Sears: [00:00:00] This is Radio Stockdale. I'm Michael Sears at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. We're talking honor with Captain Roger Herbert, United States Navy Retired. We're going to jump into the point of this discussion right now, and that is ethics and honor. You and I have been talking about this for quite some time and I'm probably confused. I think ethics is, is my ability to be a moral, just person knowing the difference between right and wrong. And I'm confused what honor is. Let's talk about that a little bit.

Herbert: [00:00:45] Sure. I mean, so they're all really related in their in their important and that it's good to be able to think of them together. So I mean, I guess we'll start with ethics and what we mean by that. I mean, I think this is a branch of philosophy to start with, and it's the study of right and wrong. Good and bad. Fair and unfair. Just unjust. And ethics, I think the way that you're using it is correct, and it's also refers to a person's person set of moral principles.

Sears: [00:01:21] So it's not just a course of studies. I can be an ethical person.

Herbert: [00:01:26] Yeah. And so if ethics is the study of right and wrong and ethical person is essentially that person who behaves rightly, justly, fairly. But but to whose standard are we talking about? You know, I might believe I'm an ethical person.

Sears: [00:01:46] But that's what I believe. What about the community? What about the.

Herbert: [00:01:51] Well, so this is, I think, where we get into honor. And so yes, a person can be ethical, can be moral by themselves, and it depends on the moral framework that they, that they embrace. Honor is different. So honor is a disposition. It's a disposition to act in accordance with the moral principles of the community. So from that perspective, you can't be honorable by yourself. Yeah. So you can't you can't be honorable by yourself. You are only honorable in community.

Sears: [00:02:30] Ok, so in the naval tradition, you render honors. That's the community. That's the ship, right? Honoring someone.

Herbert: [00:02:40] It is, and and it's interesting you say that because honor is a it's both a noun and it's a verb. So you are honored by. So when the community recognizes that your values are consistent with theirs and you're acting in consistent with those values, the values of the community, they honor you.

Sears: [00:03:00] So I can be unethical. But if I'm with a community that values immorality in the sense I can be honored, I could be I could have a high position, I could be respected. I can be honored by that group. The group might be a little bit sketchy. But I can still be honorable right.

Herbert: [00:03:23] So I actually think that's true. So some people will say that honor is is when you are reflecting the values of a noble community or a good community, but I don't think that good or noble needs to be a part of that. Yes, I think there's honor among thieves and I think that I think that you can be a person of integrity and find yourself and a person that you consider, I am an ethical person and find yourself in a community that is, that does not reflect your values. And yet, if you are behaving in accordance, if your behavior is in accordance with what they think is a person of principle should behave as then they will honor you. And I suppose you are, you are technically honorable. So that kind of goes to better pick your communities well.

Sears: [00:04:16] Yeah, good point. Good point. Now you brought in a new word, though, integrity. What where does that fit among ethics and honor? Is it just a different way of seeing one or the other?

Herbert: [00:04:26] Not really, so. Whereas honor, you honor you can't do by yourself, honor you need to be in a community. Integrity is something that is very personal. I think it's worth thinking about where that word comes from. It comes from from the Latin integrare, which is to make whole. So that means that there's that suggests there's parts. In this case, the parts are my my values and my actions.

Herbert: [00:05:01] So my moral principles in my action and I am a person of integrity when when my personal values are in alignment with my actions. And when that when that doesn't happen, when I act in a way that I don't think reflects my personal values, then then I look in the mirror. Or maybe I have my friends who say, Dude, what was that about? And I will suffer something called cognitive dissonance. Just something's going to. It doesn't feel right, and I'm going to somehow make myself whole again by bringing my actions in line with my values. A philosopher who's here who works often works with Stockdale Center. David Luban wrote this great piece on integrity, and one of his comments is whenever we act inconsistent with our values, we're going to do one of two things either we're going to do the good, hard work to bring them back in line. He calls that the high road. Maybe we apologize to people. Whatever it takes and these things can be really hard or just even admit it to ourselves or if we take the low road. And in fact, Professor Luban says that it's often more it's more often the low road where we, instead of raising our actions next time to match our values, we kind of lower our values now to match our actions. So that's so that is integrity.

Sears: [00:06:39] So, so let me let me let me ask you this. So I have my own personal ethics that is based on, who I am, my tradition, what I want to be, who I want to think of myself,

Herbert: [00:06:55] How you were raised, your family, your friends. This is where those values come from. Ok, so so what your sense of right and wrong comes from?

Sears: [00:07:04] All right, that's good. So I can, I know what's right and wrong? That's ethics. How I display or operate in the world talks to my sense of integrity or my ability to be an integral person, a whole person, a whole person, yeah. And based on that, depending on the community I choose to associate with, I mean, I can be a high moral, ethical person, but I for some reason join the mob and they're not going to think I'm an honorable guy. They won't like those values, right?

Herbert: [00:07:43] That's correct. They're not going to like those values. What they're going to be looking at is your actions. And if you are acting in a way that they say that's honorable, then that's awesome. So I mean, then then they would from their perspective, you are an honorable person. The problem is you're not acting in accordance with your personal values. I mean, and that can really happen. You could find yourself in a position where you value A and you're in a community that that values B and you really want to be in that community.

Herbert: [00:08:17] So you start becoming B, you start acting B in that community might praise you, but it's not you. You're not a whole person. So either you got to get out of that community and find a community that values your values or slowly you're going to become that other person. You're going to become that person with those lower standards.

Sears: [00:08:36] And that's going to be that dissonance you and David are talking about and that's going to be a tough thing. You're going to have to fight yourself to be this new person if you truly aren't that person. Yeah.

Herbert: [00:08:45] Honestly, though, that's going to be degrading yourself, degrading your own values to match those of the community. That might be the easier part. You're going to, you're going to feel that dissonance. You're going to feel like it's not me. That's not me. But slowly but surely, that's going to become you unless you get out of that community.

Sears: [00:09:03] Roger, I appreciate the time we spent today. Thanks a lot.

Herbert: [00:09:06] Absolutely. It was great, it was fun Michael.

Sears: [00:09:14] You've been listening to Radio Stockdale, a series of podcasts produced by the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the United States Naval Academy. You can hear more podcasts at stockdalecenter.com\podcasts.