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OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
Respect
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
Respect
Philosophical Essays
Edited by
R IC HA R D D E A N A N D O L I V E R SE N SE N
1
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
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Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2021
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933368
ISBN 978–0–19–882493–0
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198824930.001.0001
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Contributors xi
Introduction xiii
Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen
1. Respect: A History 1
Remy Debes
I . O N W HAT R E SP E C T I S
I I . R E SP E C T I N M O R A L T H E O RY
viii Contents
I I I . A P P L IC AT IO N S O F R E SP E C T
Index 303
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dina Abou Salem for her assistance with many technical
details in the preparation of this book. Richard Dean would like to thank the
Office of the Provost and the Office of Research, Scholarship, and Creative
Activities at California State University Los Angeles for providing reduced teach-
ing hours, through a RSCA assigned time award, during part of the production of
this volume.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 31/03/21, SPi
List of Contributors
Gerald Gaus is the late James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Arizona.
Thomas E. Hill, Jr. is Emeritus Kenan Professor of Philosophy at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Serene J. Khader is Jay Newman Chair in the Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College
and Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the CUNY
Graduate Center.
Uriah Kriegel is Professor of Philosophy at Rice University and Director of Research at the
Jean Nicod Institute.
Introduction
Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen
xiv Introduction
respect is, and still less do they assume the infallibility of the views on respect of
any particular philosopher, even Kant. The discussions of respect in this book
include many diverging ideas, and significant doses of various types of skepticism.
The volume will be divided into three parts, following an introductory histori-
cal essay. The three parts are not presumed to encompass all possible areas of
interest regarding respect, but just comprise a rough grouping of essays by theme.
Part I deals roughly with the question of what respect is, its nature and its basis.
Part II deals with questions about the proper role of respect in moral theory. Does
respect serve as a unique foundation for morality or is it one moral concern
among many? What exactly ought to be respected, and which different types of
respect are appropriate and morally significant? Part III deals with more practical
issues of applying requirements of respect.
The short descriptions below capture the main issues dealt with in each chap-
ter, but of course do not lay out the authors’ arguments in detail.
Chapter 1. Remy Debes provides a historical background for the prominent
role that respect plays in current moral discussion. But, true to the spirit of this
volume as philosophical rather than encyclopedic, Debes does not just describe
texts and list dates. Instead, he raises doubts about the standard story about the
rising influence of the idea of respect for persons, that it comes mainly and
directly from Immanuel Kant. Debes offers evidence that by the time Kant’s writ-
ings gained influence in the English-speaking world, the movement toward the
importance of respect for all persons already was well underway, albeit often
using terminology other than “respect.” This movement grew partly among moral
and political philosophers, and political activists, but Debes emphasizes that it
also arose in underappreciated literary writing, often written by women and men
of color.
Chapter 2. Philip Pettit develops an account of the fundamental nature and basis
of respect. Pettit’s “conversive” theory of respect draws on the fact that our unique
command of language provides us with a “special means of mutual influence,”
making us accessible to each other’s understanding. Our conversive nature is nec-
essarily accompanied by some shared standards for what ought to count as rea-
sons for believing something, and for what one ought to desire or intend. To act
respectfully is to act from a robust commitment to treat you as a conversive part-
ner, to present you with reasons for forming beliefs and intentions, rather than
just trying to elicit these through any means that are causally effective.
Chapter 3. Gerald Gaus argues that respect for persons is not an independent
ground for requiring that social morality must be publicly justified. Instead,
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 30/03/21, SPi
Introduction xv
respect is built into the structure of social morality, because social morality
involves recognizing one another as sources of a moral summons to follow rules.
So mutual respect for persons is a social achievement, not a requirement underly-
ing morality. The authority of rules of social morality derives from this structural
nature of social morality. But because one may face a gap between one’s individual
moral reasoning and social morality, no particular rule of social morality, includ-
ing rules about whether coercion is justified, necessarily overrides one’s own
moral conclusions.
Chapter 4. Uriah Kriegel and Mark Timmons apply to the feeling of respect an
approach that has become common in understanding other mental phenomena,
such as emotions. They distinguish the functional role of respect in moral philos-
ophy (for instance, the types of treatment that respect leads to), which is described
third-personally, from the phenomenological account of what it feels like to expe-
rience respect, which is described first-personally. Since discussions of respect in
analytic philosophy have focused almost entirely on its third-person functional
role, shifting our attention to the phenomenological experience of respect may
provide valuable new insights.
Chapter 5. Oliver Sensen analyses what, more concretely, one must do to
respect someone. In order to find a universal criterion of respect, Sensen first dis-
tinguishes different usages of “respect,” such as “not using someone as a mere
means,” “gaining another’s consent.” Sensen argues that—while these usages are of
central importance in our everyday life—they are not the universal respect that
we always owe to all others. Rather, he argues, universal respect consists in not
exalting oneself above others, which itself consists in not breaking rules that we
regard as objectively necessary. The discovery of these necessary rules is largely
an empirical matter that involves universal human needs, cultural norms, and
giving others a voice in how they are treated. If one does not make an exception
to these rules, one’s behavior is respectful toward all others.
xvi Introduction
Introduction xvii
rational being with the status to demand equal respect. So arrogance and self-respect
are antithetical. In this chapter, Dillon revises her position, taking into account
differences in power in societies. For people who are oppressed, arrogance (claiming
more than society thinks is appropriate) may be compatible with, or even necessary
for, self-respect. Neither people within a society, nor we as observers, can claim
an objective perspective in adjudicating the issue of whether these claims are
warranted, or excessive. Furthermore, it may be objectively true that, in some
circumstances, arrogance is a necessary tool for overcoming oppression.
Chapter 12. Serene Khader argues against the widespread view that oppressed
people have a self- regarding obligation to resist complying with oppressive
norms, in order to preserve their self-respect. Khader notes that the cost of non-
compliance is often underestimated. Flouting oppressive norms often poses sub-
stantial threats to an agent’s welfare and even her self-respect, and compliance
may express self-respect, by affirming a commitment to the importance of her
own projects and to gaining the means to pursue them. Khader offers an alterna-
tive way of maintaining self-respect in the face of oppression, namely to cultivate
knowledge of the oppressive situation faced by oneself and one’s group, and to
develop a normative perspective that recognizes and seeks to rectify injustices.
Chapter 13. Samuel Kerstein points out that although respect is a commonly
deployed concept in bioethics, requirements of respect usually amount to respect
for autonomy, or for giving proper weight to the choices made by competent per-
sons. Kerstein argues that increased emphasis on another sense of respect, respect
for the worth of persons, will greatly enrich discussions in several areas of bioeth-
ics, including physician-assisted dying, distribution of medical resources, and
ethical considerations regarding procreation.
Chapter 14. Adam Cureton points out that the intuitively plausible claim that it
is disrespectful to treat mentally competent adults as if they were children gives
rise to a puzzle, within a Kantian framework. It seems possible to fulfill basic
Kantian duties of respect toward adults with disabilities, by respecting their basic
rights, for example, and recognizing their intrinsic worth, while still treating
them like children. So how is it disrespectful to offer unwanted paternalistic assis-
tance to a disabled person, or to speak to her condescendingly, if one is otherwise
treating her as an end in herself? Cureton points out that Kant not only describes
duties of respect toward rational beings in general, but also suggests that specific
forms of respectful treatment may be appropriate for particular people because of
their particular situation or station. Cureton proposes that treating disabled
adults like children typically involves miscategorizing their “station” of being
competent adult decision makers.
Chapter 15. Lucia Schwarz urges a reconsideration of the implications of species
egalitarianism, which is an essential element of the position in environmental
ethics that Paul Taylor calls “respect for nature.” Species egalitarianism’s claim that
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 30/03/21, SPi
xviii Introduction
every living thing has equal inherent worth appears to lead to counterintuitive
conclusions, such as that killing a human being is no worse than killing a
dandelion. Species egalitarians have generally responded by explaining that s pecies
egalitarianism is compatible with recognizing moral differences between killing
different types of living things, and that some killing is morally permissible.
Schwarz raises doubts about whether this deflationary defensive strategy is philo-
sophically justified, and suggests that taking seriously the supposedly repugnant
implications of species egalitarianism may have a salutary effect on the over-
all debate.
Taken together, we hope that this loose collection of innovative essays on
respect will encourage further research on this central topic in moral philosophy.
OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 30/03/21, SPi
1
Respect
A History
Remy Debes
Respect is a knotty concept. Derived from the Latin respicere (“to look round or
back,” “to notice,” “to pay attention to”), its English-language lifespan is marked
by scores of connotations, some of which cut in distinctly different directions.1
Even after we delimit our interest to the subject of this volume, respect for per-
sons, we must still work through the much- discussed distinction between
“appraisal” and “recognition” forms of respect (Darwall 1977). The first names a
positive evaluative attitude expressed towards a person for some character merit,
moral or non-moral, such as her chess skills or industry or benevolence. In this
sense, respect is similar to admiration or esteem, and carries connotations of
honor and awe. It is something we feel towards another person. The second, by
contrast, names a way of thinking about others. It is a deliberative disposition to
give appropriate weight to some feature of a person in deciding how to act in
relation to her.2 By adapting our choices or plans in light of the given feature, we
show that we “recognize” the person in question. In this sense, respect connotes
“heed,” “consideration,” “concern,” or “deference.”
Making matters more complicated, notice that the possible features of a person
which might ground such recognition respect are diverse. It could be a person’s
feelings about a political issue, their social status, or their professional rank.
Indeed, any fact about a person that one might take as a reason for choosing one
plan or action over another is a candidate for showing recognition respect. For
example, you can show recognition respect to your taller opponent’s greater
reach, by deciding to position yourself an extra step away, or by swapping your
sword for a spear. Most relevant to the subject of this volume, however, is to con-
sider the way we call on one another to adapt our plans or choices in light of the
basic worth or dignity of human beings. When we do this—when we take a per-
son’s human dignity as the relevant feature for revising or foregoing our plans or
choices—we respect persons as persons. Or, as we sometimes say, “just because”
they are persons. Call this the moralized connotation of recognition respect.
This semantic tangle, however, isn’t the main challenge for investigating the
history of respect. For those interested in the moralized concept of respect, espe-
cially as it figures in the anglophone world, there is a much harder question.
Remy Debes, Respect: A History In: Respect: Philosophical Essays. Edited by: Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen,
Oxford University Press (2021). © Remy Debes. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198824930.003.0001
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THE END
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island
June 4, 1925
St. Jean-de-Luz, B. P., France
July 21, 1926
Typographical errors corrected by
the etext transcriber:
lay figure=> clay figure {pg 6}
sarcely giving=> scarcely giving
{pg 205}
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