I agree with your assessment of human nature. I do not agree with your assessment of my approval of honor, or your apparent misapprehension of what honor is.

Thanks to popular usage, and hindsight misunderstanding of the actual reasons behind the practice, we tend to think of honor in the context of "honor system" whereby people are, as you said, generally trusted to do the right thing. That's not what honor is in "primitive" cultures, and in fact, is absolutely the reverse. Honor is what people fall back on in the absence of law or reliable authority. An honor code exists among people without a higher power to enforce it. That's why it is associated with ungoverned barbarians, or aristocrats, who rule without effective superiors (a liege lord was more like an ally who called the shots for your alliance; he did not actually rule over your actions or domain). Honor was a code of expectations, on which the level at which you were trusted by society was based. It was NOT counting on people to do the right thing, it was inculcating in them a desire for society's approval by establishing the honor code as all important. Remember in the adoption ceremony in WoT, where the Wise One tells Aviendha that, in spite of Elayne's praise of her pride and independence, that she actually behaves as she does because she is completely dependent on others' opinions. Obviously, it is not a perfect system, and overall, I'd prefer a sort of government based on laws, but that's not always practicable at certain levels of societal development. Governments, law codes, and cultures of honor all eventually deteriorate or are perverted into serving those in power, and to imagine that an incorruptible system of government could be established that will allow maximum personal liberty, while affording a optimal balance of material safety and protection, is worse than naive.

My position vis a vis SoI&F is not that the honor system is acceptable and wonderful (nor do I think Martin is attacking it as such; for one thing, he is not exactly offering palatable alternatives), but that righteous, moral and honorable behavior is STILL a superior course of action than ruthless pragmatism. The cases I most often use to make this point are Mormont's & Jon's argument about Craster, and Ned's story. I do not criticize Ned for breaking the rules he breaks for their own sake, but on the basis of the principle of the rules existing for a good reason, and that breaking them is not a good idea. Ned was not brought down by his honor, but by squeamishness he mischaracterized as honor. The honorable thing to do in his shoes, was to arrest Cersei as soon as he had her confession, or as soon as he could prudently effect the arrest. It would have been to get a message to Robert post-haste about her treason, and to do the right thing, rather than the thing he felt was more comfortable. Ned offered Cersei a head start, because his memory of Robert's acceptance of the murder or Rhaegar's children, and willingness to assassinate Daenerys led him to believe Robert would serve his supposed children the same way. He did not want it to come to that, so he hoped Cersei would flee, relieving him of his problem. The honorable thing to do is punish wrong-doing, especially treason, without regard to the supposed weakness or aesthetic appeal of the perpetrator. The privileges and sacrosanctity accorded women under honor-cultures is not due to some sort of condescension, but in recognition of their personhood, in spite of the lack of physical agency that is so important in the low tech levels that develop such cultures, and in compensation for that same lack of agency. We hold doors for women as a vestigial memory of when our forebears essentially told women "Look, even though you are not as strong as us, you are still people, and you make invaluable contributions that are not always readily apparent to the simple-minded. In recognition of those factors, we will shoulder some of the burden with that coincidental greater strength." By violating the rules, Cersei had placed herself outside of such considerations. Ned's "mercy" was not honorable, it was not moral and it was not legal. And it is what started the path to his downfall. The other major mistakes were associating with a scumbag like Littlefinger, and accepting Cersei's plea bargain once he was imprisoned. While Littlefinger liked to pretend he was superior and more adept at Ned, and was keeping him alive, in truth, he was no help to Ned at all. Sure, he alerted Ned to the degree of scrutiny he was under, but that was to get Ned to use more subtle methods to investigate the murder of Jon Arryn, which we now know was none of the Lannisters' doing. Ned could have investigated Jon Arryn's death openly all he wanted, and Cersei would have known and not given two shits, since that was one of the few instances in which she was completely innocent. All Littlefinger did was help hide Ned from people who would not have cared what he was doing. Except by doing so, the Lannisters were left to wonder what he WAS up to, and be more suspicious and worried about Ned. He turned Catelyn against Tyrion, which is what precipitated the fight that resulted in Ned injuring his leg. If not for Tyrion's kidnapping, and then Petyr diverting Ned from departing the city and taking him to the brothel, Ned would have left after resigning over Daenerys' assassination, stopped at Dragonstone, got the whole story from Stannis' mouth, and set in motion a nigh-unbeatable alliance. Robb, Ned & Stannis working together is a combination of military talent that might very well have found a way to overcome the odds against them. It might certainly have given the Greyjoys some pause, and prevented the biggest blunders Stannis & Robb each made. But Ned let himself trust a guy he knew was a scumbag, because Ned hates to upset loved ones, and did not want to buck Catelyn's assessment, just like he did not want to disturb the final hours of a king who slacked off and wasted his entire reign, by moving against Cersei while he still had some strength to hand.

I am not advocating a system of trust or counting on people to do the right thing, I am saying that doing the right thing is better than the pragmatic thing, and that the book series subverts the notion of pragmatism by having the moral characters succeed or fail on their adherence to right and wrong.

When it comes to government and the ordering of society, I agree with you, with the caveat that governments are inherently untrustworthy, being made as they are of people, who can be counted on to act only in the most cravenly self-interested ways imaginable.

You claim you disagree with me on WoT stuff, but that's informed by those same philosophies. I repeatedly denounce the Tower's monopoly on channeling, for both the practical results (all innovation in the books resulting from the efforts of outsiders, or generated in a clash of channeling groups, and thus arguing against a monolithic control of the Power) and on the principle of checks and balances and separation of Power. Much of Egwene's character arc is focused on upsetting one such balance to concentrate power. Even if you like Egwene and trust her to do the right thing, can you say the same about the next Amyrlin, or the next five or ten? 'Oh, but that's not a problem now, is it? Egwene is young and she's going to be reigning for another 300 years, plenty of time to pick a good successor and dial back the power of the office.' Yeah, how'd that work out? It looks like her successor is going to be Cadsuane, who at least shows some conception through the series of the concept of when NOT to act, but how long does she have? Remember, this is the woman who has refrained from taking a Warder out of concern that she could die any day now, and take him with her. Maybe HER successor is one of those too-young Sitters who witnessed Egwene's rise, has no experience in any other power-setting other than the dichotomy of "all-powerful Hall & figurehead Amyrlin, or all-powerful Amyrlin & rubber-stamp Hall", and tries to emulate her by taking the reins of power herself, only without a looming all-or-nothing battle between good & Evil to justify such a concentration of authority. And Egwene spent most of the latter half of the series trying hard to tear down any of the roadblocks between this hypothetical successor and dictatorship of all female channelers.

From my perspective, my philosophy is all of a piece. I think what I think about government and about WoT based on the same set of values and principles.