Abstracts
Shulamit Almog & Alexander Feldman, Posing Somdomite” [sic.]: Dignity, Defamation and the Regulation of (homo)Sexual Identity
The affront to Oscar Wilde’s dignity, caused by the Marquess of Queensberry’s malicious visiting card, inscribed with the words, “To Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite [sic.]”, provoked its recipient to pursue an action for criminal libel that remains one of the most notoriously ill-judged litigations of British legal history. Given the disastrous effects of the libel suit, the testimony of which became the basis for criminal proceedings, in which the Crown prosecuted Wilde for acts of “gross indecency”, it is particularly striking that the allegedly defamatory message does not accuse Wilde of committing acts of sodomy, but rather of posing as one who might. Taking this landmark case as our starting point, we will complicate the conventional “legal performance” paradigm, which treats the courtroom as theatre, the trial as play, with a more nuanced reading of the role of law, not merely in staging dramatic spectacle, but in adjudicating socio-cultural performance, with respect to non-normative sexuality. Precisely a century after the Wilde trials, a defamation judgment was given in favour of the claimant Shimon Amsalem, who was awarded NIS 150, 000 in damages. Amsalem, an Israeli basketball player, whose tactic of placing his body in frequent and direct contact with his opponents, had earned the nickname “Homo”, which led to the publication of a defamatory article in a Tel Aviv newspaper. As in Wilde’s case, the court was called upon to uphold Amsalem’s dignity, to defend his reputation, and his masculinity, against the dishonourable slurs of homosexuality, generated by (mis)interpretations of his public performance. His legal victory demonstrated that, in the mid-90s, in spite of advances in gay rights, the shift in cultural sensibility with respect to non-normative sexualities remained incomplete; homosexuality remained incompatible with dignity in the eyes of the law. Finally, fifteen years into the new millennium, we turn to the Supreme Court of the United States and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Confronted by the claim that the non-recognition of the plaintiffs’ gay marriages, outside the states in which they had been solemnised, constituted an infringement of their dignity, the court endorsed the recognition of their marriages, across state lines. Reading Obergefell v. Hodges in light of Lawrence v. Texas we observe that in spite of its apparent progressiveness, the law’s insistence upon marriage as the basis of gay dignity – a performance reflecting conformity and the acceptance of hegemonic rituals – subordinates the realities of gay experience to a limited and conservative conception of sexual-social normativity. In endorsing this particular, narrowly prescribed notion of homosexual identity as the basis of gay, legal legitimacy, the court displays the traces of a pervasive legal tendency to repudiate, encroach upon or devalue various other forms of human dignity associated with non-normative sexualities.
Omer Aloni, Games of Honor: Reflections of Orientalist Perspectives in Early Israeli Law
The legal text, written by the court, is a significant part of the judicial product; its importance may even surpass that of both the court’s ruling and its verdict. My research demonstrates how socio-cultural processes operate reciprocally with the law, thereby impacting and shaping the legal text and legal outcomes.
I focus on the role played by certain social sectors in early Israeli society, particularly the new Jewish immigrants from North-Africa and Middle Eastern countries, and the indigenous Arabs who had been under the new Israeli legal system since 1948. I suggest a new historical-legal approach with which to interpret the court’s representations of both Jewish and Arab with Eastern ethnic background, as I tackle with the relevance of Saidian theories to these discussions.
The paper suggests a new revision of different verdicts that attributed certain pack of psycho-sociological qualities to Eastern persons (Arabs and Jews alike) such as fury, emotionality, irrationality, provocations, and blood passion; as I look closely into the place and relevance the court ascribes to the virtue of honor in cases which involve Eastern accused, and them alone.
Aharon Barak, Human Dignity as a Constitutional Value and a Constitutional Right
Dov Cohen, Cultural syndromes: Honor, face, and dignity
This talk will contrast honor with other cultural syndromes, such as face and dignity. Part of the talk will also focus on why honor norms persist, often outliving the circumstances that gave rise to them.
Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Blasphemy in 19th Century: A Millian Perspective (In Memory of Jack Pole)
The political culture of 19th Century England was different from present day England in some crucial respects relevant to our discussion. First, equality before the law left much to be desired. There was one law for the poor, another for the rich. Second, more than 25% of the population was living at or below subsistence level. Robert Owen (1816) wrote that the poor and working classes of Great Britain and Ireland exceeded fifteen millions of persons, or nearly three-fourths of the population of the British Islands. Third, during the early decades of the century daily newspapers were mostly sold for seven pence or more, a prohibitive price well beyond the ability of the poor. Fourth, the level of illiteracy was significantly high: 47% in 1820 and 24% in 1870 (compared to 1% in 2003). Fifth, freedoms of belief, of expression and of publication were qualified. Sixth, the scope of tolerance was limited especially on matters of religion. People who denounced Christianity could have expected jail sentence. Radical journalists like Richard Carlile were prosecuted and imprisoned for publishing blasphemous newspapers and for reprinting Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason.
This paper discusses the period in which JS Mill wrote. Tagging unpopular views as “blasphemous” amounted to abuse of governmental powers and infringes the basic liberties of the unfavorable speakers. The discussion revolves around the concept of blasphemy which Mill considered to be highly problematic. Subsequently in Section II I present the Millian principles that are pertinent to his philosophy on free speech: liberty and truth.
Stephen Darwall , Orders of Dominance, Honor, and Accountability
Three fundamentally different kinds of human orders (hierarchies of dominance and honor, and orders of mutual accountability) are structured by different kinds of respect (dominance respect (submission), honor respect (deference), and second-personal respect (holding oneself accountable). I explore the difference between these relations of power, status, and authority.
Joseph David, Human dignity and Religious Freedom
Various international and constitutional documents embrace the idea according to which Human Dignity is an ontological foundation all human rights, i.e. the legal and political proclaims of rights derive from the ‘inherent dignity of the human person’ (e.g. ICESCR, ICCPR and CAT). In my proposed paper I wish to question this idea and distinguish between two meanings of the concept of Human Dignity based on two distinct origins and justifications. The conceptual phenomenology of Human Dignity as a supreme value will lead to investigate the possibility of basing the right of Religious Freedom on the concept of Human Dignity. Upon that I will offer a critical reading of the famous address of Rev. Rowan Williams on the connection between Human Dignity and Freedom of Religion (‘Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective’, 2008).
Antony Duff, Sandra Marshall, Punishment with Honour?
The paper will address the question of whether and how criminal punishment can treat those who are punished with the dignity and respect that is owed to all citizens.
Richard F. Hamm, Honor in the Post-Civil War American South: cultural holdover or useful adaptation
As the American South underwent significant political and legal changes during Reconstruction, white men continued to adhere to the code of honor that had prevailed before the war. Their reasons for doing so were more rooted in the utility of honor in forming a regional (and race specific) identity than in just clinging to the old mores.
Khalid Ghanayim, Different aspects of Dignity and Honour
The meaning of Human Dignity, Moral Honour, Social Honour The Inner Honour (Sense of Honour) and the Real Honour
Tamar Gidron, Group Defamation
Ann Goldberg, Honor, Political Culture, and Hate Speech Law in West Germany
The paper examines the interaction between honor ideas and the development of hate speech law in West Germany after 1945. Contrary to standard human rights law that was being implemented in the U.N. and elsewhere, West Germany’s Jewish leadership in the 1950s strongly opposed legislation that would have banned hate speech based on a person’s membership in a “racial, national, or religious” group. Instead, it demanded strenghtened defamation laws against antisemites. My paper analyzes the thinking of the Jewish leadership, which stamped the Federal Republic’s hate speech law for 50 years, in terms of a distinctive German political culture of honor and the historical struggles of German Jews as a minority seeking to balance a particularist group identity with the universalistic claims of equal citizenship in the nation state.
Miri Gur-Arye, Human Dignity of Offender
The discussion of human dignity in the context of criminal law focuses mainly on either the criminal proceedings or the formal requirement of the rule of law. The discussion of whether ssubstantive criminal law infringes upon human dignity of offender has not attracted much discussiion in both theory and practice. The paper will focus on human dignity of offenders and will analyze in depth various context of substantive criminal law in which the dignity of offenders is infringed. The paper will further examine the different meaning of human dignity in the various context of substantive criminal law when it is infringed
Badi Hasisi, Deborah Bernstein, Family Honor Killing – sexuality, disobedience and the interplay between them. Challenging and consolidating patriarchal control
We intend in this paper to discuss the concept of Family Honor Killing, as used regarding women who were perceived to have broken honor codes, in the Palestinian society during the British mandate rule. The accepted understanding of such codes with regard to women’s behavior focuses on women’s sexuality and their required adherence to strict patriarchal codes of morality. In this paper we shall examine the use of the discourse of ‘Family Honor’ in court cases heard before the Court of Criminal Assize and the Supreme Court of Criminal Appeal of the Government of Palestine. All of these cases deal with the murder of women by their husband and/or agnate relative. We shall focus on the minutes of both instances as well as statements and documents related to the court case. We shall argue that the cases which were considered by the accused, the witnesses, the defense attorney and the court to be homicide in vindication of the breach of family honor, in practice reveal far more complex patterns. We shall demonstrate, using some of our court cases, that at least three patterns can be identified: 1. In which the victim broke codes of morality and sexuality. 2. In which sexuality/morality was only one aspect of the case, in which material-economic factors were also relevant even if partially concealed. 3. In which the conflict was an economic-material one in which the discourse of morality was used as a cover up. Thus we shall argue that in some cases the discourse of ‘women’s immorality’ as a normative justification for their murder, was in fact a means to ‘flatten out’ far more complex relations taking advantage of existing normative discourse, which could be expected to win some sympathy of the court and/or the High Commissioner.
Tatjana Hörnle, Honor killings – reactions in German criminal law
Under German criminal law, honor killings are classified as murder – if the courts categorize such motives as particularly reprehensible. Otherwise, honor killing will be treated as homicide and punished less severely. I will describe court practices and discuss the relevant questions concerning wrongdoing and culpability.
Orit Kamir, Contemporary Escape from Dignity to Honor
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which determines in its first article that “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This was a global commitment to establish a new world order; to embrace a normative code of conduct based on human dignity and name it fundamental universal human rights. Since 1948, constitutions and international treaties have adopted human dignity as an underlying value, attempting to derive and elaborate concrete, operable social mechanism that cherish and protect human rights. In the last decade even US academic and legal discourses finally joined this trend, giving rise to manifold English publications on dignity. Yet fierce backlash – both in academic discourse and in the “real world” – is evident. Much critical scholarly work dismisses or rejects human dignity as the possible foundation of informal social institutions. More importantly, social trends indicate and manifest denunciation of the ethos of human dignity and the social structure it purports to support.
Escape from dignity is the gradual – yet noticeably growing – abandonment of the declared commitment to human dignity and the right-based social order it implies. This frequently infers flight to alternative social orders and their deep-seated informal institutions, which are often based on a dramatically different, more traditional fundamental value: honor. Whereas human dignity entails axiomatic, innate equal worth of every human individual per se, honor mentality typically involves fierce zero-sum competition for relative, hierarchical worth in a tightly structured pecking order. To be acknowledged, such worth must be enshrined in public recognition and bestowment of comparative status, standing, prestige.
For anyone who shares and cherishes the Universal Declaration’s commitment to the dignity-based culture of human rights, escape from dignity to honor must be a worrisome call for analysis and action. Conceptualization of what causes this escape, how and why this is happening and how it may be addressed, requires deep, comparative study of both dignity and honor as well as the related, adjacent basic values “glory” and “respect” (“glory” derives human worth from Man’s divine image; “respect”- from unique personal attributes). This entails unconventional multi-disciplinary analysis, involving philosophy, law, anthropology, sociology, theology, history and political science. Only a multi-disciplinary analysis can help us trace the weakness of dignity-based human rights culture, which may be triggering the universal return to honor-based social orders.
M. Lindsay Kaplan, Defamation and Gender in Shakespeare and the Culture of Early Modern England
The considerable rise in slander litigation in the 16th century corresponds to a period of significant and rapid social mobility (Stone 22). Attendant on this phenomenon is the “cult of reputation”, an insistence on the overriding importance of honor (Stone 25). J.A. Sharpe asserts that “considerations of honour, good name, and reputation were of central importance”, and appear to run “from the top to very near the bottom of English society in this period” (1, 3). The desire to preserve reputation in early modern England positioned defamation as a central consideration of the period. However, reputation was defined and understood in different ways depending on one’s gender. Women’s “honesty” was constructed in terms of their sexual behavior, while male reputation was constituted across a wider spectrum of expectations, including sexual continence (Amussen 104). Sexual slander, while perceived as a problem by its victims, can nevertheless be understood as performing a valuable patriarchal function: the threat of public humiliation or disciplinary prosecution served as a deterrent against sexual misbehavior (Ingram 305-7, 311-13). However, since a husband’s reputation depends in part on his wife’s chastity, he could also be damaged by sexual slanders against her. Thus, while sexual slander may circumscribe a woman’s sexual behavior, it may also threaten the family name and even the public order. Shakespeare’s plays emphasize this capacity to damage both families and realms, despite the fact that sexual slander was popularly perceived in the early modern period as a private wrong without temporal consequences. He repeatedly interrogates patriarchy’s need to control female sexuality, exposing the anxiety motivating this concern as contributing to the defamation of innocent women through the imputation of sexual crimes. Sexual slander has, sometimes only potentially, fatal consequences, not only for the falsely accused women, but also for males who spread and heed these imputations. Othello most vividly depicts the tragedy, marital and political, that results from Othello’s belief in Iago’s defamation of Desdemona. The Winter’s Tale and Merry Wives of Windsor present sexual slander as a product of the husbands’ own jealous construction; Leontes and Ford imagine adulterous liaisons between their wives and others. Leontes’ delusions have devastating personal and political consequences: the death of his male heir and the loss of his wife and remaining heir for sixteen years. In crediting or fomenting slanders against innocent women, these men ultimately damage their own reputations. Thus the plays suggest that, rather than functioning as a tool to preserve male honor by controlling female behavior, sexual slander of women ultimately serves to dishonor men.
Eyal Katvan & Boaz Shnoor, “But your Honor, he started”: Honor and the Regulation of Emotions in Informal Courts in Mandatory Palestine
Palestine under the British Mandate was a society undergoing rapid changes. In the developing Jewish YISHUV, communal courts, such as The Histadrut (the Jewish working class organization) Comrades’ Court, dealt with honor cases (libel, defamation and insult). A high percentage of the Comrade’s Court cases (apx. 30%), involved violence. Another prevalent aspect of these cases was the cultural and social differences between the parties. These characteristics led the court to assume a healing and educative approach to honor disputes, focused on bridging the gap between the parties and educating them to control their feelings: in order to avoid violence and escalation, and as part of a nation-building process. The Comrades’ Court showed sensitivity to provocation as a defense claim, and regarded apology as an important part of the process.
Rinat Kitai-Sangero, The Concept of Honor in Shakespeare’s Roman Plays
In the Sixteenth-century the concept of honor loses its meaning, which identifies honor with strict maintenance of virtue, and begins to be associated with the name and public image of the person. In Shakespeare’s Roman plays, based on the historian and biographer Plutarch’s book Parallel Lives: Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, the concept of honor occupies a central place. These plays reflect the tension imbedded in the concept of honor and show that the concept of honor is absent any meaning without resting it on worthy acts or good intentions. The pursuit of honor for its own sake leads to tragic results. Roman values, which are place-dependentless, such as courage and integrity, are the causes for imparting dignity. At the same time, these plays demonstrate that one’s honor is dependent on his or her remembrance by others and that without connection to others the concept of honor is meaningless.
Roy Marom, Well Earned Respect: Strongmen [Zuʿama] Ethics in Mandatory Palestine
During the British Mandate period in Palestine, local Palestinian communities experienced rapid social transformations through their interaction with British Colonial Authorities and Zionist Immigrants. The British Mandate ushered substantial demographic growth, the broadening of education, economic and political modernization, alterations in the systems of Law and their enforcement, and the uprooting of nomads and villagers in search for subsidence. The Sharon region in the central part of Palestine’s coastal plain was in the foregrounds for these changes. The varying economic, social and political circumstances gave rise to a new group of local Strongman [Zuʿama, singular Zaʿim], an informal leadership that vied fiercely for influence and resources both with existing elites and within itself. The established Ottoman Notable elites had to adapt and take advantage of new social and political opportunities in order to retain part of their influence. Both groups, and their clients, operated within a well-defined system of etiquette, with related multifaceted semantic conceptualizations of respect, dignity and honor. It is possible to perceive the actions of the Zuʿama and Notables as a pursuit of honor (Karama), which equates with Bourdieu’s Status (ʿIrd). Status is socially reflected in displays of respect and disrespect between opposing parties of different standing. In this context, one may speak about Strongman Ethics, as a hybrid product of differing traditional and modern conceptions of status. In my lecture, I will endeavor to explore the shifting conceptions in those systems of meaning and practice. My presentation is based on a wide range of newly discovered archival documents, and on ethnographic fieldwork in the remaining Arab villages of the region.
Menachem Mautner, Respect as a Norm of Avoidance and as a Norm of State Activism
Respect usually means accepting a person as she is, with her subjective autonomous life choices and tastes. This is respect as a norm of avoidance. I shall argue for a second meaning of respect: respect as a norm of state activism. According to this meaning of respect, we respect a person if we take seriously her human capabilties and potentialities, and create the background conditions that allow her the utmost utilization of her capabilities. This meaning of respect is associated with Mill’s notion of individuality, and with the thought of such thinkers as T.H. Green, John Dewey and C.B. Macpherson.
Alastair Mullis, Honour in the modern law of defamation
Notions of honour have informed the law of defamation for several centuries. Indeed, at one time the protection of honour was probably the informing principle that justified the existence of the tort. More recently, the role of honour has been replaced by notions of dignity, sociality and psychological integrity. This paper explores the question how the law of defamation understood honour, considers why honour no longer seems to resonate as a basis for protecting reputation and considers whether, and if so how, the concept might be resurrected as a sound basis for the protection of reputation in the modern world.
Gil Murciano, The “bright side” of honor: The influence of “constructive honor” on the Egypt-Israel peace negotiations
The concept of honor and honor-affiliated terms such as prestige and humiliation are often mentioned by international relations scholars, yet little attention has been devoted to honor as a distinct variable affecting the strategic conduct of states. Moreover, existing literature emphasizes honor’s role as a catalyst of escalation, invariably linked with the stimulation of conflictual behaviour. By analysing three different phases of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace negotiations (1977-1978), this paper demonstrates that honor can also precipitate constructive international behavior and play a formative role in conciliatory inter-state interactions. In this context, each one of the negotiations phases emphasizes a different constructive role honor preformed: first honor appears as necessary incentive (poliheuristic “filter‟) for conciliatory policy change, then as discursive platform for initial interaction (“shared space of honor discourse”), and then as a maintenance factor preserving the commitment of the two sides to the process while sanctioning unilateral escalatory actions. Furthermore, honor considerations encouraged both sides’ to take accommodative actions, which contradicted pre-defined national interests, for the benefit of conciliation. Thus this effect demonstrates that the recognized influence of honor in challenging political status-quo is not limited to prompting escalation but also enables honor to function as a stalemate-breaking factor.
Meytal Nasie, The Role of Respect and Disrespect in Conflicts: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Respect represents an essential component in human relationships – among individuals, groups and nations. Therefore, its presence or absence may have a significant influence in shaping the character of all relationship interactions. The key aim of this study is to investigate the role of respect and disrespect in relationships (interpersonal and intergroup), particularly focusing on relationship between nations in intractable conflicts. Using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study, this research explores the trajectories, variations, and impact of respect and disrespect on potential conflict moderation and escalation. Conflict defined through hatred, lack of trust, and violence, can be also characterized by reciprocal manifestations of disrespect, and does not provide space for gestures of respect. Notwithstanding the importance of respect in the dynamics of intergroup relations, particularly those involved in intractable conflict, the existing literature provides only limited insights on intergroup respect, and it is mostly theoretical.
The present research is based on the lay theories approach (bottom-up approach), with the aim to examine societal perceptions and knowledge about the concepts of respect and disrespect. Exploring lay knowledge is important as people’s views about social concepts play a crucial role in shaping their behavior as individuals or groups in their social environment. Specifically, the research methodology for this study is based on a constructivist naturalist qualitative method of in-depth semi-structured interviews that enable a detailed examination of complex social concepts such as respect and disrespect, and allow better understanding of social behavior that is based on these concepts; providing insights into the inclusive repertoire of respect and disrespect (motivations, thoughts, emotions, behavioral intentions and behavior in practice). More specifically, the study sampled a total of 60 participants – 30 Jewish-Israelis and 30 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to present the points of view of both sides in the conflict. This selection allows examining cultural differences in perceptions about respect and disrespect in general, as well as investigating whether similarities or differences exist between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians with regard to their perceptions about respect and disrespect, in the broader context of the conflict. In my talk I will present selected findings, among them the perceived manifestations of disrespect and respect by both sides in the conflict and their socio-psychological processes. I will also propose potential implications and conclusions regarding conflict escalation and moderation.
Meron Piotrkowski, A Case of Hybris/Dishonor in the Jewish Politeuma of Heracleopolis
In the framework of the discussion of various understandings of honor, I shall present a case from antiquity; to be more precise, from Hellenistic/Ptolemaic Egypt (135 BCE). This particular case, which is preserved on a papyrus, is a complaint filed by a Jew called Andronicos against a (presumably) non-Jew called Nikarchos. The latter insulted Andronicos in public in the harbor of Heracleopolis. The decision of the judges, unfortunately, has not come down to us, but several aspects of the case are of interest, chief among them the fact that trials concerning “honor” were already an issue in antiquity.
Amihai Radzyner, Pride and Prejudice: Breach of Promise, Shiduchin and Honor: Between Jewish and Israeli Law
An examination of old and modern halakhic sources attitude about violation of Shiduchin contract (or a breach of a promise to marry as it is called in other legal systems), finds not just some fundamental changes in relation to the breach itself and to its sanctions or compensation, but also changes in relation to the weight of the psychological damage to the dignity of a victim of that breach. The lecture will try to deal with some points on this issue in its various phases, from Talmudic law through the middle Ages, but the main focus will be on the last two centuries, toward the State of Israel. There is no doubt that the halakhic sources can teach a lot about the personal and social consciousness of both the Posek (decisor) and the members of a given community at a given time, and on the question how the insult in the dignity should be considered when discussing claims of this type.
Yair Seltenreich, Personal honor and mobilized society in Eretz-Israel of the late 1930s
Mobilized society existed in Hebrew society in Palestine during mandate period. Mobilized society exists when a common goal, either social or national, is shared by masses which contribute with genuine involvement for its achievement. Hebrew mobilized society bore many features such as modules of mobilization (settlement or participation in non-legal undergrounds), varying level of emotional involvement or different ideological interpretations. Yet all those aspects reflected complex attitudes of individuals towards other individuals in the mobilized society or towards that society in its entirety, such as lack of devotion of other members, feeling of alienation or else insufficiency of emotional recompenses. The paper will show how such feelings were translated into terms of honor. It will be based on three test-cases of personal diaries, all from late 1930s. (a) Yosef Nachmani, a land purchaser for Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee, considered Jewish mandatory administrators. (b) Dora Bader, a kibbutz member, revealed her feelings towards other kibbutz members. (c) A teacher in lucrative Reali high school his Haifa reflected about his colleagues.
Yoram Shachar, The Right to Dignity in the Israel Declaration of Independence
Daniel Statman, When should honor be protected? From intent to humiliate to hurting feelings
In a paper I published about twenty years ago, I argued that feelings merit protection only if the emotional pain is justified, namely, only if it based on the frustration of justified expectations. A few years later I published a paper on dignity where I argued that the wrongness of humiliation is direct, so to say; that it does not rely on the justification or the reasonableness of this emotion. The purpose of the proposed lecture is to discuss whether these two claims (or two papers) are compatible. This goes to the heart of the philosophical question concerning the ground for the wrongness of violating the dignity of human beings.
Frank H. Stewart, What is a code of honor?
In my book “Honor” (1994) I characterized a code of honor as a defining feature of personal honor, and stipulated that the price of breaking the rules in the code of honor is loss of honor. In this paper I shall discuss some problems with this approach, and will suggest a more refined version of the concept of a code of honor.
Steven Wilf, Virtual Honor: Artist Dignity in an Electronic Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Virtual Honor: Artist Dignity in an Electronic Age of Mechanical Reproduction (co-author: Professor Peter Siegelman) The United States Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) affords attribution and integrity rights to artists in visual art regardless of the tangible work’s ownership. The rationale for this and similar moral rights (droits moraux) are often rooted in notions of artistic honor. This paper will map intellectual property moral rights within the ambit of other dignitary rights. How does an honor property right differ from those grounded in tort? The United States and Europe differ in their approach to the scope of moral rights—with France, for example, including a right to remove a work (droit de retrait et de repentir) and a right to prevent the use of an artist’s visual art to the detriment of reputation (droit à s’opposer à toute atteinte préjudiciable à l’honneur et à la réputation). How do we construct a fundamental value which manifests such cultural variety? Does VARA reflect the sensibilities of artists or does it reflect a societal imposition of dignitary norms upon the artistic community? And, since the use of visual images is currently rapidly in flux, how do we make sense of VARA in an increasingly virtual iconographic landscape? Drawing upon social science research and the legal history of moral rights, Virtual Honor seeks to address the contradictions and possibilities of justifying an intellectual property honor law upon fundamental, immutable understandings of human dignity even as the social conceptions of markets, commodification, and the construction of cultural infrastructure is rapidly in flux.
Israel Yuval, Societies of Honor and Societies of Shame in Medieval European Jewry
In two Jewish centers – Ashkenaz and Sepharad – we find different approaches to shame and honor. In the Ashkenazi ethos, shame is valued as a moral virtue, whereas in Spain and Provence honor counts as a social value. Why these differences?