The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen

Appiah, Kwame Anthony

ISBN 10: 0393071626 / ISBN 13: 9780393071627

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2010

About this Item

The cover shows normal wear. The pages show normal wear. There is a signature or handwriting on the side of book. This is an ex library book, stickers and markings accordingly. Fast shipping and order satisfaction guaranteed. A portion of your purchase benefits Non-Profit Organizations, First Aid and Fire Stations!

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393071626
• ISBN 13: 9780393071627
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

In this landmark work, a leading philosopher demonstrates the revolutionary power of honor in ending human suffering.

Long neglected as an engine of reform, honor strikingly emerges at the center of our modern world in Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code. Over the last few centuries, new democratic movements have led to the emancipation of women, slaves, and the oppressed. But what drove these modern changes, Appiah argues, was not imposing legislation from above, but harnessing the ancient power of honor from within. In gripping detail, he explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over footbinding in nineteenth-century China, and the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery. Finally, he confronts the horrors of "honor killing" in contemporary Pakistan, where rape victims are murdered by their relatives. He argues that honor, used to justify the practice, can also be the most effective weapon against it. Intertwining philosophy and historical narrative, Appiah has created a remarkably dramatic work, which demonstrates that honor is the driving force in the struggle against man's inhumanity to man.

About the Author

Kwame Anthony Appiah, the president of the PEN American Center, is the author of The Ethics of Identity, Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, The Honor Code and the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism. Raised in Ghana and educated in England, he has taught philosophy on three continents and is currently a professor at Princeton University. You can find a biography at appiah.net/biography/.