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the second thesis, evidently related to the first, tended to reduce moral
features, in particular those evident in the Homeric poems, or at least
(more generously) to explain aspects of them as social functions. the the­
sis has become well known through its appearance in Alasdair MacIntyre’s
After Virtue (1981). As did the advocates of the shame­guilt antithesis,
MacIntyre made much use of the influential description of Homeric soci­
ety found in Moses finley’s The World of Odysseus (1954). Adopting
Finley´s view of the heroic society, MacIntyre held that “morality and
social structure are in fact one and the same in heroic society. there is only
one set of social bonds. Morality as something distinct does not yet exist.
evaluative questions are questions of social fact.”5 He also generalised:
“What finley says of Homeric society is equally true of heroic society in
Iceland or in Ireland.”6 In fact, the Icelandic sagas are analogous to the
Homeric poems in MacIntyre’s view, forming as they did (or so he main­
tains) “a moral background to contemporary debate in classical societies,”7
which includes the world of Attic tragedy and philosophy of the Classical
age. It is significant, I believe, that he does not explain what is analogous to
that debate in the case of Iceland.8
The third thesis emerged forcefully in 1993 with the appearance of two
studies that undermined reasons for believing in the usefulness of the
shame­guilt distinction and the soundness of MacIntyre’s picture of the
moral landscape of shame-cultures, or at least the inferences he drew.
These studies were Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in
Ancient Greek Literature by Douglas Cairns, and Shame and Necessity by
Bernard Williams. Although no one has seriously doubted that in ancient
Greece, in particular the Homeric world, honour and shame were empha­
sised to such an extent that these concepts played a major role in the moral
5 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 20073
[1981]), 123.
6 Ibid., 122. He emphasises the roles of honour and shame (125).
7 Ibid., 121.
8 for more on the heroic elements common to the Homeric poems and the sagas, see Preben
Meulengracht Sørensen, Fortælling og ære: Studier i islændingesagaerne (Aarhus: Aarhus
universitetsforlag, 1993), 291–94. one could ask about the relation of eddic poetry to the
sagas, with regard to the heroic element. Further, one could suggest that, if Eddic poetry
provides the proper counterpart to Homeric poetry with regard to the heroic element, are
the sagas not better understood as the counterpart to what MacIntyre calls the “contempo­
rary debate in classical societies”. (Ibid., 121).
HonouR AnD SHAMe