Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion

114

HOOKER, RICHARD

has become “obsolescent” (Peter Berger).
Some philosophers (e.g., Marilyn Adams),
impressed with the anthropological study
of so-called “honor cultures,” find deep
roots for thinking of honor in the Abra-
hamic sacred texts. But mostly philoso-
phers ignore the concept. This neglect
is unfortunate, especially if based on
conflating different concepts all labeled
“honor” (honor as reputation, recognition,
status, achievement, trust, commitment,
and the like); even when distinguished,
however, these concepts are peripheral to
normative work today. Rather, the central
concept of honor should be personal
honor, a Janus-concept facing both
inward (an individual’s responsibility,
rooted in character, for maintaining her
own honor) and outward (membership
in an honor group, commitment to its
publicly-shared code, and special trust in
members of the group). Personal honor
varies (in both membership and code)
from group to group, so that some
instances may be noble, others despicable.
Such honor is relative and hence not
the same as morality, though in some
instances honor is at least consistent with
morality. Arguably personal honor is
nearly ubiquitous in human societies, and
not least in our own—in the military, of
course, but also in sports, professions,
the family, politics, and elsewhere.
In religion, the concept is useful not
only for describing religious communities
and their members’ normative commit-
ments to one another and to the object of
their ultimate concerns, but perhaps also

in theocentric thinking about God’s rela-

tions to humanity. In short, although it

currently lies fallow, personal honor is a

fertile field for philosophical and theo-

logical cultivation.

HOOKER, RICHARD (1554–1600). An

important Anglican who promoted an

influential theory of natural law. Hooker’s

view that humans are naturally oriented

toward law was influential in the minds

of the founders of the American republic.

His primary work was Of the Laws of

Ecclesiastical Polity: Eight Books (1593).

HSIUNG SHILI. See XIONG SHILI.

HSUAN-TSANG. See XUANZANG.

HSUN TZU. See XUNZI.

HUAINANZI (a.k.a. HUAI-NAN TZU).

The Huainanzi is a text compiled in the

second century BCE under the patronage

of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, a member

of the imperial family. The Huainanzi is a

syncretic work, introducing Daoism and

cosmological elements into Confucian-

ism. This text is among the first to elabo-

rate a non-theistic cosmogony based on

the origin of all things through the inter-

action of heaven and earth and yin and

yang. The Huainanzi also considers the

human body a microcosm and describes

breathing techniques and physical disci-

pline to prolong life. It helped link philo-

sophical Daoism with the emerging forms

of religious Daoism.