Honor (timē) is a multifaceted concept in Aristotle’s ethics, as it involves external goods, social relationships, self-awareness, and emotional regulation. It also raises fascinating scholarly puzzles, about Aristotle’s influences and the ‘nameless’ virtues’ inter alia. Nonetheless, honor in Aristotle has been relatively understudied. Kleanthis Mantzouranis’s Honour in Aristotle’s Ethics fills this gap, with a thorough and insightful survey of the topic in the Aristotelian corpus and Greek literature broadly.
One central thesis of this book is to reject the notion that Aristotle is bound by a ‘shame-culture’ context that is alien to much of the contemporary world, and to show instead that “Aristotle’s incisive remarks on timē highlight a universal human concern for esteem and social recognition in our lives as social beings” (5). This is accomplished (successfully, to this reader’s estimation) by not only situating Aristotle’s remarks within a detailed discussion of his Greek background, but also supplementing these remarks with contemporary work on honor and emotions from philosophers, sociologists, and cognitive scientists.
Chapter 1 surveys the Greek cultural context with respect to honor, using a distinction between two dimensions of honor: vertical (which comes in degrees and recognizes accomplishments) and horizontal (which is binary and recognizes in-group status). The chapter emphasizes the point that honor is closely tied to beneficence and the public good, not simply individual achievement. It explores the connections between honor and worth (axia), and discusses how honor is almost universally desired even though its distribution varies significantly across social groups. The treatment of honor as an external good in Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia is a highlight; Mantzouranis is sensitive to important distinctions (e.g. between constituents versus background necessities) that are frequently overlooked in debates about Aristotle’s theory of happiness.
The next few chapters of the book cover emotions relevant to honor. Chapter 2 focuses on the emotions of anger and shame, along with the anger-related virtue of ‘calmness’ (praotēs, which Mantzouranis renders as ‘good temper’ or ‘mildness’, but see Nikolaidis 1982). This chapter illustrates the contextualized variability of perceived insults (oligōriai), which give rise to anger at failure to respect worth and hence honor. This variability covers both actual and perceived slights, through actions or omissions, and can vary according to the social standing, situation, and psychology of all participants (down to details such as an individual’s mood in the moment).
Chapter 3 treats the social emotions of friendliness, wit, and truthfulness, and shifts focus from the individual’s relationship to their own honor to thinking about the honor of others. There is much of value in this chapter, though I cannot say that the treatment of the relative importance of honor to these concepts is equally persuasive at every point. The emotion and disposition of “friendly feeling” or “friendliness” (to philein, to be distinguished from philia the virtue of friendship) are analyzed in terms of worth and honor; on Mantzouranis’s reading, they are caused by recognition of worth from others.[1] Wit is likewise understood as a function of honor, with Mantzouranis contending that the central feature of wit is “not the funniness of the jokes one makes but their appropriateness, which bears on both the agent of the joke and the impact that jokes have on their recipient” (130). On this view, the characteristic feature of the witty person is their ability to respect both their own honor while making jokes as well as the honor of the target of those jokes.[2] Truthfulness (what we might understand as transparency or authenticity) “essentially consists in a truthful presentation of one’s axia, one’s self-worth” (148).[3] This section (3.4.4) also features an illuminating discussion of the relationship between megalopsychia (greatness-of-soul) and philotima (love of honor), topics revisited in later chapters.
Chapters 4 and 5 are shorter treatments of comparative other-regarding emotions: pity and indignation in the former, envy and emulation in the latter. Section 4.2, which addresses the basis of axia (beyond direct moral responsibility) is a highlight of this part of the book.
Chapter 6 is an extended discussion of philotimia (love of honor). The first part of the chapter focuses on the mystery of philotimia and the nameless virtue ‘proper love of honor’, with a survey of the uses of this ambiguous term in Greek literature broadly and through the Aristotelian corpus. It culminates in a subtle, sophisticated view which downplays the analogy with liberality and generosity (NE 4.4, 1125b1-5) and which does not map the distinction between proper love of honor and megalopsychia onto either the private/public or small/great works dichotomies. Instead, the two traits exist on a spectrum where one develops from proper love of honor to megalopsychia as one’s character and axia increase. Consequently, the two traits will not coexist in the same person at the same time; one outgrows proper love of honor as one graduates to megalopsychos status.
Continuing with this theme, Chapter 7 focuses on megalopsychia. Examining the use of this term (alongside related concepts like megathumos or megalētōr) throughout the Greek corpus, Mantzouranis argues that Aristotle’s account of megalopsychia is both culturally situated and a thoughtful normative concept in his overall ethical theory. The result is a complex trait that combines (i) accurate recognition of high moral worth, (ii) generous beneficence to others, and (iii) composure and self-assuredness in the face of insults or misfortunes. In particular, megalopsychia helps guard against excesses related to the external goods of the other moral virtues; it is a ‘second-order’ virtue that depends on, and operates through, other virtues, and hence cannot be reduced to a love of honor alone.
Part of what makes megalopsychia uniquely important is its attention to misfortune: “None of these virtues is concerned with one’s attitude in the face of losing such external or bodily goods. Megalopsychia does precisely this” (269). At this point I think Mantzouranis extends the benefits of megalopsychia farther than Aristotle’s text allows. While Mantzouranis is right to stress that external goods are “only the necessary conditions, not the essence, of happiness” (269), his remarks suggest that a virtuous person could be without these external goods. The chapter concludes with the claim that the megalopsychos “is able to deal with reversals of fortune, a constitutive condition of human nature, and maintain their commitment to virtue even under the most morally challenging circumstances: in dire adversity and in extreme prosperity” (274). He asks earlier to consider how a megalopsychos should act when stripped of all these external goods, arguing “our man should show that what he values above all else is his aretē, and that the loss of external prosperity, though certainly unwelcome, is not utterly devastating for him. He should then remain the man he is and bear his misfortune with dignity” (265). This is sound moral advice, but I am not sure it comports with Aristotle’s own view: precisely because the external goods are necessary conditions for both happiness and the moral virtues that concern them, loss of these goods is ipso facto loss of their virtues. Distasteful though it may be to us, a megalopsychos without external goods is no megalopsychos at all.
This book is the first volume in The Edinburgh History of Honour in the Ancient Greek World series; the author is also co-editor of a forthcoming second volume, Aspects of Honour in the Ancient Greek World. If the first book’s quality is any indication, scholars have much to look forward to in future volumes.
It is unfortunate that the book does not contain an index locorum. Mantzouranis does a masterful job compiling Aristotle’s scattered remarks on honor across several texts and shaping them into a coherent viewpoint. But it is difficult to find discussion of any particular passage in the book, which limits the usefulness of the text to scholars working on honor-related topics. However, at the time of writing, free ebook and pdf version are posted as Open Access on the publisher’s website, for which they are to be commended.
Works Cited
Johnston, Rebekah (2020). “Aristotle on Wittiness”. Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 24: 323-336.
Nikolaidis, A. G. (1982). “Aristotle’s Treatment of the Concept of ΠΡΑΟΤΗΣ”. Hermes 110: 414-422.
Walker, M. D. (2019). “Aristotle on Wittiness” in Pierre Destrée & Franco V. Trivigno (eds.) Laughter, Humor and Comedy in Ancient Philosophy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 103-121.
Notes
[1] Mantzouranis also notes (114) Aristotle’s comment that we feel friendly feeling to those like us (Rhet. 2.4, 1381a–b). Mantzouranis’s interpretation could be questioned here: it could be that similarity grounds friendly feeling, which then results in equal recognition of worth, rather than recognition of worth itself being the primary causal factor leading to friendly feeling (i.e. ‘we are similar and therefore deserve the same’, rather than ‘we deserve the same, and are therefore similar’). The next section (3.2) on friendliness is more cautious, giving worth and honor important roles while acknowledging the pride of place held by pleasure and pain in Aristotle’s treatment.
[2] This is another place where the role of honor is perhaps exaggerated. See Walker 2019 for what I take to be a more intuitive reading that makes wit central to wittiness (though see also Johnston 2020’s corroborating interpretation, not included in the bibliography).
[3] Mantzouranis argues that desire for honor is “the most common motive” for boastfulness (145, original emphasis), of the several Aristotle mentions in Nicomachean Ethics IV.7, but Aristotle says at 1127b20-21 that it is for the sake of financial gain (kerdos) that most boasters boast.