a world in which virtue, honor, shame, and guilt count for almost nothing, and what matters is success. Is our world better for the rise of instrumental reasoning? To answer that question, Wootton writes, we must first recognize that we live in its grip. (shrink)

Once widely spread in the Dinaric Mountains part of the Balkan Peninsula, swearing to virginity was a social and cultural custom recorded among all groups inhabiting the area. In the absence of a capable adult man in the household, a daughter would take over his social role by ‘becoming’ a man. The standard explanation is that the function of this practice is enabling the continuation of the household’s economic, social, and religious activities. We argue that this explanation fails. A better (...) explanation is that, because the lack of a particular kind of a man (competent and honourable) was perceived as a shame in these societies, the primary reason for swearing to virginity was saving family honour. (shrink)

This paper pursues the philosophical significance of a relatively unexplored point of Platonic aesthetics: the social dimension of beauty. The social dimension of beauty resides in its conceptual connection to shame and honour. This dimension of beauty is fundamental to the aesthetic education of the Republic, as becoming virtuous for Plato presupposes a desire to appear and to be admired as beautiful. The ethical significance of beauty, shame, and honour redound to an ethically rich notion of (...) appearing before others which corresponds to a public conception of virtue. I suggest how this dimension of beauty in Plato – particularly the emphasis on beautification – proves fruitful for reconsidering the scope and the nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)