Hostname: page-component-69cd664f8f-fgph7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-13T08:34:09.313Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Real self-respect and its social bases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Christian Schemmel Open the ORCID record for Christian Schemmel [Opens in a new window]
Christian Schemmel*
Affiliation:
Manchester Centre for Political Theory, Department of Politics, University of Manchester, Mancheste, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many theories of social justice maintain that concern for the social bases of self-respect grounds demanding requirements of political and economic equality, as self-respect is supposed to be dependent on continuous just recognition by others. This paper argues that such views miss an important feature of self-respect, which accounts for much of its value: self-respect is a capacity for self-orientation that is robust under adversity. This does not mean that there are no social bases of self-respect that such theories ought to incorporate. It means that they are different: they consist of the motivational and epistemic resources needed to develop and maintain such robustness.

Keywords

Self-respectself-esteemsocial justiceinjusticeequality, inequalityRawls
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 5 , August 2019 , pp. 628 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

References

Axelsen, D., and Nielsen, L.. 2015. “Sufficiency as Freedom from Duress.” Journal of Political Philosophy, 23 (4): 406–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, C., 2010. “Self-Respect and the Respect of Others.” European Journal of Philosophy, 18 (1): 17–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, A., 1975. “Justice: John Rawls Vs. the Tradition of Political Philosophy.” American Political Science Review, 69 (2): 648–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boxill, B., 1978. “Self-Respect and Protest.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 6 (1): 58–69.Google Scholar
Cohen, J., 1989. “Democratic Equality.” Ethics, 99 (4): 727–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J., 2002. “For a Democratic Society.” In The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, edited by Freeman, S., 86–138. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwall, S., 1977. “Two Kinds of Respect.” Ethics, 88 (1): 36–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doppelt, G., 2009. “The Place of Self-Respect in a Theory of Justice.” Inquiry, 52 (2): 127–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillon, R., 1995. “Introduction.” In Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect, edited by Dillon, R., 1–52. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dillon, R., 1997. “Self-Respect: Moral, Emotional, Political.” Ethics, 107 (2): 226–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eyal, N., 2005. “‘Perhaps the Most Important Primary Good’: Self-Respect and Rawls’s Principles of Justice.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 4 (2): 195–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forst, R., 2015. “Noumenal Power.” Journal of Political Philosophy, 23 (2): 111–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez Ricoy, Í., and Queralt Lange, J.. 2018. “Political Liberties and Social Equality.” Law & Philosophy, Online First,. doi:10.1007/s10982-018-9329-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, T. E. Jr, 1991. Autonomy and Self-Respect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honneth, A., 1995. The Struggle for Recognition. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Jütten, T., 2017. “Dignity, Esteem, and Social Contribution: A Recognition-Theoretical View.” Journal of Political Philosophy, 25 (3): 259–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I., 1996. The Metaphysics of Morals, edited by Gregor, M.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krishnamurthy, M., 2013. “Completing Rawls's Arguments for Equal Political Liberty and Its Fair Value: The Argument from Self-Respect.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 43 (2): 179–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristjánsson, K., 2010. The Self and Its Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margalit, A., 1996. The Decent Society. Cambridge (MA): Havard University Press.Google Scholar
Lalljee, M., Tam, T., Hewstone, M., Laham, S., and Lee, J.. 2009. “Unconditional Respect for Persons and the Prediction of Intergroup Action Tendencies.” European Journal of Social Psychology, 39 (5): 666–683.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, S. J., 1983. “Is Self-Respect a Moral or a Psychological Concept?” Ethics, 93 (2): 246–261.10.1086/292432CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, C., 1989. Towards a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, D., 1998. “Equality and Justice.” In Ideals of Equality, edited by Mason, A., 21–36. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rawls, J., 1996. Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J., 1999a. A Theory of Justice. Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J., 1999b. Collected Papers. Edited by Freeman, S.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J.-J., 1973. “A Discourse on Inequality.” In The Social Contract and Discourses, edited by Cole, G. D. H., 27–114. London: Dent & Sons.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T., 2002. “The Diversity of Objections to Inequality.” In The Ideal of Equality, edited by Clayton, M. and Williams, A., 41–59, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schemmel, C., 2011. “Why Relational Egalitarians Should Care about Distributions.” Social Theory and Practice, 37 (3): 365–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schemmel, C., 2012. “Distributive and Relational Equality.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 11 (2): 123–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, L., 1978. “Morality and Our Self-Concept.” Journal of Value Inquiry, 12 (4): 258–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, C., 1994. “The Politics of Recognition.” In Multiculturalism, edited by Gutmann, A., 25–73. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velleman, D., 1999. “A Right of Self-Termination?” Ethics, 109 (3): 606–628.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waligore, T., 2016. “Rawls, Self-Respect, and Assurance.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 15 (1): 42–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, M., 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Whitfield, G., 2017. “Self-Respect and Public Reason.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 20 (4): 446–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, J., 1998. “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 27 (2): 97–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar