Gripla - 20.12.2009, Qupperneq 250

GRIPLA250
where public pressure was applied. In Iceland’s single ‘great village’ envi­
ronment goðar found honour in containing disruptive behaviour. Leaders
gained prestige and standing by publicly playing the role of men of mod­
eration (hófsmenn) and goodwill (góðviljamenn).”30 Honour in saga litera­
ture, it seems, is as much tied to co­operative virtues as to competitive
ones, or so I would suggest, just as in the Homeric poems.
MacIntyre’s thesis in particular emphasises what Bernard Williams has
termed the moral thickness of a culture dominated by the institutionalisa­
tion of honour, its unreflective character, where questions of value are
questions of fact. the idea of ‘thick moral concepts’ is useful. In short,
thick moral concepts unite fact and value: “We can say … that the applica­
tion of these concepts is at the same time world-guided and action-
guiding.”31 Examples of such concepts would be coward, lie, brutality,
gratitude. Hume is one of many philosophers who have been quoted in this
connection. He discusses words “whose very names force an avowal of
their merit, there are many others, to which the most determined scepti­
cism cannot for a moment refuse the tribute of praise and approbation.”32
the sagas, I submit, frequently introduce persons by descriptions that use
precisely such thick terms and therefore forestall the possibility of misun­
derstanding the person’s character; by a few strokes the authors make clear
as a matter of fact the virtues or vices of the players.
this use of thick terms characterises traditional and homogeneous soci­
eties, Williams suggests, that are not particularly given to ethical reflec­
tion.33 They are the offspring of moralities without second order ethical
theory. thin moral concepts, in contrast, like right, just, and good, are held
to characterise reflective moralities, moral communities that have evolved
an ethical theory in the sense that they have a second order ethics on the
30 Ibid., 79. But then Byock says again (208): “The taking of vengeance was understood as
action that satisfied honour … The exchanges … were rooted in competition.” The emphasis
is also explicit in Helgi Þorláksson, “vitrir menn og vel metnir,” Sæmdarmenn, ed. by Helgi
Þorláksson et al. (Reykjavík: Hugvísindastofnun Háskóla íslands, 2001), 20–21.
31 Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard uni­
versity Press, 1985), 141, cf. 140–45. See also the lucid and critical exegesis of Mark P.
jenkins, Bernard Williams (Chesham: Acumen, 2006), 133–40. He traces the ancestry of
the idea to the “thick description” of anthropologist Clifford Geertz (in The Interpretation
of Cultures (1973)), who in turn claims indebtedness to philosopher Gilbert Ryle.
32 An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals vI.1 ad fin.
33 See Williams, Limits, 148.