## 1. The Concept of Respect



Philosophers have approached the concept of respect with a variety of
questions. (1) One set concerns the nature of respect, including (a)
What sort of thing is respect? Philosophers have variously identified
it as a mode of behavior, a form of treatment, a kind of valuing, a
type of attention, a motive, an attitude, a feeling, a tribute, a
principle, a duty, an entitlement, a moral virtue, an epistemic
virtue: are any of these categories more central than others? (b) Are
there different kinds of respect? If so, is any more basic than
others? (c) Are there different levels or degrees of respect? (d) What
are the distinctive elements of respect, or a specific kind of
respect? What beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and motives does (a
specific kind of) respect involve, and what ways of acting and
forbearing to act express or constitute or are regulated by it? (e) To
what other attitudes, actions, valuings, duties, etc., is respect (or
a specific kind) similar, and with what does it contrast? In
particular, how is respect similar to, different from, or connected
with esteem, honor, love, awe, reverence, recognition, toleration,
dignity, contempt, indifference, discounting, denigration, and so
on? (2) A second set of questions concerns objects of respect,
including (a)What sorts of things can be reasonably be said to warrant
respect? (b) What are the bases or grounds for respect, i.e., the
features of or facts about objects in virtue of which it is reasonable
and perhaps obligatory to respect them? (c) Must every appropriate
object always be respected? Can respect be forfeited, can lost respect
be regained? (3) A third set of questions focuses on moral dimensions
of respect, including (a) Are there moral requirements to respect
certain types of objects, and, if so, what are the scope and grounds
of such requirements? (b) Why is respect morally important? What, if
anything, does it add to morality over and above the conduct,
attitudes, and character traits required or encouraged by various
moral principles or virtues? (c) What does respect entail morally for
how we should treat one another in everyday interactions, for issues
in specific contexts such as health care and the workplace, and for
fraught issues such as abortion, racial and gender justice, and global
inequality?


### 1.1 Elements of respect



It is widely acknowledged that there are different forms or kinds of
respect. This complicates the answering of these questions, since
answers concerning one form or kind of respect can diverge
significantly from those about another. Much philosophical work has
gone into explicating differences and links among the various
kinds.



One general distinction concerns respect simply as behavior and
respect as an attitude or feeling that may or may not be expressed in
or signified by behavior. When we speak of drivers respecting the
speed limit, hostile forces respecting a cease fire agreement, or the
Covid-19 virus not respecting national borders, we can be referring
simply to behavior which avoids violation of or interference with some
boundary, limit, or rule, without any reference to attitudes,
feelings, intentions, or dispositions, and even, as in the case of
viruses, without imputing agency (Bird 2004). In such cases the
behavior is regarded as constitutive of respecting. Where respect is
conceived of as a duty or an entitlement, a certain kind of behavior
or treatment may be all that is owed. Similarly, respect as a tribute
could be just a certain mode of behavior, such as bowing or standing
in silence. In other cases, however, we take respect to be or to
express or signify an attitude or feeling, as when we speak of having
respect for someone or of certain behaviors as showing respect or
disrespect. Here, actions and modes of treatment count as respect
insofar as they either manifest an attitude of respect or are of the
sort through which the attitude is characteristically expressed; a
principle of respect is one that necessarily must be adopted by
someone with the attitude of respect or that prescribes the attitude
or actions that express it (Frankena 1986; Downie and Telfer 1969); a
moral virtue of respect involves having the attitude as a settled
aspect of one's way of being toward appropriate objects. Most
discussions of respect for persons take attitude to be central. In
what follows, I will focus chiefly on respect as attitude. There are,
again, several different attitudes to which the term
"respect" refers. Before looking at differences, however,
it is useful first to note some elements common among varieties.



An attitude of respect is, most generally, a relation between a
subject and an object in which the subject responds to the object from
a certain perspective in some appropriate way. Respect necessarily has
an object: respect is always directed toward, paid to, felt about,
shown for some object. While a very wide variety of things can be
appropriate objects of one kind of respect or another, the subject of
respect (the respecter) is typically a person, that is, a conscious
rational being capable of recognizing objects, intentionally
responding to them, having and expressing values with regard to them,
and being accountable for disrespecting or failing to respect them.
Respect and disrespect can also be expressed or instantiated by or
through things that are not persons, such as guidelines, rules, laws,
and principles, systems, and institutional organizations and
operations. So, we can say that laws that prohibit torture express
respect for persons while the institution of slavery is profoundly
disrespectful of human beings.



Ordinary discourse about respect as a responsive relation identifies
several key elements, including attention, deference, judgment,
valuing, and behavior. First, as its derivation from the Latin
*respicere*, (to look back at, look again) suggests, respect is
a form of regard: a mode of attention to and acknowledgment of an
object as something to be taken seriously. Respecting something
contrasts with being oblivious or indifferent to it, ignoring or
quickly dismissing it, neglecting or disregarding it, or carelessly or
intentionally misidentifying it. Respect is also perspectival: we can
respect something from a moral perspective, or from prudential,
evaluative, social, or institutional perspectives. From different
perspectives, we might attend to different aspects of the object in
respecting it or respect it in different ways. For example, one might
regard another human individual as a rights-bearer, a judge, a
superlative singer, a trustworthy person, or a threat to one's
security, and the respect one accords her in each case will be
different. It is in virtue of this aspect of careful attention that
respect is sometimes thought of as an epistemic virtue.



As responsive, respect is as much object-based as subject-generated;
certain objects call for, claim, elicit, deserve, are owed respect. We
respect something not because we want to but because we recognize that
we have to respect it (Wood 1999); respect involves "a deontic
experience"--the experience that one *must* pay
attention and respond appropriately (Birch 1993). It thus is
motivational: it is the recognition of something "as directly
determining our will without reference to what is wanted by our
inclinations" (Rawls 2000, 153). In this way respect differs
from, for example, liking and fearing, which have their sources in the
subject's interests or desires. When we respect something, we
heed its call, accord it its due, acknowledge its claim. Thus, respect
involves deference, in the most basic sense of yielding to the
object's demands.



The idea that the object "drives" respect, as it were, is
involved in the view that respect is an unmediated emotional response
(Buss 1999b). But respect is typically treated as also an expression
of the agency of the respecter: respect is deliberate, a matter of
directed rather than grabbed attention, of reflective consideration
and judgment. On this view, respect is reason-governed: we cannot
respect a particular object for just any old reason or no reason at
all. Rather, we respect something for the reason that it has, in our
judgment, some respect-warranting characteristic, that makes it the
kind of object that calls for that kind of response (Cranor 1975;
Pettit 2021). And these reasons are both objective, in the sense that
their weight or stringency does not depend on the respecter's
interests, goals, or desires, and categorical, in the sense that
acting against these reasons, other things equal, is wrong (Raz 2001).
Respect is thus both subjective and objective. It is subjective in
that the subject's response is constructed from her
understanding of the object and its characteristics and her judgments
about the legitimacy of its call and how fittingly to address the
call. The objectivity of respect means that an individual's
respect for an object can be inappropriate or unwarranted, for the
object may not have the features she takes it to have, or the features
she takes to be respect-warranting might not be, or her idea of how
properly to treat the object might be mistaken. Moreover, the logic of
respect is the logic of objectivity and universality, in several ways.
In respecting an object, we respond to it as something whose
significance is independent of us, not determined by our feelings or
interests. Our reasons for respecting something are, logically,
reasons for other people to respect it (or at least to endorse our
respect for it from a common point of view). Respect is thus, unlike
erotic or filial love, an impersonal response to the object. And if F
is a respect-warranting feature of object O, then respecting O on
account of F commits us, other things equal, to respecting other
things with feature F.



There are many different kinds of objects that can reasonably be
respected and many different reasons why they warrant respect. Thus,
warranted responses can take different forms. Some things are
dangerous or powerful; respecting them can involve fear, awe,
self-protection, or submission. Other things have authority over us
and the respect they are due includes acknowledgment of their
authority and perhaps obedience to their authoritative commands. Other
forms of respect are modes of valuing, appreciating the object as
having worth or importance that is independent of, perhaps even at
variance with, our desires or commitments. Thus, we can respect things
we don't like or agree with, such as our enemies or someone
else's opinion. Valuing respect is kin to esteem, admiration,
veneration, reverence, and honor, while regarding something as utterly
worthless or insignificant or disdaining or having contempt for it is
incompatible with respecting it. Respect also aims to value its object
appropriately, so it contrasts with degradation and discounting. The
kinds of valuing that respect involves also contrast with other forms
of valuing such as promoting or using (Anderson 1993, Pettit 1989).
Indeed, regarding a person merely as useful (treating her as just a
sexual object, an ATM machine, a research subject) is commonly
identified as a central form of disrespect for persons, and many
people decry the killing of endangered wild animals for their tusks or
hides as disrespectful of nature.



Finally, attitudes of respect typically have a behavioral component.
In respecting an object, we often consider it to be making legitimate
claims on our conduct as well as our thoughts and feelings and so we
are disposed to behave appropriately. Appropriate behavior includes
refraining from certain treatment of the object or acting only in
particular ways in connection with it, ways that are regarded as
fitting, deserved by, or owed to the object. And there are very many
ways to respect things: keeping our distance from them, helping them,
praising or emulating them, obeying or abiding by them, not violating
or interfering with them, destroying them only in some ways,
protecting or being careful with them, talking about them in ways that
reflect their worth or status, mourning them, nurturing them. One can
behave in respectful ways, however, without having respect for the
object, as when a teen who disdains adults behaves respectfully toward
her friend's parents in a scheme to get the car, manipulating
rather than respecting them. To be a form or expression of respect,
behavior has to be motivated by one's acknowledgment of the
object as rightly calling for that behavior. On the other hand,
certain kinds of feelings would not count as respect if they did not
find expression in behavior or involved no dispositions to behave in
appropriate ways, and if they did not spring from perceptions or
judgments that the object is worthy of or calls for such behavior.



The attitudes of respect, then, have cognitive dimensions (beliefs,
acknowledgments, judgments, commitments), affective dimensions
(emotions, feelings, ways of experiencing things), and conative
dimensions (motivations, dispositions to act and forbear from acting);
some forms also have valuational dimensions. One last dimension is
normative: the attitudes and actions of respect are governed by norms
that set standards of success or failure in responding to
respect-worthy-objects. Some norms are moral, grounded in moral
principles or morally important characteristics of respect-worthy
objects and both endorsable by and authoritative for all moral agents.
Other norms are social, arising from dimensions of social life,
grounded in socially significant characteristics of objectives, and
authoritative or applicable (only) for participants in that form of
sociality.


### 1.2 Kinds of Respect



That it is the nature of the object that determines its
respect-worthiness, and that there are different kinds of objects
calling for correspondingly different responses, have led many
philosophers to argue that there are different kinds of respect. In
what follows, three sets of distinctions will be discussed.



Speculating on the historical development of the idea that all persons
as such deserve respect, and using terms found in Kant's
writings on *Achtung* (the German word usually translated as
"respect"), Feinberg (1975) identifies three concepts for
which "respect" has been the name. (1) *Respekt*,
is the "uneasy and watchful attitude that has 'the element
of fear' in it" (1975, 1). Its objects are dangerous or
powerful things. It is *respekt* that woodworkers are
encouraged to have for power tools, a new sailor might be admonished
to have for the sea, and a child might have for an abusive parent.
*Respekt* contrasts with contemptuous disregard; it is shown in
conduct that is cautious, self-protective, other-placating. (2) The
second concept, *observantia*, is the moralized analogue of
*respekt.* It involves regarding the object as making a
rightful claim on our conduct, as deserving moral consideration in its
own right, independently of considerations of personal well-being. It
is *observantia*, Feinberg maintains, that historically was
extended first to classes of non-dangerous but otherwise worthy people
and then to all persons as such, regardless of merit or ability.
*Observantia* encompasses both the respect said to be owed to
all humans equally and the forms of polite respect and deference that
acknowledge different social positions. On Kant's account,
*observantia* is the kind of respect we have an inviolable
moral duty to give every person, both by acknowledging their claim to
moral equality with us and by never treating persons as if they have
little or no worth compared with ourselves (Kant 1797, 6:499). (3)
*Reverentia*, the third concept, is the special feeling of
profound awe and respect we involuntarily experience in the presence
of something extraordinary or sublime, a feeling that both humbles and
uplifts us. On Kant's account, the moral law and people who
exemplify it in morally worthy actions elicit *reverentia* from
us, for we experience the law or its exemplification as
"something that always trumps our inclinations in determining
our wills" (Feinberg 1975, 2). Feinberg sees different forms of
power as underlying the three kinds of respect; in each case, respect
is the acknowledgment of the power of something other than ourselves
to demand, command, or make claims on our attention, consideration,
and deference. (See further discussion of Kant's account in
section 2.2.)



Hudson (1980) draws a four-fold distinction among kinds of respect,
according to the bases in the objects. Consider the following
examples: (a) respecting a colleague highly as a scholar and having a
lot of respect for someone with "guts"; (b) a mountain
climber's respect for the elements and a tennis player's
respect for her opponent's strong backhand; (c) respecting the
terms of an agreement and respecting a person's rights; and (d)
showing respect for a judge by rising when she enters the courtroom
and respecting a worn-out flag by burning it rather than tossing it in
the trash. The respect in (a), *evaluative respect*, is similar
to other favorable attitudes such as esteem and admiration; it is
earned or deserved (or not) depending on whether and to the degree
that the object is judged to meet certain standards. *Obstacle
respect*, in (b), is a matter of regarding the object as something
that, if not taken proper account of in one's decisions about
how to act, could prevent one from achieving one's ends. The
objects of (c) *directive respect* are directives: things such
as requests, rules, advice, laws, or rights claims that may be taken
as guides to action. One respects a directive when one's actions
intentionally comply with it. The objects of (d) *institutional
respect* are social institutions or practices, positions or roles
in an institution or practice, and persons or things that occupy
positions in or represent the institution. Institutional respect is
constituted by behavior that conforms to rules that prescribe certain
conduct as respectful. These four forms of respect differ in several
ways. Each identifies a quite different kind of feature of objects as
the basis of respect. Each is expressed in action in quite different
ways, although evaluative respect need not be expressed at all.
Evaluative respect centrally involves having a favorable attitude
toward the object, while the other forms do not. Directive respect
does not admit of degrees (one either obeys the rule or
doesn't), but the others do (we can have more evaluative respect
for one person than another). Hudson uses this distinction to argue
that respect for persons is not a unique kind of respect but should be
conceived rather as involving some combination or other of these
four.



To Hudson's four-fold classification, Dillon (1992a) adds a
fifth form, *care respect*, which draws on feminist ethics of
care. Care respect, which is exemplified in an
environmentalist's deep respect for nature, involves both
regarding the object as having profound and perhaps unique value and
so cherishing it, and perceiving it as fragile or calling for special
care and so acting or forbearing to act out of felt benevolent concern
for it.



Darwall (1977) distinguishes two kinds of respect: *recognition
respect* and *appraisal respect*. Recognition respect is
the disposition to give appropriate weight or consideration in
one's practical deliberations to some fact about the object and
to regulate one's conduct by constraints derived from that fact.
(Frankena 1986 and Cranor 1982, 1983 refer to this as
"consideration respect.") A wide variety of objects can be
objects of recognition respect, including laws, dangerous things,
someone's feelings, social institutions, nature, the selves
individuals present in different contexts, people occupying certain
social roles or positions, and persons as such. Appraisal respect, by
contrast, is an attitude of positive appraisal, the "thinking highly
of" kind of respect that we might have a great deal of for some
individuals, little of for others, or lose for those whose clay feet
or dirty laundry becomes apparent. Appraisal respect involves a
grading assessment of a person in light of some qualitative standards
that they can meet or not to greater and lesser degrees. It differs
from the more widely grounded esteem and admiration in that it is
concerned specifically with the moral quality of people's
character or conduct, or with other characteristics that are relevant
to their moral quality as agents. 



The recognition/appraisal distinction has been quite influential and
is widely regarded as the fundamental distinction. Indeed, evaluative
respect is similar to appraisal respect, while *respekt*,
obstacle respect, *observantia*, directive respect,
institutional respect, and care respect could be analyzed as forms of
recognition respect. Some philosophers, however, have found the
recognition/appraisal distinction to be inadequate, inasmuch as it
seems to have no room for *reverentia*, especially in the form
of the felt experience of the sublimity of the moral law and of
persons as such (e.g., Buss 1999b), and it seems to obscure the
variety of valuings that different modes of respect can involve. Much
philosophical work has involved refining the recognition/appraisal
distinction.



In the rest of this article, I will discuss respect and self-respect
using Darwall's term "recognition respect,"
Hudson's term "evaluative respect," and
Feinberg's "reverential respect" (the last for the
valuing feeling that is involuntary motivational without being
deliberative), specifying the valuing dimensions as necessary.



In everyday discourse, respect most commonly refers to one of two
attitudes or modes of conduct. The first is the kind of respect
individuals show (or should show) others because of the latter's
social role or position. For example, children should respect their
parents by listening and courtroom spectators should respect the
judge. by rising upon her entrance. This is a social form of
recognition respect that is, typically, structured by social
institutions whose norms are authoritative for participants in the
institutions and that need not involve any positive valuing of the
object. "Respect" is also commonly used, second, in a
valuing sense, to mean thinking highly of someone: having a lot of
respect for someone who has overcome adversity or losing all respect
for a betrayer. This is evaluative respect. However, philosophical
attention to respect has tended to focus on recognition respect that
acknowledges or values the object from a moral point of view, which we
can call "moral recognition respect." These discussions tend to relate
such respect to the concepts of moral standing or moral worth. Moral
standing, or moral considerability, is the idea that certain things
matter morally in their own right and so are appropriate objects of
direct fundamental moral consideration or concern (Birch 1993; P.
Taylor 1986). Alternatively, it is argued that certain things
have a distinctive kind of intrinsic moral worth, often called
"dignity," in virtue of which evoke reverential respect or
ought to be accorded some valuing form of moral recognition respect.
In modern philosophical discussions, humans are universally regarded
as the paradigm objects of moral respect. Although some theorists
argue that nature (or, all living beings, species, ecosystems) or
societies (or, cultures, traditions) also warrant the moral
consideration and valuing of moral recognition respect, most
philosophical discussion of respect has focused on moral recognition
respect for persons.


## 2. Respect for Persons



People can be the objects or recipients of different forms of respect.
We can (directive) respect a person's legal rights, show
(institutional) respect for the president by calling her "Ms.
President," have a healthy (obstacle) respect (*respekt*)
for an easily angered person, (care) respect someone by cherishing her
in her concrete particularity, (evaluatively) respect an individual
for her commitment to a worthy project, and accord one person the same
basic moral respect we think any person deserves. Thus, the idea of
respect for persons is ambiguous. Because both institutional respect
and evaluative respect can be for persons in roles or position, the
phrase "respecting someone as an R" might mean either
having high regard for a person's excellent performance in the
role or behaving in ways that express due consideration or deference
to an individual qua holder of that position. Similarly, the phrase
"respecting someone as a person" might refer to appraising
her as overall a morally good person, or acknowledging her standing as
an equal in the moral community, or attending to her as the particular
person she is as opposed to treating her like any other human being.
In the literature of moral and political philosophy, the notion of
respect for persons commonly means a kind of respect that all people
are owed morally just because they are persons, regardless of social
position, individual characteristics or achievements, or moral
merit.



In times past, it was taken for granted that respect for human beings
was a hierarchical notion; some humans, it was thought, have a higher
moral standing and a greater moral worth than others and so are
morally entitled to greater recognition respect. (Not just in times
past - this is still the core of racism, sexism, and other forms
of bigotry.) However, the modern understanding of respect for persons
rests on the idea that all persons as such have a distinctive moral
status in virtue of which we have unconditional obligations to regard
and treat them in ways that are constrained by certain inviolable
limits. This is sometimes expressed in terms of rights: all persons,
it is said, have a fundamental moral right to respect simply because
they are persons. Connected with this is the idea that all persons are
fundamentally equal, despite the very many things that distinguish one
individual from another. All persons, that is, have the moral standing
of equality in the moral community and are equally worthy of and owed
respect. Respect acknowledges the moral standing of equal persons as
such and is also the key mode of valuing persons as persons.



But which kind of respect are all persons owed? It is obvious that we
could not owe every individual evaluative respect, let alone equal
evaluative respect, since not everyone acts morally correctly or has
an equally morally good character. Moreover, since reverential respect
is an involuntary emotional response to something that is
"awesome," but we can't have a moral obligation to
experience an emotion, reverential respect can't be the kind we
owe all persons. So, if it is true that all persons are owed or have a
moral right to respect just as persons, then the concept of respect
for person has to be analyzed as some form or combination of forms of
moral recognition respect. One analysis takes moral recognition
respect for a person as a person to involve recognizing that this
being is a person, appreciating that persons as such have a
distinctive moral standing and worth, understanding this standing and
worth as the source of moral constraints on one's attitudes, desires,
and conduct, and viewing, valuing, and treating this person only in
ways that are appropriate to and due persons (Dillon 1997, 2010).


### 2.1 Some important issues



It is controversial, however, whether we do indeed have a moral
obligation to respect all persons regardless of merit, and if so, why.
There are disagreements, for example, about the scope of the claim,
the grounds of respect, and the justification for the obligation.
There is also a divergence of views about the kinds of treatment that
are respectful of persons.



One source of controversy concerns the scope of the concept of a
person. Although in everyday discourse the word "person"
is synonymous with "human being," some philosophical
discussions treat it as a technical term whose range of application
might not be coextensive with the class of human beings (just as, for
legal purposes, business corporations are regarded as persons). This
is because some of the reasons that have been given for respecting
persons entail both that some non-human things warrant the same
respect on the very same grounds as humans and that not all humans do.
Consequently, one question an account of respect for persons has to
address is: Who or what are persons that are owed respect? Different
answers have been offered, including all human beings; all and only
those humans who are themselves capable of respecting persons; all
beings capable of rational activity, or of sympathy and empathy, or of
valuing, whether human or not; all beings capable of functioning as
moral agents, whether human or not; all beings capable of
participating in certain kinds of social relations, whether human or
not. The second, third, and fourth answers would seem to exclude
deceased humans and humans who lack sufficient mental capacity, such
as the profoundly mentally disabled, the severely mentally ill and
senile, those in persistent vegetative states, the pre-born, and
perhaps very young children. The third, fourth, and fifth answers
might include humans with diminished capacities, artificial beings
(androids, sophisticated robots), spiritual beings (gods, angels),
extraterrestrial beings, and certain animals (apes, dolphins).



In trying to clarify who or what we are obligated to respect, we are
naturally led to a question about the ground or basis of respect: What
is it about persons that makes them matter morally in such a way as to
make them worthy of respect? One common way of answer this question is
to look for some morally valuable natural qualities or capacities that
are common to all beings that are noncontroversially owed respect (for
example, all normal adult humans). Even regarding humans, there is a
question of scope: Are *all* humans owed respect? If respect is
something to which all human beings have an equal claim, then, it has
been argued, the basis has to be something that all humans possess
equally or in virtue of which humans are naturally equal, or a
threshold quality that all humans possess, with variations above the
threshold ignored. Some philosophers have argued that certain
capacities fit the bill; others argue that there is no quality
actually possessed by all humans that could be a plausible ground for
a moral obligation of equal respect. Some draw from this the
conclusion that respect is owed not to all but only to some human
beings, for example, only morally good persons (Dean 2014). Another
view is that the search for valuable qualities possessed by all humans
that could ground universally owed moral recognition respect gets
things backwards: rather than being grounded in some fact about
humans, respect confers moral standing and worth on them (Sensen 2017;
Bird forthcoming). But the last view still leaves the questions: why
should this morally powerful standing and worth be conferred on
humans? And is it conferred on all humans? Yet another question of
scope is: Must persons *always* be respected? One view is that
individuals forfeit their claim to respect by, for example, committing
heinous crimes of disrespect against other persons, such as murder in
the course of terrorism or genocide. Another view is that there are no
circumstances under which it is morally justifiable to not respect a
person, and that even torturers and child-rapists, though they may
deserve the most severe condemnation and punishment and may have
forfeited their rights to freedom and perhaps to life, still remain
persons to whom we have obligations of respect, since the grounds of
respect are independent of moral merit or demerit (Hill 2000b).



There is a further question of justification to be addressed, for it
is one thing to say that persons have a certain valuable quality, but
quite another thing to say that there is a moral obligation to respect
persons (Hill 1997). So, we must ask: What reasons do we have for
believing that the fact that persons possess quality X entails that we
are morally obligated to respect persons by, for example, treating
them in certain ways? Another way of asking a justification question
seeks not a normative connection between qualities of persons and
moral obligation, but an explanation for our belief that humans (and
perhaps other beings) are owed respect, for example: What in our
experience of other humans or in our evolutionary history explains the
development and power of this belief? On some accounts, our actual
felt experiences of reverential respect play a significant role (Buss
1999b). In other accounts, what justifies accepting our experience of
respect for humans (or other beings) as grounds for an obligation is
its coherence with our other moral beliefs (Hill 2000b; Margalit 1996;
Gibbard 1990).



Other questions concern what respecting persons requires of us. Some
philosophers argue that the obligation to respect person functions as
a negative constraint: respect involves refraining from regarding or
treating persons in certain ways. For example, we ought not to treat
them as if they were worthless or had value only insofar as we find
them useful or interesting, or as if they were mere objects or
specimens, or as if they were vermin or dirt; we ought not to violate
their basic moral rights, or interfere with their efforts to make
their own decisions and govern their own conduct, or humiliate them,
or treat them in ways that flout their nature and worth as persons.
Other theorists maintain that we also have positive duties of respect:
we ought, for example, to try to see each of them and the world from
their own points of view, or help them to promote their morally
acceptable ends, or protect them from their own self-harming
decisions. And some philosophers note that it may be more respectful
to judge someone's actions or character negatively or to punish
someone for wrongdoing than to treat them as if they were not
responsible for what they did, although requirements of respect would
impose limits on how such judgments may be expressed and how persons
may be punished. Another question concerns equality of respect. While
most theorists agree that moral recognition respect is owed equally to
all persons and that it requires treating persons as equals (as all
having the same basic moral worth and status), there is disagreement
about whether respect requires that persons be treated equally
(whatever is done or not done for or to one person must be done or not
done for or to everyone). One view is that equal treatment would fail
to respect important differences between individuals (Frankfurt
1999). Perhaps, however, as regards respect as a negative
constraint, it is appropriate to treat all persons the same: no one
should be treated like worthless garbage (just as no U.S. citizen
should be compelled to incriminate themselves), while as regards
respect as a positive duty, it may be more respectful of each person
to treat individuals with different needs, aims, and circumstances
differently (as a loving parent might allow her older children but not
the younger ones to have social media accounts).


### 2.2 Kant's Account of Respect for Persons



The most influential account of respect for persons is found in the
moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1785, 1788, 1793, 1797). Indeed,
most contemporary discussions of respect for persons explicitly claim
to rely on, develop, or challenge some aspect of Kant's ethics.
Central to Kant's ethical theory is the claim that all persons,
regardless of personal qualities or achievements, social position, or
moral track-record, are owed respect just because they are persons,
that is, beings with rational and autonomous wills. To be a person is
to have a status and worth unlike that of any other kind of
being: it is to be an end in itself with dignity. And the only
appropriate response to such a being is respect. Moreover, respect for
persons is not only appropriate but also unconditionally required:
persons must always be respected. Because we are all too often
inclined not to respect each other, one formulation of the Categorical
Imperative, which is the supreme principle of morality, commands that
our actions express due respect for persons: "Act in such a way
that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or the person of
any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an
end" (*Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten*
(*Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals)* (1785, 4:429).
Although commentators disagree about how precisely to understand this
imperative, one common view is that it defines our fundamental moral
obligation as respect all persons, including ourselves, and thus
defines morally right actions as those that express respect for
persons as ends in themselves and morally wrong actions as those that
express disrespect or contempt for persons (Wood 1999). (On other
readings, respect is one of our fundamental duties, but there are
others, such as love, justice, and moral self-improvement.) In
addition to this general commandment, Kant argues that there are also
more specific duties of respect for other persons and self-respect, to
which we'll return. For now, we must address the question, What
is it to be an end in itself and to possess dignity?



An end, for Kant, is anything for the sake of which we act. Kant
identifies two kinds of ends. The first are subjective ends, which are
things we want, which we pursue or promote through means we think will
help us to get or advance them. The value of subjective ends is
conditional on or relative to the desire or interests of the
individual who values them. The other kind of end is objective. These
are ends in themselves, ends whose value is not dependent on any
interests or desires but is absolute and unconditional, grounded
solely in what they are. Kant maintains that all and only rational
beings are ends in themselves. The technical term
"persons" delineates the category of beings whose rational
nature "already marks them out as ends in themselves...and
an object of respect" (*Groundwork* 4: 428).



To act for the sake of persons as ends in themselves, to respect them,
is not to pursue or promote them, but to value them as the
unconditionally valuable beings they are. It is also to acknowledge
that there are constraints on our treatment of persons, for to be an
end in itself is also to be a limit--just as the end of the road puts
a limit on our travels, so an end in itself puts an absolute limit on
the subjective ends we may set, the means we may use to pursue them,
and, very importantly, on how we may treat ends in themselves. Such
beings must never be used as if they were merely means, as if they
were nothing more than tools that we may use however we want to
advance our ends. Note, however, that it is not wrong to treat persons
as means to our ends; indeed, we could not get along in life if we
could not make use of the talents, abilities, service, and labor of
other people. What we must never do is treat persons as *mere*
means to our ends, to treat them as if the only value they have is
what derives from their usefulness to us. Rather, we must always treat
them "as the same time as an end."



Kant holds that persons, as ends in themselves, have dignity (*Die
Metaphysik der Sitten* (*The Metaphysics of Morals*)
(1797), 6: 435). But what is dignity? Until the last century or so,
"dignity" (from the Latin *dignitas*, worthiness)
referred to a high social status associated with the aristocracy,
offices of power, and high church positions. Dignity thus
distinguished socially important people from the *hoi polloi*,
who had no dignity (Debes 2017). Kant's view that every person
has dignity thus marks a revolution in valuation (but see Dean 2014
and Hay 2012 for the view that only morally good people have dignity).
Commentators disagree about how to understand what Kant means by
dignity (cf. Sensen 2017, 2011; Cureton 2013; Darwall 2008). But the
most common interpretation is that dignity is a distinctive kind
objective worth that is absolute (not conditional on anyone's needs,
desires, or interests, and a value that everyone has an overriding
reason to acknowledge); intrinsic or inherent (not bestowed or
earned and not subject to being lost or forfeited); incomparable and
the highest form of worth (a being with dignity cannot rationally be
exchanged for or replaced by any other valued object, and is
infinitely valuable, we might say, rather than worth $5 or $5
million).



In arguing for respect for the dignity of persons, Kant explicitly
rejects two other conceptions of human value: the aristocratic idea of
honor that individuals differentially deserve according to their
social rank, individual accomplishments, or moral virtue (on the
aristocratic dimensions of honor, see Darwall 2013; Berger 1983), and
the view, baldly expressed by Hobbes, that:



> 
> ... the value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his
> price--that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of
> his power--and therefore is not absolute but a thing dependent on
> the need and judgment of another. (Hobbes 1651, 79)
> 



In *The Metaphysics of Morals*, Kant agrees with Hobbes that if
we think of humans as merely one kind of animal among others "in
the system of nature," we can ascribe a price to them, an
extrinsic value that depends on their usefulness. But, he argues,



> 
> a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of morally
> practical reason, is exalted above all price...as an end in
> himself he possesses a *dignity* by which he exacts
> *respect* for himself from all other beings in the world.
> (*MM*, 6: 434-435)
> 



Against the aristocratic view Kant argues that although individuals as
members of some social community or other may have or lack meritorious
accomplishment or status or may deserve honor or evaluative respect to
different degrees or not at all, and some people deserve social
recognition respect based on their socially significant features or
positions, all persons as members of the moral community, i.e., the
community of all and only ends in themselves, are owed the same moral
recognition respect, for the dignity that they possesses as rational
is unconditional and independent of all distinguishing facts about or
features of them.



As the Categorical Imperative indicates, in virtue of the humanity in
them that persons are, and so ought to be treated as, ends in
themselves. Commentators generally identify humanity (that which makes
us distinctively human beings and sets us apart from all other animal
species) with two closely related aspects of rationality: the capacity
to set ends and the capacity to be autonomous, both of which are
capacities to be a moral agent (for example, Wood 1999; Hill 1997;
Korsgaard 1996). The capacity to set ends, which is the power of
rational choice, is the capacity to value things through rational
judgment: to determine, under the influence of reason independently of
antecedent instincts or desires, that something is valuable or
important, that it is worth seeking or valuing. It is also, thereby,
the capacity to value ends in themselves, and so it includes the
capacity for respect (Velleman 1999). The capacity to be autonomous is
the capacity to be self-legislating and self-governing, that is, (a)
the capacity to legislate moral laws that are valid for all rational
beings through one's rational willing by recognizing, using
reason alone, what counts as a moral obligation, and (b) the capacity
then to freely resolve to act in accordance with moral laws because
they are self-imposed by one's own reason and not because one is
compelled to act by any forces external to one's reason and
will, including one's own desires and inclinations. The capacity
to be autonomous is thus also the capacity to freely direct, shape,
and determine the meaning of one's own life, and it is the
condition for moral responsibility. It is then, not as members of the
biological species *homo sapiens* that human beings have
dignity and so are owed moral recognition respect, but as rational
beings who are capable of moral agency.



There are several important consequences of the Kantian view of the
scope of moral recognition respect for persons as persons. First,
while all normally functioning human beings possess the rational
capacities that ground recognition respect, there can be humans in
whom these capacities are altogether absent and who therefore, on this
view, are not persons and are not owed respect. Second, these
capacities could, in principle, be possessed by beings who are not
biologically human, and such beings would also be persons with dignity
whom we are morally obligated to respect. Third, because dignity does
not depend on how well or badly the capacities for moral agency are
exercised, on whether a person acts morally or has a morally good
character or not, dignity is not a matter of degree and cannot be
diminished or lost through vice or morally bad action or increased
through virtue or morally correct action. Thus, the morally
worst person has the same dignity as the morally best, although the
former, we might say, fail to live up to their dignity. Likewise,
moral recognition respect is not something individuals have to earn or
might fail to earn, so even the morally worst individuals must still
be regarded as ends in themselves and treated with respect. Of course,
wrongdoing may call for punishment and may be grounds for forfeiting
certain rights, but it is not grounds for losing dignity, for being
regarded as worthless scum, or denied all respect (Hill 2000b). What
grounds dignity is something that all persons have in common, not
something that distinguishes one individual from another. Thus, each
person is to be respected as an equal among equals, without
consideration of individual achievements or failures, social rank,
moral merit or demerit. However, the equality of all rational beings
does not entail that persons cannot also be differentially evaluated
and valued in other ways for their particular qualities,
accomplishments, merit, or usefulness, although such valuing and
treatment must always be constrained by the moral requirement to
accord recognition respect to persons as ends in themselves.



In *The Metaphysics of Morals*, Kant develops the implications
of this view of persons as ends in themselves. His doctrine of justice
holds that the fundamental freedom and equality of persons is the
basis of the legitimate state, that freedom of choice must be
respected and promoted, that persons are bearers of fundamental rights
and that the moral status of persons imposes limits on permissible
legal punishment. In his doctrine of virtue, Kant discusses specific
moral duties of recognition respect for other persons, as well as
duties of recognition self-respect, to which we'll return below.
Here, Kant explicitly invokes the notion of respect as
*observantia*. We have no moral duty to feel respect for
others; rather, the respect we owe others is "to be understood
as the maxim of limiting our self-esteem by the dignity of humanity in
another person, and so as respect in the practical sense"
(*MM*, 6:449). This duty of recognition respect owed to others
requires two things: first, that we adopt as a regulating policy a
commitment to control our own desire to think well of ourselves (this
desire being the main cause of disrespect), and, second, that we
refrain from treating others in the following ways: treating them
merely as means (valuing them as less than ends in themselves),
showing contempt for them (denying that they have any worth), treating
them arrogantly (demanding that they value us more highly than they
value themselves), making them look like worthless beings by defaming
them by publicly exposing their faults, and ridiculing or mocking
them.



Subsequent work in a Kantian vein on the duty of respect for others
has expanded the list of ways that we are morally required by respect
to treat persons. In particular, although Kant says that the duties of
recognition respect are strictly negative, consisting in not engaging
in certain conduct or having certain attitudes, many philosophers have
argued that respecting others involves positive actions and attitudes
as well. The importance of autonomy and agency in Kant's moral
philosophy has led many philosophers to highlight respect for
autonomy. Thus, we respect others as persons (negatively) by doing
nothing to impair or destroy their capacity for autonomy, by not
interfering with their autonomous decisions and their pursuit of the
(morally acceptable) ends they value, and by not coercing or deceiving
them or treating them paternalistically. We also respect them
(positively) by protecting them from threats to their autonomy (which
may require intervention when someone's current decisions seem
to put their autonomy at risk) and by promoting autonomy and the
conditions for it (for example, by allowing and encouraging
individuals to make their own decisions, take responsibility for their
actions, and control their own lives). Some philosophers have
highlighted Kant's claim that rationality is the ground for
recognition respect, arguing that to respect others is to engage with
them not as instruments or obstacles but as persons who are to be
reasoned with. The importance of the capacity to set ends and value
things has been taken by some philosophers to entail that respect also
involves helping others to promote and protect what they value and to
pursue their ends, provided these are compatible with due respect for
other persons, and making an effort to appreciate values that are
different from our own. Kant's emphasis in the doctrine of
justice on the fundamental rights that persons have has led still
others to view the duty of recognition respect for persons as the duty
to respect the moral rights they have as persons; some have claimed
that the duty to respect is nothing more than the duty to refrain from
violating these rights (Benn 1988; Feinberg 1970).



Finally, it is worth noting that on Kant's account, both the moral law
and morally good people--those who do what is right out of respect for
the moral law--are also objects of respect. The respect here is
*reverentia*, the inescapable felt consciousness of the
unconditional authority of the law and compelling examples of
obedience to it, a consciousness of one's mind "bowing," as it were,
in submission. *Reverentia* can give rise both to recognition
respect of the law and persons as such and to evaluative respect for
good people. (See discussions in kant's *Groundwork* (4:401n);
*Metaphysics of Morals* (6:399-418); *Kritik der praktischen
Vernunft* (*Critique of Practical Reason*) (1788)
(5:72-76); and *Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen
Vernunft* (*Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason*)
(1793) (6:21-23); and in Stratton-Lake 200; Grenberg 1999; Wood 1999;
Hill 1998; McCarty 1994).


### 2.3 Further issues, developments, and applications



Philosophical discussions of respect since Kant have tended, on the
one hand, to develop or apply various aspects of it, or on the other,
to take issue with it or develop alternative accounts of respect. Some
of the discussions have focused on more theoretical issues. For
example, Kant gives the notion of respect for persons a central and
vital role in moral theory. One issue that has since concerned
philosophers is whether respect for persons is the definitive focus of
morality, either in the sense that moral rightness and goodness and
hence all specific moral duties, rights, and virtues are explainable
in terms of respect or in the sense that the supreme moral principle
from which all other principles are derived is a principle of respect
for persons. Some philosophers have developed ethical theories in
which a principle of respect for persons is identified as the
fundamental and comprehensive moral requirement (for example, Donagan
1977; Downie and Telfer 1969). Others (for example, Hill 1993;
Frankena 1986; Cranor 1975) argue that while respect for persons is
surely a very important moral consideration, it cannot be the
principle from which the rest of morality is deduced. They maintain
that there are moral contexts in which respect for persons is not an
issue and that there are other dimensions of our moral relations with
others that seem not to reduce to respect. Moreover, they argue, such
a principle would seem not to provide moral grounds for believing that
we ought to treat mentally incapacitated humans or nonhuman animals
decently, or would (as Kant argues) make a duty to respect such beings
only an indirect duty--one we have only because it is a way of
respecting persons who value such beings or because our duty to
respect ourselves requires that we not engage in activities that would
dull our ability to treat persons decently--rather than a direct
duty to such beings (*Metaphysics of Morals*, 6:443).



Some theorists maintain that utilitarianism, a moral theory generally
thought to be a rival to Kant's theory, is superior with regard
to this last point. A utilitarian might argue that it is sentience
rather than the capacity for rational autonomy that is the ground of
moral recognition respect, and so would regard mentally incapacitated
humans and nonhuman animals as having moral standing and so as worthy
of at least some moral respect in themselves. Another issue, then, is
whether utilitarianism (or more generally, consequentialism) can
indeed accommodate a principle of respect for persons. In opposition
to the utilitarian claim, some Kantians argue that Kant's ethics
is distinguishable from consequentialist ethics precisely in
maintaining that the fundamental demand of morality is not that we
promote some value, such as the happiness of sentient beings, but that
we respect the worth of humanity regardless of the consequences of
doing so (Wood 1999; Korsgaard 1996). Thus, some philosophers argue
that utilitarianism is inconsistent with respect for persons, inasmuch
as utilitarianism, in requiring that all actions, principles, or
motives promote the greatest good, requires treating persons as mere
means on those occasions when doing so maximizes utility, whereas the
very point of a principle of respect for persons is to rule out such
trading of persons and their dignity for some other value (Benn 1988,
Brody 1982). In opposition, other theorists maintain not only that a
consequentialist theory can accommodate the idea of respect for
persons (Cummiskey 2008, 1990; Pettit 1989; Gruzalski 1982; Landesman
1982; Downie and Telfer 1969), but also that utilitarianism is
derivable from a principle of respect for persons (Downie and Telfer
1969) and that consequentialist theories provide a better grounding
for duties to respect persons (Pettit 1989).



In addition to the debate between Kantian theory and utilitarianism,
theoretical work has also been done in developing the role of respect
for persons in Habermasian communicative ethics (Young 1997; Benhabib
1991) and in exploring respect in the ethics of other philosophers,
including ancient Greek poets (Giorgini 2017), Plato (Rowe 2017),
Aristotle (Thompson 2017; Weber 2017; Rabbas 2015; Jacobs 1995;
Preus 1991), Hobbes (2017), Hegel (Laitinen 2017; Moland 2002), and
Mill (Loizides 2017). Cross-cultural explorations include discussions
of similarities and differences between western (Kantian) views of
respect for persons and Indian (Ghosh-Dastidar 1987), Confucian (Liu
2019; Lu 2017; Chan 2006; Wawrytko 1982), and Taoist views (Wong
1984). Several theorists have developed distinctively feminist account
of respect for persons (Farley 1993; Dillon 1992a).



Other philosophical discussions have been concerned with clarifying
the nature of the respect that is owed to persons and of the persons
that are owed respect. Some of these discussions aim to refine and
develop Kant's account, while others criticize it, or offer
alternatives. One significant non-Kantian account is Pettit's
conversive theory of respect for persons (Pettit 2021, 2015). An
influential development of the Kantian account is Darwall's
second-personal account (2021, 2015, 2008, 2006, 2004), according to
which the regulation of conduct that moral recognition respect
involves arises from our directly acknowledging each other as equal
persons who have the moral authority to address moral demands to one
another that each of us is morally obligated to accept. The reciprocal
relations of persons as authoritative claims-makers and mutually
accountable claims-responders is, in Darwall's view, one way of
understanding what Kant calls in the *Groundwork* a
"kingdom of ends."



Another area of interest has been the connections between respect and
other attitudes and emotions, especially love and between respect and
virtues such as trust. For example, Kant argues that we have duties of
love to others just as we have duties of respect. However, neither the
love nor the respect we owe is a matter of feeling (or, is
pathological, as Kant says), but is, rather, a duty to adopt a certain
kind of maxim, or policy of action: the duty of love is the duty to
make the ends of others my own, the duty of respect is the duty to not
degrade others to the status of mere means to my ends (*Metaphysics
of Morals*, 6: 449-450). Love and respect, in Kant's
view, are intimately united in friendship; nevertheless, they are in
tension with one another and respect seems to be the morally more
important of the two. Critics object to what they see here as
Kant's devaluing of emotions, maintaining that emotions are
morally significant dimensions of persons both as subjects and as
objects of both respect and love. In response, some philosophers
contend that respect and love are more similar and closely connected
in Kant's theory than is generally recognized (Bagnoli 2003;
Velleman 1999; Baron 1997; R. Johnson 1997). Others have developed
accounts of respect that is or incorporates a form of love (agape) or
care (Dillon 1992a; Downie and Telfer 1969; Maclagan 1960), and some
have argued that emotions are included among the bases of dignity and
that a complex emotional repertoire is necessary for Kantian respect
(Wood 1999; Sherman 1998a; Farley 1993). In a related vein, some
philosophers maintain that it is possible to acknowledge that another
being is a person, i.e., a rational moral agent, and yet not have or
give respect to that being. What is required for respecting a person
is not simply recognizing what they are but emotionally experiencing
their value as a person (Thomas 2001a; Buss 1999b; Dillon 1997). Other
attitudes, emotions, and virtues whose connections with respect have
been discussed are toleration (for example, Carter 2013; Deveaux 1998;
Addis 2004), forgiveness (for example, Holmgren 1993), good manners
(Stohr 2012; Buss 1999a), esteem (for example, Brennan and Pettit
1997), reverence (Woodruff 2003, 2001), honor (Darwall 2015), and
appreciation (Hill 2021). Work has also been done on attitudes and
emotions that are (usually taken to be) opposed to respect, such as
arrogance (Dillon 2003) and contempt (Miceli and Castelfranci 2018;
Mason 2017; Bell 2013).



Another source of dissatisfaction with Kant's account has been
with his characterization of persons and the quality in virtue of
which they must be respected. In particular, Kant's view that
the rational will which is common to all persons is the ground of
respect is thought to ignore the moral importance of the concrete
particularity of each individual, and his emphasis on autonomy, which
is often understood to involve the independence of one person from all
others, is thought to ignore the essential relationality of human
beings (for example, Noggle 1999; Farley 1993; Dillon 1992a; E.
Johnson 1982). Rather than ignoring what distinguishes one person from
another, it is argued, respect should involve attending to each person
as a distinctive individual and to the concrete realities of human
lives, and it should involve valuing difference as well as sameness
and interdependence as well as independence. Other critics respond
that respecting differences and particular identities inevitably
reintroduces hierarchical discrimination that is antithetical to the
equality among persons that the idea of respect for persons is
supposed to express (for example, Bird 2004). Identity and difference
may, however, be appropriate objects of other forms of consideration
and appreciation.



The ideas of mutual respect or disrespect and respect for
particularity and relationality has also become an important topic in
moral and political philosophy. Helm has argued that a
"community of respect" is essential to understanding what
a person is (Helm 2017). Margalit argues that humiliation, both
disrespect and the result of being disrespected, is a form of
exclusion of individuals from the good of community (Margalit 1996).
One issue is how persons ought to be respected in multicultural
liberal democratic societies (for example, Balint 2006; Tomasi 1995;
C. Taylor 1992; Kymlicka 1989). Respect for persons is one of the
basic tenets of liberal democratic societies, which are founded on the
ideal of the equal dignity of all citizens and which realize this
ideal in the equalization of rights and entitlements among all
citizens and so the rejection of discrimination and differential
treatment. Some writers argue that respecting persons requires
respecting the traditions and cultures that permeate and shape their
individual identities (Addis 1997). But as the citizenry of such
societies becomes increasingly more diverse and as many groups come to
regard their identities or very existence as threatened by a
homogenizing equality, liberal societies face the question of whether
they should or could respond to demands to respect the unique identity
of individuals or groups by differential treatment, such as extending
political rights or opportunities to some cultural groups (for
example, Native Americans, French Canadians, African-Americans) and
not others. Some of these discussions are carried out in terms of
recognition rather than of respect, although some theorists contrast
recognition and respect (McBride 2013). Honneth develops a broader,
critical account of recognition that argues for a harmonious
relationship among universal (recognition) respect, esteem, and love,
arguing that each is essential for the development of positive
relations towards ourselves (Honneth 2007, 1995).



The idea that all persons are owed respect has been applied in a wide
variety of contexts. For instance, some philosophers employ it to
justify various positions in normative ethics, such as the claim that
persons have moral rights (Benn 1971; Feinberg 1970; Downie and Telfer
1969) or duties (Fried 1978; Rawls 1971), or to argue for principles
of equality (Williams 1962), justice (Narveson 2002a, 2002b; Nussbaum
1999), and education (Andrews 1976). Others appeal to respect for
persons in addressing a wide variety of practical issues such as
abortion, racism and sexism, rape, punishment, physician-assisted
suicide, pornography, affirmative action, forgiveness, terrorism,
sexual harassment, cooperation with injustice, treatment of gays and
lesbians, sexual ethics, and many others. In political philosophy,
respect for persons has been used to examine issues of global
inequality (e.g., Moellendorf 2010). One very important application
context is biomedical ethics, where the principle of respect for
autonomy is one of four basic principles that have become "the
backbone of contemporary Western health care ethics" (Brannigan
and Boss 2001, 39; see also Beauchamp and Childress 1979/2001 and, for
example, Kerstein 2021; Munson 2000; Beauchamp and Walters 1999). The
idea of respect for patient autonomy has transformed health care
practice, which had traditionally worked on physician-based
paternalism, and the principle enters into issues such as informed
consent, truth-telling, confidentiality, respecting refusals of
life-saving treatment, the use of patients as subjects in medical
experimentation, and so on.


## 3. Respect for Nature and Nonhuman Beings



Although persons are the paradigm objects of moral recognition
respect, it is a matter of some debate whether they are the only
things that we ought morally to respect. One serious objection raised
against Kant's ethical theory is that in claiming that only
rational beings are ends in themselves deserving of respect, it
licenses treating all things which aren't persons as mere means
to the ends of rational beings, and so it supports domination and
exploitation of all nonpersons and the natural environment. Taking
issue with the Kantian position that only persons are respect-worthy,
many philosophers have argued that humans who are not agents or not
yet agents, human embryos, nonhuman animals, sentient creatures,
plants, species, all living things, biotic communities, the natural
ecosystem of our planet, and even mountains, rocks, and viruses have
(full or perhaps just partial) moral standing or worth and so are
appropriate objects of or are owed moral recognition respect. Of
course, it is possible to value such things instrumentally insofar as
they serve human interests, but the idea is that such things matter
morally and have a claim to respect in their own right, independently
of their usefulness to humans.



A variety of different strategies have been employed in arguing for
such respect claims. For example, the concept of moral recognition
respect is sometimes stripped down to its essentials, omitting much of
the content of the concept as it appears in respect for persons
contexts. The respect that is owed to all things, it can be argued, is
a very basic form of attentive contemplation of the object combined
with a *prima facie* assumption that the object might have
intrinsic value (Birch 1993). Another strategy is to argue that the
true grounds for moral worth and recognition respect are other than or
wider than rationality. One version of this strategy (employed by P.
Taylor 1986) is to argue that all living things, persons and
nonpersons, have equal inherent worth and so equally deserve the same
kind of moral respect, because the ground of the worth of living
things that are nonpersons is continuous with the ground of the worth
for persons. For example, we can regard all living things as
respect-worthy in virtue of being quasi-agents and centers of
organized activity that pursue their own good in their own unique way.
I



A third strategy, which is employed within Kantian ethics, is to argue
that respect for persons logically entails respect for nonpersons. For
example, one can argue that rational nature is to be respected not
only by respecting humanity in someone's person but also by
respecting things that bear certain relations to rational nature, for
example, by being fragments of it or necessary conditions of it.
Respect would thus be owed to humans who are not persons and to
animals and other sentient beings (Foreman 2017; Rocha 2015; Wood
1998). Another strategy argues against Kant that we can both
acknowledge that rational moral agents have the highest moral standing
and worth and are owed maximal respect, and also maintain that other
beings have lesser but still morally significant standing or worth and
so deserve less but still some respect. So, although it is always
wrong to use moral agents merely as means, it may be justifiable to
use nonpersons as means (for example, to do research on human embryos
or kill animals for food) provided their moral worth is also
respectfully acknowledged (Meyer and Nelson, 2001). Much philosophical
work has been done, particularly in environmental ethics, to determine
the practical implications of the claim that things other than persons
are owed respect (e.g., Corral 2015; Foreman 2015; Schmidtz 2011;
Bognar 2011; Connolly 2006; Wiggins 2000; Westra 1989).


## 4. Self-Respect



While there is much controversy about respect for persons and other
things, there is surprising agreement among moral and political
philosophers about at least this much concerning respect for oneself:
self-respect is something of great importance in everyday life.
Indeed, it is regarded both as morally required and as essential to
the ability to live a satisfying, meaningful, flourishing life--a
life worth living--and just as vital to the quality of our lives
together. Saying that a person has no self-respect or acts in a way no
self-respecting person would act, or that a social institution
undermines the self-respect of some people, is generally a strong
moral criticism. Nevertheless, as with respect itself, there is
philosophical disagreement, both real and merely apparent, about the
nature, scope, grounds, and requirements of self-respect. Self-respect
is often defined as a sense of worth or as due respect for oneself; it
has been analyzed in various ways: it is treated as a moral duty
connected with the duty to respect all persons, as something to which
all persons have a right and which it would be unjust to undermine, as
a moral virtue essential to morally good living, and as something one
earns by living up to demanding standards. Self-respect is frequently
(but not always correctly) identified with or compared to self-esteem,
self-confidence, dignity, self-love, a sense of honor, self-reliance,
pride, and it is contrasted (but not always correctly) with servility,
shame, humility, self-abnegation, arrogance, self-importance.
Understanding how, if at all, self-respect is connected with and
different from these other attitudes and stances is important to
having a good understanding of self-respect and the other things.



In addition to the questions philosophers have addressed about respect
in general, other questions have been of particular concern to those
interested in self-respect, such as: (1) What is self-respect, and how
is it connected to or different from related notions such as
self-esteem, self-confidence, pride, and so on? How are respect for
persons and respect for oneself alike and unalike? (2) How is
self-respect related to such things as moral rights, virtue, autonomy,
integrity, and identity? (3) Is there a moral duty to respect
ourselves as there is a duty to recognition respect others? (4) Are
there objective conditions--for example, moral standards or
correct judgments--that a person must meet in order to have
self-respect, or is self-respect a subjective phenomenon that gains
support from any sort of self-valuing without regard to correctness or
moral acceptability? (5) Does respecting oneself conceptually entail
or causally require or lead to respecting other persons (or anything
else)? And how are respect for other persons and respect for oneself
alike and unalike? (6) What features of an individual's
psychology and experience, what aspects of the social context, and
what modes of interactions with others support or undermine
self-respect? (7) Are social institutions and practices to be judged
just or unjust (at least in part) by how they affect self-respect? Can
considerations of self-respect help us to better understand the nature
and wrongness of injustices such as oppression and to determine
effective and morally appropriate ways to resist or end them?


### 4.1 The concept of self-respect



Self-respect is a form of self-regard, a moral relation of persons
(and only persons) to themselves that concerns their own important
worth. Self-respect is thus essentially a valuing form of respect. It
is, moreover, a normative stance--it is *due* regard for
oneself, *proper* regard for the dignity of one's person
or position (as the *O.E.D.* puts it). Like respect for others,
self-respect is a complex of multilayered and interpenetrating
phenomena; it involves all those aspects of cognition, valuation,
affect, expectation, motivation, action, and reaction that compose a
mode of being in the world at the heart of which is an appropriate
appreciation of oneself as having significant worth. Unlike some forms
of respect, self-respect is not something one has only now and again
or that might have no effect on its object. Rather, self-respect has
to do with the structure and attunement of an individual's
identity and of her life, and it reverberates throughout the self,
affecting the configuration and constitution of the person's
thoughts, desires, values, emotions, commitments, dispositions, and
actions. As expressing or constituting one's sense of worth, it
includes an engaged understanding of one's worth, as well as a
desire and disposition to protect and preserve it. Accounts of
self-respect differ in their characterizations of the beliefs,
desires, affects, and behaviors that are constitutive of it, chiefly
because of differences concerning both the aspects or conception of
the self insofar as it is the object of one's respect and also
the nature and grounds of the worth of the self or aspects of the
self.



Most theorists agree that as there are different kinds of respect, so
there are different kinds of self-respect. However, we clearly cannot
apply all kinds of respect to ourselves: it makes no sense to talk of
directive respect for oneself, for instance, and although one might
regard oneself or some of one's characteristics as obstacles
("I'm my own worst enemy"), this would not generally
be considered a form of self-respect. Because the notion of self-worth
is the organizing motif for self-respect, and because in the dominant
Western tradition two kinds of worth are ascribed to persons, two
kinds of self-respect can be distinguished.



One way of expressing the distinction is to focus on the kinds of
self-worth around which it is oriented. One kind of worth has to do
with what the individual is: occupant of a social role, member of a
certain class, group, or people, someone with a certain place in a
social hierarchy, or simply a human person. Kantian dignity is one
form, but not the only form, of this kind of worth. Such status- or
identity-grounded worth entails both entitlements to due treatment
from others and responsibilities for the individual in virtue of being
the kind of thing that is rightly the object of respect.
*Recognition self-respect* centers on this kind of worth. (Bird
calls this "entitlement self-respect" (Bird 2010);
Schemmel calls it "standing self-respect" (Schemmel
2019)). The censuring question, "Have you no
self-respect?", the phrase "No self-respecting person
would ...," and the idea that everyone has a right to
self-respect concern recognition self-respect. Another kind of
self-respect depends not on what one is but on the kind of person one
is making of oneself, on the extent to which one's character and
conduct meet standards of worthiness. *Evaluative self-respect*
has to do with this second kind of worth, an acquired worth that we
can call "merit," which is based on the quality of
one's character and conduct. (Darwall (1997) calls this
"appraisal self-respect"; Bird and Schemmel call it
"standards self-respect," since merit is a function of the
standards to which one holds oneself and by which one evaluates or
appraises oneself.) We earn or lose merit, and so deserve or
don't deserve evaluative self-respect, through what we do or
become. Although they are different, recognition self-respect and
evaluative self-respect are related. The former involves, among other
things, recognizing certain norms as entailed by one's
identity-based worth and valuing oneself appropriately by striving to
live in accord with them. The latter involves regarding oneself as
having merit because one is or is becoming the kind of person who does
live in accord with what one regards as appropriate norms or
standards.



Individuals have numerous identities and so worth bases for different
forms of recognition self-respect. While self-respect based on
one's social role or position can be quite important to the
individual and how she lives her life as a self-respecting chef,
rabbi, mother, teacher, Hindu, or member of the aristocracy, most
philosophical discussions, heavily influenced by Kant, focus on
dignity-based respect for oneself as a person, that is, on moral
recognition self-respect. Recognition respect for oneself as a person,
then, involves living in light of an understanding and appreciation of
oneself as having dignity and moral status just in virtue of being a
person, and of the moral constraints that arise from that dignity and
status. All persons are morally obligated or entitled to have this
kind of self-respect. Because the dominant Kantian conception of
persons grounds dignity in three things--equality, agency, and
individuality--we can further distinguish three kinds of
recognition self-respect. The first is respect for oneself as a person
among persons, as a member of the moral community with a status and
dignity equal to every other person (see, for example, Thomas 1983a;
Boxill 1976; Hill 1973). This involves having some conception of the
kinds of treatment from others that would count as one's due as
a person and treatment that would be degrading or beneath one's
dignity, desiring to be regarded and treated appropriately, and
resenting and being disposed to protest disregard and disrespectful
treatment. Thinking of oneself as having certain moral rights that
others ought not to violate is part of this kind of self-respect;
servility (regarding oneself as the inferior of others) and arrogance
(thinking oneself superior to others) are among its opposites.



The second kind of recognition self-respect involves an appreciation
of oneself as an agent, a being with the ability and responsibility to
act autonomously and value appropriately (see, for example, G. Taylor
1985; Telfer 1968). Persons who respect themselves as agents take
their responsibilities seriously, especially their responsibilities to
live in accord with their dignity as persons, to govern themselves
fittingly, and to make of themselves and their lives something they
believe to be good. So, self-respecting persons regard certain forms
of acting, thinking, desiring, and feeling as befitting them as
persons and other forms as self-debasing or shameful, and they expect
themselves to adhere to the former and avoid the latter. They take
care of themselves and seek to develop and use their talents and
abilities in pursuit of their plans, projects, and goals. Those who
are shameless, uncontrolled, weak-willed, self-consciously
sycophantic, chronically irresponsible, slothfully dependent,
self-destructive, or unconcerned with the shape and direction of their
lives may be said to not respect themselves as agents.



A third kind of recognition self-respect involves the appreciation of
the importance of being autonomously self-defining. One way a
self-respecting individual does this is through having, and living in
light, of a normative self-conception, i.e., a conception of being and
living that she regards as worthy of her as the particular person she
is. Such a self-conception both gives expression to ideals and
commitments that shape the individual's identity, and also
organizes desires, choices, pursuits, and projects in ways that give
substance and worth to the self. Self-respecting people hold
themselves to personal expectations and standards the disappointment
of which they would regard as unworthy of them, shameful, even
contemptible (although they may not apply these standards to others)
(Hill 1982). People who sell out, betray their own values, live
inauthentic lives, let themselves be defined by others, or are
complacently self-accepting lack this kind of recognition
self-respect.



To these three Kantian kinds of recognition self-respect, we can add a
fourth, which has to do with the fact that it is not just as abstract
human beings or as agents with personal and universalizable moral
goals and obligations that individuals can, do, or should respect
themselves but also as concrete persons embedded in particular social
structures and occupying various social positions with status-related
responsibilities they must meet to be self-respecting (Middleton
2006). This last kind also has political implications, as discussed
below.



Evaluative self-respect, which expresses confidence in one's
merit as a person, rests on an appraisal of oneself in light of the
normative self-conception that structures recognition self-respect.
Recognition self-respecting persons are concerned to be the kind of
person they think it is good and appropriate for them to be and they
try to live the kind of life such a person should live. Thus, they
have and try to live by certain standards of worthiness by which they
are committed to judge themselves. Indeed, they stake themselves,
their value and their identities, on living in accord with these
standards. Because they want to know where they stand, morally, they
are disposed to reflectively examine and evaluate their character and
conduct in light of their normative vision of themselves. And it
matters to them that they are able to "bear their own
survey," as Hume says (1739, 620). Evaluative self-respect
contains the judgment that one is or is becoming the worthy kind of
person one seeks to be, and, more significantly, that one is not in
danger of becoming an unworthy kind of person (Dillon 2004).
Evaluative self-respect holds, at the least, the judgment that one
"comes up to scratch," as Telfer (1968) puts it. Those
whose conduct is unworthy or whose character is shameful by their own
standards do not deserve their own evaluative respect. However, people
can be poor self-appraisers and their standards can be quite
inappropriate to them or to any person, and so their evaluative
self-respect, though still subjectively satisfying, can be
unwarranted, as can the loss or lack of it. Interestingly, although
philosophers have paid scant attention to evaluative respect for
others, significant work has been done on evaluative self-respect.
This may reflect an asymmetry between the two: although our evaluative
respect for others may have no effect on them, perhaps because we
don't express it or they don't value our appraisal, our
own self-evaluation matters intensely to us and can powerfully affect
our self-identity and the shape and structure of our lives. Indeed, an
individual's inability to stomach herself can profoundly
diminish the quality of her life, even her desire to continue
living.



Some philosophers have contended that a third kind of self-valuing
underlies both recognition and evaluative self-respect. It is a more
basic sense of worth that enables an individual to develop the
intellectually more sophisticated forms, a precondition for being able
to take one's qualities or the fact that one is a person as
grounds of positive self-worth. It has been called "basic
psychological security" (Thomas 1989), "self-love"
(Buss 1999), and "basal self-respect" (Dillon 1997). Basal
self-valuing is our most fundamental sense of ourselves as mattering
and our primordial interpretation of self and self-worth. Strong and
secure basal self-respect can immunize an individual against personal
failing or social denigration, but damage to basal self-respect, which
can occur when people grow up in social, political, or cultural
environments that devalue them or "their kind," can make
it impossible for people to properly interpret themselves and their
self-worth, because it affects the way in which they assess reality
and weigh reasons. Basal self-respect is thus the ground of the
possibility of recognition and evaluative self-respect.



There are also non-deontological accounts of moral recognition
self-respect. Utilitarians, for example, can treat self-respect as of
paramount importance to a flourishing or happy life, and thereby
justifying moral constraints on the treatment of others (Scarre 1992).
Similarly, one could give a virtue-theoretical account of recognition
self-respect, especially the agentic form (Dillon 2015), although this
avenue has been relatively unexplored



It is common in everyday discourse and philosophical discussion to
treat self-respect and self-esteem as synonyms. It is evaluative
self-respect, typically, with which self-esteem is conflated (Dillon
2013). Evaluative self-respect and (high) self-esteem are both forms
of positive self-regard concerned with one's worth, both involve
having a favorable view of oneself in virtue of one's activities
and personal qualities, and a person can have or lack either one
undeservedly. Nevertheless, many philosophers have argued that the two
attitudes are importantly different (for example, Dillon 2004, 2013;
Harris 2001; Chazan 1998; Sachs 1981; Darwall 1977), although some
theorists treat the evaluative stance as a form of self-esteem
("mortal self-esteem"). The main difference between the
two is that evaluative self-respect is a normative stance and
self-esteem is not: the former calls for justification in light of
standards one has good reason to regard as appropriate, while the
latter arises from beliefs about oneself whose justification need not
matter to one and that need not involve standards-based
self-assessment. Many philosophers agree that evaluative self-respect
is morally important, which makes sense inasmuch as it is in the
service of the moral demands of dignity, worthy character, agency, and
one's moral commitments, and so is a motivation for morally
appropriate living. Self-esteem--having a good opinion of oneself or
feeling good about oneself--is one of the most extensively studied
phenomena in psychology and social psychology; it is generally
regarded by social scientists as central to healthy psychological
functioning and well-being, although they note that it has no
necessary connection to moral values, is central to such negative
states as narcissism, and can lead to serious disrespect of others and
harm unless appropriately constrained (Baumeister et al 1996). (But
see Keshen (2017) on the value of reasonable self-esteem.) One way of
distinguishing evaluative self-respect and self-esteem is by their
grounds and the points of view from which they are appraised.
Evaluative self-respect involves an assessment from a moral point of
view of one's character and conduct in light of standards one
regards as implied by one's moral worth as an agent and a
person. Self-esteem, as popularly and scientifically understood, is
based both on whatever qualities or activities one prizes or thinks
others prize, and on the esteem one believes one gets from others
whose esteem one values. It does not essentially concern morally
significant worth, appropriate self-valuing, or self-assessment from a
moral point of view, and it can be based on features wholly unrelated
to or even opposed to good character. For example, one can have a good
opinion of oneself in virtue of being a good joke-teller or for having
won an important sports competition and yet not think one is a good
person because of it (Darwall 1977). And depending on what serves
one's psychological needs or suits one's companions, one
can derive high self-esteem from successful thuggery as from being
honest and kind. To have self-esteem is to feel good about oneself; to
have evaluative self-respect is to feel justified, to be able to hold
one's head up, look others in the eye, face oneself in the
mirror. Another way of distinguishing them focuses on what it is to
lose them: to lose evaluative respect for oneself is to find oneself
to be shameful, contemptible, or intolerable; to lose self-esteem is
to think less well of oneself, to be downcast because one believes one
lacks qualities that would add to one's luster (Harris 2001) or
that others think less well of one.



Self-respect is also often identified with pride, although the two are
rather different (Morton 2017). Just as there are different kinds of
self-respect so, there are different kinds of pride, which are
complexly related. In one sense, pride is the pleasure or satisfaction
taken in one's achievements, possessions, or associations; this
kind of pride can be an affective element of either evaluative
self-respect or self-esteem. In another sense, pride is inordinate
self-esteem or vanity, an excessively high opinion of one's
qualities, accomplishments, or status that can make one arrogant and
contemptuous of others. This kind of pride contrasts with both
well-grounded evaluative self-respect and the interpersonal kind of
moral recognition self-respect. But pride can also be a claim to and
celebration of a status worth or to equality with others, especially
other groups (for example, Black Pride), which is interpersonal
recognition self-respect (Thomas 1993a, 1978-79). Pride can also be
"proper pride," which is a sense of one's dignity
that prevents one from doing what is unworthy; this is the agentic
dimension of recognition self-respect. Pride's opposites, shame
and humility, are also closely related to self-respect. A loss of
evaluative self-respect may be expressed in shame, but shameless
people manifest a lack of recognition self-respect; and although
humiliation can diminish or undermine recognition self-respect and
evaluative self-respect, humility is an appropriate dimension of the
evaluative self-respect of any imperfect person.



One issue with which contemporary philosophers have been concerned is
whether self-respect is an objective concept or a subjective one. If
it is the former, then there are certain beliefs, attitudes, and
dispositions a person must have to be self-respecting. A person who
thought of herself as a lesser sort of being whose interests and
well-being are less important than those of others would not count as
having moral recognition self-respect, no matter how appropriate she
regards her stance. If self-respect is a subjective concept, then a
person counts as having self-respect if, for example, she believes she
is not tolerating treatment she regards as unworthy or behaving in
ways she thinks is beneath her, regardless of whether her judgments
about herself are accurate or her standards or sense of what she is
due are judged by others to be reasonable or worthy (Massey 1983a).
Psychologists, for whom "self-esteem" is the term of
practice, tend to regard the various dimensions of a person's
sense of worth as subjective. Many philosophers treat the
interpersonal dimension of recognition self-respect objectively, and
it is generally thought that having manifestly inaccurate beliefs
about oneself is good grounds for at least calling an
individual's sense of worth unjustified or compromised (Meyers
1989). But there is no consensus regarding the standards to which
individuals hold themselves and by which they judge themselves, and
certainly the standards of the self-defining dimension of moral
recognition self-respect are inescapably, though perhaps not
exclusively, subjective. Complicating the objective/subjective
distinction, however, is the fact of the social construction of
self-respect. What it is to be a person or to have a status worthy of
respect, what treatment and conduct are appropriate to a person or one
with such a status, what forms of life and character have
merit--all of these are given different content in different
sociocultural contexts. Individuals necessarily, though perhaps not
inalterably, learn to engage with themselves and with issues of
self-worth in the terms and modes of the sociocultural conceptions in
which they have been immersed. And different kinds of individuals may
be given different opportunities in different sociocultural contexts
to acquire or develop the grounds of the different kinds of
self-respect (Dillon 2021, 1997; Moody-Adams 1992-93; Meyers
1989; Thomas 1983b). Even fully justified self-respect may thus be
less than strongly objective and more than simply subjective.


### 4.2 Treatment of self-respect in moral and political philosophy



Self-respect is frequently appealed to as a means of justifying a wide
variety of philosophical claims or positions, generally in arguments
of the form: *x* promotes (or undermines) self-respect;
therefore, *x* is to that extent to be morally approved (or
objected to). For example, appeals to self-respect have been used to
argue for, among many other things, the value of moral rights
(Feinberg 1970), moral requirements or limits regarding forgiving
others or oneself (Dillon 2001; Holmgren 1998, 1993; Novitz 1998;
Haber 1991; Murphy 1982), and both the rightness and wrongness of
practices such as affirmative action. Such arguments rely on rather
than establish the moral importance of self-respect. Most philosophers
who attend to self-respect tend to treat it as important in one of two
ways, which are exemplified in the very influential work of Kant and
John Rawls.



Kant argues that, just as we have a moral duty to respect others as
persons, so we have a moral duty to respect ourselves as persons, a
duty that derives from our dignity as rational beings. This duty
requires us to act always in an awareness of our dignity and so to act
only in ways that are consistent with our status as ends in ourselves
and to refrain from acting in ways that abase, degrade, defile, or
disavow our rational nature. That is, we have a duty of moral
recognition self-respect. In *The Metaphysics of Morals*
(1797), Kant argues for specific duties to oneself generated by the
general duty to respect humanity in our persons, including duties to
not engage in suicide, misuse of our sexual powers, drunkenness and
other unrestrained indulgence of inclination, lying, self-deception,
avarice, and servility. Kant also maintains that the duty of
self-respect is the most important moral duty, for unless there were
duties to respect oneself, there could be no moral duties at all.
Moreover, fulfilling our duty to respect ourselves is a necessary
condition of fulfilling our duties to respect other persons. Kant
maintains that we are always aware of our dignity as persons and so of
our moral obligation to respect ourselves, and he identifies this
awareness as a feeling of reverential respect for ourselves. This is
one of the natural capacities of feeling which we could have no duty
to acquire but that make it possible for us to be motivated by the
thought of duty. Reverence for self is, along with "moral
feeling," conscience, and love of others, a subjective source of
morality, and it is the motivational ground of the duty of
self-respect. Kant also discusses evaluative self-respect, especially
in *Critique of Practical Reason* (1788) and his *Lectures
on Ethics* (1779), as a combination of noble pride, which is the
awareness that we have honored and preserved our dignity by acting in
morally worthy ways, and a healthy dose of humility, which is the
awareness that we inevitably fall short of the lofty requirements of
the moral law. Kant regards well-grounded evaluative self-respect as a
subjective motivation to continue striving to do right and be
good.



Rawls, by contrast, views self-respect neither as something we are
morally required to have and maintain nor as a feeling we necessarily
have, but as an entitlement that social institutions are required by
justice to support and not undermine. In *A Theory of Justice*
(1971) he argues that self-respect (which he sometimes calls
"self-esteem" is a "primary good," something
that rational beings want whatever else they want, because it is vital
both to the experienced quality of individual lives and to the ability
to carry out or achieve whatever projects or aims an individual might
have. It is, moreover, a social good, one that individuals are able to
acquire only under certain social and political conditions. Rawls
defines self-respect as including "a person's sense of his
own value, his secure conviction that his conception of the good, his
plan of life, is worth carrying out," and it implies "a
confidence in one's ability, so far as it is within one's
power, to fulfill one's intentions" (Rawls 1971, 440). He
argues that individuals' access to self-respect is to a large
degree a function of how the basic institutional structure of a
society defines and distributes the social bases of self-respect,
which include the messages about the relative worth of citizens that
are conveyed in the structure and functioning of institutions, the
distribution of fundamental political rights and civil liberties,
access to the resources individuals need to pursue their plans of
life, the availability of diverse associations and communities within
which individuals can seek affirmation of their worth and their plans
of life from others, and the norms governing public interaction among
citizens. Since self-respect is vital to individual well-being, Rawls
argues that justice requires that social institutions and policies be
designed to support and not undermine self-respect. Rawls argues that
the principles of justice as fairness are superior to utilitarian
principles insofar as they better affirm and promote self-respect for
all citizens.



Rawls's view that the ability of individuals to respect
themselves is heavily dependent on their social and political
circumstances has been echoed by a number of theorists working in
moral, social, and political philosophy. For example, Margalit (1996)
argues that a decent society is one whose institutions do not
humiliate people, that is, give people good reason to consider their
self-respect to be injured (but see Bird 2010). Honneth's theory
of social criticism (1995) focuses on the way people's
self-respect and self-identity necessarily depend on the recognition
of others and so are vulnerable to being misrecognized or ignored both
by social institutions and in interpersonal interactions. Some
theorists have used the concept of self-respect to examine the
oppression of women, people of color, gays and lesbians, and other
groups that are marginalized, stigmatized, or exploited by the
dominant culture, identifying the plethora of ways in which oppressive
institutions, images, and actions can do damage to the self-respect of
members of these groups. Other writers discuss ways that individuals
and groups might preserve or restore self-respect in the face of
injustice or oppression, and the ways in which the development of
self-respect in individuals living under oppression or injustice
empowers them to participate in the monumental struggles for justice
and liberation (for example, Babbitt 2000, 1993; Bartky 1990a, 1990b,
1990c; Basevich 2022; Boxill 1992, 1976; Boxill and Boxill 2015;
Collins 1990; Dillon 2021, 1997, 1995; Diller 2001; Hay 2013, 2011;
Holberg 2017; Ikuenobe 2004; Khader 2021; Meyers 1989, 1986; Mohr
1992, 1988; Moody-Adams 1992-93; Seglow 2016; Statman 2002;
Thomas 2001b, 1983a, 1978-79; Weber 2016). Some theorists,
especially those working within a feminist framework, have argued that
the prevailing conceptions of self-respect in Kantian theory or in
contemporary liberal societies themselves contain features that
reflect objectionable aspects of the dominating culture, and they have
attempted to reconceive self-respect in ways that are more conducive
to empowerment and emancipation (for example, Borgwald 2012, Dillon
1992c).



In moral philosophy, theorists have also focused on connections
between self-respect and various virtues and vices, such as self-trust
(Borgwald 2012; Govier 1993), justice (Bloomfield 2011), honesty
(Mauri 2011), benevolence (Andrew 2011), humility (Dillon 2020, 2015;
Grenberg 2010), self-forgiveness (Dillon 2001; Holmgren 1998; Novitz
1998), self-improvement (Johnson 2011), general immorality (Bagnoli
2009; Bloomfield 2008), and arrogance (Dillon 2022, 2021, 2015, 2007,
2003).


## 5. Conclusion



Everyday discourse and practices insist that respect and self-respect
are personally, socially, politically, and morally important, and
philosophical discussions of the concepts bear this out. Their roles
in our lives as individuals, as people living in complex relations
with other people and surrounded by a plethora of other beings and
things on which our attitudes and actions have tremendous effects,
cannot, as these discussions reveal, be taken lightly. The discussions
thus far shed light on the nature and significance of the various
forms of respect and self-respect and their positions in a nexus of
profoundly important but philosophically challenging and contestable
concepts. These discussions also reveal that more work remains to be
done in clarifying these attitudes and their places among and
implications for our concepts and our lives.