Mar 28, 2024  
Undergraduate Record 2006-2007 
    
Undergraduate Record 2006-2007 [ARCHIVED RECORD]

ISLS 307 - Honor, Honor Codes, and Civil Society


The course is divided into three parts. In the first part of the course, students try to determine what honor is, and why it is both a morally necessary concept and a potentially dangerous one.  The second part examines in turn two medieval societies; the Christian west and the knight’s code of chivalry and then the Japanese Samurai.  Finally, we will ask whether Americans can fashion a society with a renewed sense of honor.  Can the rigid moralisms of left and right be replaced by genuinely honorable charity and civility? Can we replace our culture of complaint – and our politics of deceit – with what Avishai Margalit has called a decent society?  Can we be both honorable and humane? 

Credits: 3