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Can't We All Just Respect One Another a Little Less?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael Neumann
Michael Neumann*
Affiliation:
Trent University, Peterborough, ON, CanadaK9J 7B8
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Extract

Contemporary moral philosophy and much contemporary moralizing almost radiate respect for persons. Thomas Nagel is one of many who take its primacy for granted. In a review of Scanion he says:

Scanlon's theory addresses a number of its central questions: first, the question of the objectivity or truth of moral Claims, their relation to reason, and whether or not they should be regarded as in some sense relative or subjective; second, the question of the kind of concern or respect for persons that is at the foundation of morality…

Many others take the centrality and foundational role of such respect as a given. This is a big change from the days when moralists held that all human beings deserved a certain basic and equal disrespect.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 463 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2004

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References

1 Nagel, Thomas ‘One-to-One,’ review of Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe Each Other, London Review of Books 213 (4 February 1999)Google Scholar, in Concealment and Exposure, and Other Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002), 148

2 Often cited in this connection are Donagan, Alan The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Taylor, Charles ‘The Diversity of Goods,’ in Sen, A.K. and Williams, Bernard eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982) 128–44.Google Scholar Charles Fried goes so far as to say that ‘Right and wrong are expressions of respect for persons — respect for others and self-respect' (Fried, Charles Right and Wrong [Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1978], 9Google Scholar); and the opening sentence of Downie, R.S. and Tefler's, Elizabeth Respect for Persons (London: George Allen & Unwin 1969)Google Scholar is: ‘The idea of the individual as of supreme worth is fundamental to the moral, political and religious ideals of our society’ (9).

3 Marston, John The Malcontent (1604), Act IV, scene 5Google Scholar

4 Lothario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III), On the Misery of the Human Condition (De Miseria Humanae Conditionis), Howard, Donald R. ed., The Library of the Liberal Arts (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1969),Google Scholar Book I, Part ii (Of The Vile Matter of Which Man is Made), 6.

5 I have argued elsewhere that Kantianism cannot provide a basis for contemporary conceptions of respect for persons. See ‘Did Kant Respect Persons?’ Res Publica 6 1 (2000) 1-15.

6 Darwall, Stephen ‘Two Kinds of Respect,’ Ethics 88 1 (1977) 36–49,CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 41

7 Darwall, 38

8 Nozick, Robert Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books 1974), 37Google Scholar

9 Taylor, Charles ‘The Diversity of Goods,’ in Sen and Williams, Utilitarianism and Beyond, 130Google Scholar

10 Vlastos, Gregory ‘Human Worth, Merit, and Equality,’ in Feinberg, Joel ed., Moral Concepts (London: Oxford University Press 1969), 150Google Scholar

11 Vlastos himself sees the equal value of well-being and freedom implying equal rights to well-being and freedom but, and significantly for our purposes, notes that these are prima fade rights (ibid., 151).

12 Rockefeller, Steven C. ‘Comment’ in Amy Gutman, ed., Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition': An Essay by Charles Taylor With commentary by Gutman, Amy Rockefeller, Steven C. Walzer, Michael Wolff, Susan (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992), 97Google Scholar

13 Taylor, 131

14 One recent and very clear insistence on a right to Substantive respect is found in Anderson, Elizabeth ‘What is the Point of Equality?’ Ethics 109 (1999) 287–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar She says that ‘the most fundamental test any egalitarian theory must meet [is] that its principles express equal respect and concern for all Citizens.’ She then, and on this basis, condemns certain forms of egalitarianism because their principles ‘express contemptuous pity,’ ‘disrespect the fortunate,’ and make ‘demeaning and intrusive judgements of people's capacities to exercise responsibility’ (cf. 289).

15 Fortunately, perhaps: Charles Taylor seems to count equality respect as one of those principles ‘so foundational to the moral thinking of our civilization.’ Cf. Taylor, 131f.

16 Essentially the same point is made in Landesman, Charles ‘Against Respect for Persons,’ Tulane Studies in Philosophy 31 (New Orleans: Tulane University Press 1982), 33.Google Scholar It is also suggested in Cranor's, Carl F. ‘Limitations on Respect-for-Persons Theories,’ p. 51Google Scholar of the same collection.

17 Dworkin, Ronald Stresses the importance of these requirements in Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1977), 227Google Scholar

18 See, for instance, Cranor, 50f.

19 Cranor, 49

20 Rawls, discusses these considerations in A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press 1973),Google Scholar 224ff. Also relevant is the discussion of a right's ‘core’ and ‘periphery' in Sumner, L. Wayne The Moral Foundation of Rights, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987),Google Scholar 47ff., 77ff.

21 Dworkin, Ronald expounds a very similar view in Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1977),Google Scholar 2721. Adina Schwartz is explicit about the connection between rationality and autonomy: ‘Individuals are only free, or autonomous, persons to the extent that they rationally form and act on some Overall conception of what they want in life.’ (This is slightly stronger than weak autonomy, but Schwartz is not speaking here of some minimal capacity that founds substantial respect.) See ‘Meaningful Work,’ Ethics 92 (1982), reprinted in Werhane, Patricia H. Gini, A.R. and Ozar, David T. eds., Philosophical Issues in Human Rights: Theories and Applications (New York: Random House 1986) 268–85,Google Scholar at 269.

22 See, for example, the use of the phrase ‘respect for autonomy’ in Mahowald, Mary B. 'Reproductive Genetics and Gender Justice,’ in Women and Prenatal Testing: facing the Challenges of Genetic Technology, Rothenberg, K.H. and Thomson, E.J. eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1994) 67–87.Google Scholar (Also available, 3 June 2004, at http://www.bioethics.net/genetics/genetics.php?task=view&articleID=717)

23 Tom Beauchamp seems to espouse this view: ‘The second principle… is sometimes referred to as the Principle of Respect for Persons, by which is usually meant that individuals should be allowed to be self-determining agents making their own evaluations and choice when their own interests are at stake. However, to be more specific, I shall refer to this principle as the Principle of Autonomy’ (Beauchamp, Tom L. ‘Suicide,’ in Reagan, Tom ed., Matters of Life and Death [Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1980], 80Google Scholar).

24 See, for instance, the pronouncement of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics: ‘Mental Disorders and Genetics: The Ethical Context (London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1998), 3.

Respect for persons is shown by treating others as persons who can make their own decisions and lead their own lives; it is expressed in action and procedures that give due weight to personal autonomy and integrity, to human (including patients’) rights, and to the Obligation of doctors and researchers to seek informed consent, to preserve confidentiality, to respect privacy and to communicate effectively with patients. Here it seems that we are given rights to strong autonomy because we have weak autonomy: we are ‘persons who can make our own decisions.' The report is available (3 June 2004) at http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/ filelibrary/pdf/mentaldisorders2.pdf. Onora O'Neill chaired the Council until May 1998.

25 See Alan Donagan's ‘fundamental principle': It is impermissible not to respect every human being, oneself or another, as a rational creature (empahsis in original. Donagan, Alan The Theory of Morality [Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1977], 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Charles Taylor holds that'… one absolute requirement of ethical thinking is that we respect other human agents as subjects of practical reasoning on the same footing as ourselves’ (my emphasis. Taylor, 130). See also his Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’ (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992), 41.

26 One clear, non-'Kantian’ link between rationality and respect for persons is articulated by Herbert Morris:

When we talk of not treating a human being as a person or ‘showing no respect for one as a person’ what we imply by our words is a contrast between the manner in which one acceptably responds to human beings and the manner in which one acceptably responds to animal and inanimate objects…. when we look upon' a person as less than a person or not a person we consider the person as incapable of rational choice.

Since Morris speaks of how ‘human beings pride themselves in having capacities that animals do not,’ it is likely that he is speaking of something like substantial respect. See ‘Persons and Punishment’ The Monist 52 4, reprinted in Werhane, Gini, and Ozar 364-76, esp. 372, 370.

27 It is worth noting, in this connection, Wayne Norman's critique of the notion that autonomy might have great value as a constituent or necessary condition of some other very valuable thing, such as a good life. See Norman, W.J. ‘The Autonomy-Based Liberalism of Joseph Raz,’ Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2 2 (1989) 151–62,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. section 4, 154ff.

28 Williams, Bernard makes a very similar assessment of the virtues in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1985), 9.Google Scholar

29 Gauthier, David Practical Reasoning: The Structure and Foundations of Prudential and Moral Arguments and their Exemplification in Discourse (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1963), 23.Google Scholar

30 This is the phrase used by Anatol Rappoport in his Standard introduction to the field: Two-Person Game Theory: The Essential Ideas (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1966), 17. There are many more recent views on what constitutes, or should constitute, minimal behavioural or practical rationality. For the purposes of this discussion, what matters is that ‘minimal’ should not be taken to mean ‘minimally adequate’ from some moral or neo-Kantian Standpoint. Instead the minimum in question may be thought of almost in judicial terms: is the person fit to stand trial? Such persons fit means to ends in some way that indicates adequate intellectual capacity, but certainly not some commitment to morality or any higher Standard of rational conduct. Though I identify minimal rationality with straightforward maximization, making allowances for practices like satisficing or other non-cooperative but non-maximizing strategies would not change the argument.

31 On this point see Williams, Bernard Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 9.Google Scholar

32 Sarah Buss agrees that the rationality of persons can't ground respect, but seeks such a ground in the fact that ‘other points of view (other points of view on the same set of motives) are relevant to what we have reason to do — that they may yield genuine insight which is inaccessible from our own point of view.’ To my mind this is far too optimistic an assessment of others’ points of view. As I understand it, these points of view are not mere perspectives, which in themselves would not be respectworthy. They are the real judgements of real people, and at least potential sources of insight. But, in the first place, only actual, not potential sources of insight would make someone genuinely worthy of respect. More important, perhaps, is the fact that both actual and potential insight must be fully balanced against actual and potential error and evil. Buss admits that ‘each practical reasoner must reach her conclusions from her own unique point of view,’ but then compares the Situation of the practical to that of the theoretical reasoner, who finds intersubjectivity very useful. The two cases are not comparable. In the world of experience, whatever the Claims of scepticism, we find it hard not to accept that others are, under suitable constraints, a systematically valuable source of insights. In morals, matters are different. We find others’ judgements abhorrent, incomprehensible, and misleading to an extent unthinkable in 'theoretical reasoning': we need not discount nearly so many premodern judgements about, say, colours, as we do about slavery, or justice, or pretty much any other moral matter. History is not full of cases of people being monstrously misguided by others about perception, but it is full of cases of people being monstrously misguided about the most important matters of morality, precisely because they had Buss's sort of respect for persons. And I can see no reason to suppose that, in this case at least, the future does not resemble the past. So Buss's case for respect seems as plagued by the same excessively sanguine attitude to others’ moral judgement as the faux-Kantian tactic of basing respect on practical reason. cf. Buss, Sarah ‘Respect for Persons,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 29 4 (1999) 517–45,CrossRefGoogle Scholar esp. 541f.

33 I would like to thank the Editor, the two reviewers, and especially Manal Stamboulie for their helpful comments. It is my fault if I have not benefited more from their advice.