It’s worth noting that all of those examples of honor codes are culturally subjective, and are also all xenophobic in nature. The norse undertook actions against outsiders that the Havamal would have proscribed amongst themselves. Likewise, Chivalry assigned a different moral weight to nonChristians, as well as to peasantry, that made all kinds of actions against them permissable that would have been forbidden against a fellow Christian noble.
Bushido made it clear that a samurai was not only permitted, but required, to execute an ashigaru for impudence.
You can be honorable without being compassionate, unless compassion is part of your culture’s idea of honor. You can be honorable by the reckoning of your society, yet awful to anyone your society doesn’t consider a full person.
This is why it’s so important that they actually define what Honor means to the Horde, because it definitely isn’t the same as what it means to the humans or dwarves.
I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if Kaldorei and Darkspear had similar conceptions of it.
Is that so? Are you attributing the actions of Viking raiders to all Nordic peoples?
To fear God and maintain His Church
To serve the liege lord in valour and faith
To protect the weak and defenceless
To give succour to widows and orphans
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live by honour and for glory
To despise pecuniary reward
To fight for the welfare of all
To obey those placed in authority
To guard the honour of fellow knights
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
At all times to speak the truth
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
To respect the honour of women
Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
Never to turn the back upon a foe
Better not be impudent, then.
True.
Lacking compassion isn’t evil. For some, it can’t even be helped. Honor is probably the best thing you can hope for from an uncompassionate person.
I mean, I agree, but even if it was defined and the Horde fits within it’s guidelines, the actions of the Horde and the Actions of even Saurfang have been dishonorable.
Bushido is a poor example, the concept of Bushido as we are familiar with today it was not officially laid out until 1899 in the book Bushido: The Soul of Japan, one which was heavily criticised for over idealising the morallity of the Samurai class.
Speaking of Samurai, are you familiar with Kiri-sute gomen? It was the right of someone belonging to the samurai class to legally kill someone of a lower class than them who insults their honor provided they have a witness who can testify to that person’s behaviour. Very upstanding.
Also not sure why you ignored the reference to honor-killings in my original post as it is the best example of the estrangement of honor and morality within modern cultures that can actually be witnessed today rather than taken from a book which may not be historically accurate or overly romanticised.
People pervert modern law, which is essentially fulfills the same role as history’s codes of honor. What is honorable and what isn’t is still objective.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. People who are wrong can believe they are right but that doesn’t make it true. The problem with assuming things to be subjective, is there is no reference for a constant truth. Morality can’t exist from a subjective view point, because everything is permissible subjectively. That’s why Honor is important… While it is not perfect, a code of assumed truths of integrity, honesty and virtue prevents moral decay.
Concepts of integrity and moral goodness are simple ideas that we all know. Even animals who lack the cognitive ability to conceptualize understand fairness and unfairness. It’s not that we struggle knowing what is right from wrong, but rather we justify wrong things that we do, or might serve to our benefit.
We know something is wrong, but we are self and don’t want it to be.
For example, say you are at a drive through and receive incorrect change, but you did not realize until you already made the long drive home… Keeping the extra change is theft. But people would rarely to through the effort to return the change for a wide variety of justifications, all of which are wrong, and people know it is wrong.
That was just a playful jab at some of the honor over everything types. It was also a reference to the other thread about two men joining together to beat up a woman.
Moral disagreements tend to be people who justify something wrong because it served in their benefit or the benefit of others. Wrong is wrong, regardless of who it helps.
Have you never met someone who thought that someone else’s mistake is your gain. Yeah sure if you worked at walmart you would know money out of your register can cost you, but if you have never worked there you could think, cool I got free stuff. After all, if no one was hurt how is it wrong?
And how do we figure out who are the people actually following what is truly right and who is just justifying something wrong if there is wide-spread disagreement among people?