Sharon R. Krause.
Liberalism with Honor.
Harvard University Press. 288 pages. $29.95
The language of honor is not well received today. Honor invokes aristocratic images of privilege and inherited status that appear to affront our democratic ideal of equality. In her recent work, Liberalism With Honor, Harvard professor Sharon Krause tries to rescue the concept for liberal democracy. Krause recalls Tocqueville’s observation that while honor does bear some inherent tensions with democratic culture, the belief that it is obsolete comes from an incomplete understanding of its nature. Honor is variable, according to Tocqueville, and tends to adapt and serve the unique identities of different regimes. Krause explains that honor has deep roots in human nature, in our capacities for courage, pride, principled ambition, duty to self, and the desire for self-respect and public distinction. Therefore, while honor did appear as a prominent feature of the old regime, this need not imply its necessary kinship with that society. On the contrary, she argues, the advent of democracy has brought with it a new form of honor which incorporates the modern ideal of equal dignity.
In democratic society, this ideal, expressed through civil and political institutions that respect our equal status, replaces the fixed “honor” or privilege of the old regime. The honor of the new regime speaks to a quality of character, not an inherited status. This new form of honor engages capacities of our human nature in actions that must earn distinction from others. Honor, in this sense, aims to achieve and actually vindicates the ideal of equal dignity. And although the new regime supports equal rights and opportunities, the new form of honor exhibits in such rare and extraordinary actions that it is likely to be achieved by only a few.
But this rarity and honor’s diminished prominence in democratic society do not make it any less potent. Its limited acts can have lasting impact. As Krause defines it, honor always includes recognition by others, a code of principles, and the ambitious desire to live up to that code and to be recognized for it. The ambition identified here is self-regarding, which is consistent with the pervasive self-interest in liberal society. Honor, then, is more reliable than the selfless altruism or obligations to the community that other theorists argue are the appropriate supports for liberal society. By examining other philosophical reflections on honor and “excavating” several of its most prominent displays in a liberal democratic context, Krause aims to better understand honor’s meaning and value, particularly as a resource to inspire individual agency within a democratic context.
Her study of honor in Montesquieu’s thought is revealing on several fronts. Montesquieu saw honor as an ambition for individual distinction through principled resistance. What is distinctive about his conception is the strong instrumental value he gives honor, derived from its tendency to divide and limit political power. The regime Montesquieu observed was a constitutional monarchy, and the role of honor was to motivate political ambition among the nobility — out of a desire for self-respect and recognition — to mediate the will of the sovereign. Honor served liberty by dividing political power. Perhaps most illuminating in Montesquieu are the competing and moderating qualities revealed within the honorable actor. While maintaining a strong reverence for a principled code, one is simultaneously the ultimate arbiter of right action. While yearning for external recognition, the honorable person maintains the ability to resist the outside world through adherence to internal principles. For Krause, the complexity of honor revealed in Montesquieu illuminates important aspects of it as a source of agency and suggests significance beyond the context of monarchies.
In Tocqueville, Krause is quick to note that his famous emphasis on civic virtue similarly serves the purpose of preserving liberty. Tocqueville feared democracy’s propensity for majority tyranny in government and civil society, the former occurring when legislators overstep their constitutional authority and the latter when public opinion threatens the liberties of those in the minority. To preserve democracy, Tocqueville sought elements from the old regime that were missing in democratic society. He feared that democratic humility had created an antipathy toward aristocratic pride, which itself was necessary to instill the notion of individual worth and to motivate action. He also mourned the absence of strong passions, such as ambition. Finally, he feared democrats loved liberty merely for its material comforts, thus making them vulnerable to rulers who provided such comforts while depriving individuals of their liberties. However, Tocqueville believed that pride, ambition, and the love of liberty for itself could be resurrected, cultivated from certain natural sources within democratic society. Democracy’s civil and political associations excited the pride of the few while acting as countervailing sites of authority, thus protecting liberty. Individual rights were another valuable resource, acting as a vestige of aristocratic privilege by providing a voice in government and protection for individual action. Finally, religion elevated ambition above material comforts, thus avoiding the despotic trap of materialism. Tocqueville’s prescription for fostering democratic honor through these resources further elucidates its potential in democratic society.
Krause’s numerous “excavations” serve the purpose of illustrating both variety and continuity among different systems of honor. In the case of the American founders, she shows honor’s ability to serve abstract, universal principles of natural right instead of those grounded in local, particular systems of conduct and status. The honor system of the antebellum South is an odd mix of fierce loyalty to community, along with an explicit rejection of the principles in the Declaration of Independence. Its relevance lies in illustrating the potential dangers of honor, particularly when political power and underlying codes go unchecked. Krause then applies her model of honorable action to various liberal democratic reformers, including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King Jr. She provides detailed accounts of how each adhered to the principles of the American founding and took bold actions, despite significant personal risk, to bring about radical democratic reform.
As a whole, Krause’s work represents a coherent analysis of the conditions — both internal and external — that must be met for a few exceptional individuals in liberal democracies to act boldly and independently in the principled defense of liberty. Within that framework, one can identify two purposes: supporting liberal efforts to resist encroaching political power and establishing the possibility of strong displays of individual agency. Both of these aims may be accurately described as liberal in nature, but the success of Krause’s project seems wedded more to the latter. While her claim that honor acts as a motivational tool toward the defense of liberty is convincing, the possibility she presents for individual agency en route to that end is particularly noteworthy.
In exposing the myth of honor’s obsolescence under liberal democracy, Krause makes the strong case that the language of democratic society conceals our capacity for extraordinary character. The democratic love of equality forces the establishment of euphemisms for honor, such as “dignity,” in order to describe those who achieve high levels of distinction without explicitly acknowledging their superior capacities. The problem, Krause adeptly observes, is that emphasizing equal dignity obscures the honorable actor’s extraordinary character and the fact that, in society at large, there are more than merely common qualities available to us. By unpacking the obfuscations of democratic language, Krause helps to resurrect awareness of extraordinary character and the opportunities for individual heroism it presents.
In the same vein, Krause challenges two of her most prominent contemporaries, who have similarly — and detrimentally — chosen to democratize the concept of honor. Philosopher John Rawls does so by arguing that, in a just society, “self-esteem” must be counted among the primary goods that all individuals need, on an equal basis, in order to make use of their liberties and equal opportunities. In this way, he conceives of self-esteem as a good to be distributed equally among the agents who constitute society. Krause, however, argues that when self-esteem is provided irrespective of achievement, the concept of desert is undermined. Democratizing self-esteem thus weakens its ability to motivate risky and difficult actions. In fact, says Krause, the strongest exertions of individual agency, under the most challenging circumstances, require self-esteem that has previously been tested and won. This contention becomes even more persuasive through Krause’s examinations of honorable actors in American history, as their stories affirm this pattern.
Krause’s other target, McGill University’s Charles Taylor, similarly undermines the individual agency that honor inspires. Taylor advocates replacing honor with “reciprocal recognition.” Once again, Krause demonstrates why his position is harmful. Honor, like recognition, has a strong external dimension; it relies on acknowledgment by other agents. Yet, unlike Taylor’s prescription for interpersonal recognition, honor also has a strong internal dimension. Honor as a quality of character drives individuals to live up to principled codes of conduct. In this regard, Krause highlights a complex understanding of honor that is more profound than a simple formula for social esteem. Because honor has this internal dimension, it serves as a particularly powerful source of agency for the very people Taylor is most concerned about, those marginalized groups who are deprived of external recognition. Krause’s effort to reestablish honor as a device for individual agency may be said to supply such groups with a potentially powerful tool for resistance, one independent of social consensus. And Krause’s excavations provide further evidence of this potential: Several of her democratic reformers emerged from oppressed groups.
If there is a flaw in Krause’s project, it is her struggle with honor’s variability and unwillingness to conform to a model that she applies in all instances. One constant feature of honor, she explains, is that the desire for distinction acts as a spring for action, on the back of which principled codes are fulfilled. This balance of the internal and external dimensions of honor, its “irreducible duality,” is essential for Krause. Yet her examples do not always conform well to this model; sometimes she even acknowledges this shortcoming. Frederick Douglass, for example, viewed his resistance to a despotic slave owner as a mark of “honor.” However, as Krause admits, there surely was no concern with fame or recognition for his action. She justifies her model by designating it as only “a partial embodiment of honor.” In another profile of honorable action, she concedes that women’s rights reformers felt called to action despite having no promise of public distinction. In fact, far from receiving due recognition, many reformers were rebuked for their resistance. By permitting little variability in the role of external recognition, Krause tends to underplay the strength of simple adherence to principle, without such concern for reputation.
In the concluding chapter, Krause discusses the implications for honor of an increasingly pluralistic liberal democratic context. She builds on an argument advanced by Michael Walzer, who has advocated honor on a smaller, more modest scale — which, he claims, arises out of the voluntary groups and associations characteristic of modern democracies. These shared identities and various codes create multiple sources of honor as we find ourselves in a variety of roles and settings, each providing “principled limits and direction” for our ambitions. But while Krause and Walzer see the benefits of cultivating the capacities for small-scale honor from a proliferation of codes, they do not address the impact this may have on the reverence for each code. In her examination of Montesquieu, Krause herself pointed out that a multiplicity of moral authorities tends to moderate reverence for each individual code. And while such proliferation may have some benefit in fostering moderation, an overabundance of such codes — particularly when left to arbitrary choice — could result in none being taken seriously enough. In this sense, the ability of honor codes to motivate extraordinary action would appear difficult within pluralistic societies.
Nonetheless, Liberalism With Honor is worthy of praise. Krause is successful in demonstrating honor’s ability to inspire spirited acts of individual agency in defense of liberty. Her project may raise additional questions, but the originality and importance of asking these questions should not go overlooked.
