Honour and Ubuntu

Studying the nexus of honour and morality is worthwhile since they cover related concerns. The study of morality explores how people should live well with others, while researching honour helps to explain the actions of people. Honour is a powerful motivator that claims to represent a group's highest values. Honour is even presented as having a role in developing moral values. However, honour can also lead people to do what is wrong and morally reprehensible. In South Africa, rugby is an integral part of the historical formation of White South African culture, particularly among Afrikaners. Seeing this allows for the formulation of a new perspective on how sporting sanctions that ostracised South African Whites from Western honour society used shame to support and produce processes that led to the formal collapse of apartheid. Seeing this, instead of discarding rugby notions of honour because some of their conceptions are dehumanising, this chapter proposes a path on which people and their most dearly held values and cultural heritages can be reconciled.