One might think that Meier’s study of honour has been rather practical, since he has already given, for instance, good practices on how to gain honour. Yet, Meier refers by the epithet practical not to tips for good practices, but to questions of what one should do. In other words, it is only when we ask whether honour is worth seeking that we are doing practical philosophy.
On Meier’s terms, the question appears to have a rather easy answer. Honour has already been defined through various perfections: the person honoured must have true perfections, and the person honouring should have a clear, correct, certain and vivid understanding of these perfections. Meier admits that like all things human, honour must already imply some imperfections, but as these are due to human nature and not to anything essential to honour itself, these imperfections do not matter: otherwise, all science would be imperfect. Thus, as an effect of various perfections, honour itself must be a perfection.
Meier argues for the perfection of honour from another angle, also. Just like good causes prove the perfection of honour, so do its good consequences. Honour gives the honoured person the power to motivate others and thus endows them with a capacity to benefit humankind by making countless other people more perfect. Honour also benefits the honoured person, because it motivates everyone honouring to serve them, because those honouring love those honoured. Finally, honour makes honoured persons satisfied in a manner reminiscent of the satisfaction of God.
Previous arguments concern only the honour in this life, but Meier thinks that honour after one’s death is also valuable, since it is essentially similar honour as that before one’s death. Honour after one’s death indeed greatly expands the merits of a person, because it enables them to serve people even beyond their death. Furthermore, Meier thinks that happiness consists largely in hope and therefore hope of honour after death satisfies honourable persons even when they are living. Finally, Meier goes so far as to suggest that honour can give many personal advantages in the afterlife, picturing Saint Paul being served by his admirers in heaven.
Now, we could really end the text here, but Meier still has to consider all the objections against honour. With a decent ad hominem Meier suggests that many of these objections come from mean people, who despise honour, because they do not have any themselves. If we ignore this and look at the objections instead of the objectors, Meier notes that often human honour is disparaged as taking attention away from God, whose honour, on the other hand, is so great that nothing human can be compared with it. Meier notes that these are just excuses, since the honour of God and the honour of humans do not contradict one another and because humans do have their honourable perfections even if they are not as great as God’s.
Often honour is opposed with mere rhetorics, like when it is compared to a pleasant dream or mere nothingness. Meier thinks that anyone saying that honour isn’t anything real has no understanding what real means – such things are said by people thinking their own stomach is the most real thing. Then again, he adds, if you think eating, drinking and gold give you satisfaction, doesn’t honour make us more perfect than these external goods?
Meier notes that some people think honour as such is shameful and suspect people will just go on endlessly striving for more and more honour. He answers them that such supposed bad consequences of honour are actually consequences of its misuse. Indeed, he adds, all goods can be misused, even religion. Meier thinks that the drive for honour is not bad, if it stays in its proper limits. Besides, he admits all earthly goods leave humans wanting for more, even religious enjoyment, because finite can never be completely perfect.
Honour is good, Meier can then conclude, but how good is it compared to other goods? It isn’t the greatest good, Meier notes, since that place he reserves for religion. After religion, the hierarchy of goods, he says, starts with moral perfections and continues with all other perfections of higher mental capacities, including truth and science. Below these come all other mental perfections and then all other internal perfections. The lowest rung of the hierarchy of goods is reserved for all external perfections, which include also honour. Yet, Meier insists, it is on the higher scale of these external perfections, because it has the greatest good of a human being as its consequence and it makes a person more perfect than any other external good. Honour is then a true and important good, thus, Meier argues, both being ignored and being despised must be really bad. Indeed, he continues, if you are ignored, you won’t have great perfections, and if you are despised, you will have great imperfections.
The final question Meier considers here is whether apparent honouring or despising are truly good or bad. He begins by noting that both apparent honouring and apparent despising arise out of mistake or pretence. If a despicable person is honoured with pretension, Meier says, this is just ridicule and therefore no true good. Then again, if a despicable person is honoured because of a mistake, the honoured person appears to be served by this mistake, but the erroneous foundation causes more harm. If we change the despicable to an honourable person, pretentious honouring is not as great an evil, but it is still an evil, because pretentions are bad. Even less of an evil the case becomes, if the apparent honouring is based on error. Moving to apparent despise, Meier thinks that an erroneous despising of an honourable person is not as great an evil as despising someone for good reasons, but it is still an evil. Finally, pretentious despising of an honourable person is actually no real evil, but works more like a bitter medicine for avoiding hubris.
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