HonorEthics.org

HonorEthics.org is an interdisciplinary academic website devoted to the study of honor as an ethical virtue. Those working to develop a biblical ethic and theology for honor-shame contexts will want to follow this blog. I learned about HonorEthics.org when they posted, “Check out this ‘Honor-Shame’ spin on Christianity” about HonorShame.com. I found the term “spin” intriguing (as I prefer to think of honor & shame are inherent to biblical Christianity; they are what you find when you un-spin the millennia of historical theology and interpretations).Overall, his concluding assessment of HonorShame.com was generous–“this is pretty advanced stuff, not too far behind the best research on cultural/moral psychology of honor, shame, etc.”

The moderator Dan Demetriou is Associate Professor of Philosopher at University of Minnesota, Morris. He is an “honor apologist” whose research argues honor “is essential to a mature pluralist deontological moral and political theory.” The cadre of contributors are academic philosophers. Dan himself writes with precision and wit. A recent post critiquing a common misconception of honor as inferior and antiquated in a Bill Gates interview concluded with these astute words:

“Honor skeptics tend to ignore the evil past of our older, cruder conceptions of justice, however. They would never allow that medievals (or even today’s lawmakers) actually “got justice right.” They tend to think our conception of justice is constantly improving, refined by conceptual analysis, experience, and ethical debate. For some reason, however, the most backward hillbilly or unreflective cattle-herder gets the final say on what honor is. Exposing this double-standard is one of the first tasks of the honor apologist.”

Enjoy poking around HonorEthics.com! The archives of HonorEthics.org go back 4 years, so there is plenty of quality content.