What is an Honorary Degree?

A degree is like paper money, a token which allows the value of academic education to be quantified, compared, and exchanged. Bachelor originally meant one who had completed the course of the Liberal Arts. Master and Doctor mean that one is qualified to teach.

In the medieval European universities, candidates who had completed three or four years of study in the prescribed texts of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), and the quadrivium (mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music), together known as the Liberal Arts, and who had successfully passed examinations held by their masters, would be admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, from the Latin baccalaureus, a term previously usually used of a squire (i.e., apprentice) to a knight. Further study, and in particular successful participation in and then moderating of disputations would earn one the Master of Arts degree, from the Latin magister, teacher, entitling one to teach these subjects. [....] Today the terms "master", "doctor" (from the Latin - meaning literally: "teacher") and "professor" signify different levels of academic achievement, but in the Medieval university they were equivalent terms, the use of them in the degree name being a matter of custom at a university. " 

("Academic Degree," Wikipedia, 3/31/09)

In medieval Europe, one paid an instructor in order to learn a subject, but the university awarded degrees passed on tests and trial by disputation (a defense). In the current system, however, the student pays for a series of classes to receive a degree. Some students and teachers believe that the university is no longer responsible for evaluating the learning of the students, but only in delivering the degree that was paid for. To be fair, institutions that operate strictly according to the exchange of money are regarded as less than academic.

With this uneven summary of history, then, I wonder what is the value of an honorary degree? Is it the judgment that a person is qualified to teach a subject? No, because to some extent universities are still self-certifying and have some leeway to award a real degree to an extraordinary individual who can demonstrate knowledge and skill. In other words, if it were an expression of merit, the university could award a real degree. An honorary degree could also recognize extraordinary accomplishment of someone. More often than not, I expect that honorary degrees are simply expressions of money and power, or at least fame. 

To the extent that honorary degrees are not tied to extraordinary merit, and to the extent that they are automatically conferred on guests of a certain stature, they are inflationary. If they are inflationary, then the value of any degree is devalued. Has President Obama advanced the cause of the law as the reasonable relationship among people? Does he exemplify the ideal teacher of law at a Catholic university? No. But neither do most honorary degree recipients. Neither in fact do most recipients of bonafide degrees.  It's too late to be scandalized by this honorary degree. The true stumbling block is that few appreciate what education is, what a teacher is...