Understanding Honour as a Moral Compass
Honour, the second perfective virtue, manifests from Reason’s divide between Spiritual and Material. It is devotion to an advantageous moral ordering, determined by culture, education, and experience. This virtue, nurtured through Love, aligns actions with deeply held values despite any external resistance. It measures the self against moral ideals, increasing order through pride in that alignment.
Honour is not passive obedience but active commitment. It loves the best within oneself and rejects that which is antithetical. In a world often obsessed with frivolities, Honour steers the virtuous towards substance, fostering Temperance as its natural successor. Temperance turns the pride back in on itself toward order, so that ‘pride in best of self’ becomes ‘pride in greater order’: pride in progress rather. This is an identification with progress rather than errors or imperfect personalities.