Respect has great importance in everyday life. As children we aretaught (one hopes) to respect our parents and teachers, school rulesand traffic laws, family and cultural traditions, other people’sfeelings and rights, our country’s flag and leaders, the truthand people’s differing opinions. And we come to value respectfor such things; when we’re older, we may shake our heads (orfists) at people who seem not to have learned to respect them. Wedevelop great respect for people we consider exemplary and loserespect for those we discover to be clay-footed; we may also come tobelieve that, at some level, all people are worthy of respect. We maylearn that jobs and relationships become unbearable if we receive norespect in them; in certain social milieus we may learn the price ofdisrespect if we violate the street law: “Diss me, and youdie.” Calls to respect this or that are increasingly part ofpublic life: environmentalists exhort us to respect nature, foes ofabortion and capital punishment insist on respect for human life,members of racial and ethnic minorities and those discriminatedagainst because of their gender, sexual orientation, age, religiousbeliefs, or economic status demand respect both as social and moralequals and for their cultural differences. And it is widelyacknowledged that public debates about such demands should take placeunder terms of mutual respect. We may learn both that our livestogether go better when we respect the things that deserve to berespected and that we should respect some things independently ofconsiderations of how our lives would go.

We may also learn that how our lives go depends every bit as much onwhether we respect ourselves. The value of self-respect may besomething we can take for granted, or we may discover how veryimportant it is when our self-respect is threatened, or we lose it andhave to work to regain it, or we have to struggle to develop ormaintain it in a hostile environment. Some people find that finallybeing able to respect themselves is what matters most about finallystanding on their own two feet, kicking a disgusting habit, ordefending something they value; others, sadly, discover that life isno longer worth living if self-respect is irretrievably lost. It ispart of everyday wisdom that respect and self-respect are deeplyconnected, that it is difficult both to respect others if wedon’t respect ourselves and to respect ourselves if othersdon’t respect us. It is increasingly part of political wisdomboth that unjust social institutions can devastatingly damageself-respect and that robust and resilient self-respect can be apotent force in struggles against injustice.

The ubiquity and significance of respect and self-respect in everydaylife largely explains why philosophers, particularly in moral andpolitical philosophy, have been interested in these two concepts. Theyturn up in a multiplicity of philosophical contexts, includingdiscussions of justice and equality, injustice and oppression,autonomy and agency, moral and political rights and duties, moralmotivation and moral development, cultural diversity and toleration,punishment and political violence, and a host of applied ethicscontexts. Although a wide variety of things are said to deserverespect, contemporary philosophical interest in respect hasoverwhelmingly been focused on respect for persons, the idea that allpersons should be treated with respect simply because they arepersons. This focus owes much to the 18^th century Germanphilosopher, Immanuel Kant, who argued that all and only persons andthe moral law they autonomously legislate are appropriate objects ofthe morally most significant attitude of respect. Although honor,esteem, and prudential regard played important roles in moral andpolitical theories before him, Kant was the first major Westernphilosopher to put respect for persons, including oneself, at the verycenter of moral theory, and his insistence that persons are ends inthemselves with an absolute dignity who must always be respected hasbecome a core ideal of modern humanism and political liberalism. Inrecent years many people have argued that moral respect ought also tobe extended to things other than persons, such as nonhuman livingbeings and the natural environment.

Despite the widespread acknowledgment of the importance of respect andself-respect in moral and political life and theory, there is nosettled agreement in either everyday thinking or philosophicaldiscussion about such issues as how to understand the concepts, whatthe appropriate objects of respect are, what is involved in respectingvarious objects, and what the scope is of any moral requirementsregarding respect and self-respect. This entry will survey these andrelated issues.

• 1. The Concept of Respect
  • 1.1 Elements of respect
  • 1.2 Kinds of Respect
• 2. Respect for Persons
  • 2.1 Some important issues
  • 2.2 Kant’s Account of Respect for Persons
  • 2.3 Further issues, developments, and applications
• 3. Respect for Nature and Nonhuman Beings
• 4. Self-Respect
  • 4.1 The concept of self-respect
  • 4.2 Treatment of self-respect in moral and political philosophy
• 5. Conclusion
• Bibliography
  • Philosophical works chiefly on respect and related concepts
  • Philosophical works chiefly on self-respect and related concepts
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. The Concept of Respect

Philosophers have approached the concept of respect with a variety ofquestions. (1) One set concerns the nature of respect, including (a)What sort of thing is respect? Philosophers have variously identifiedit as a mode of behavior, a form of treatment, a kind of valuing, atype of attention, a motive, an attitude, a feeling, a tribute, aprinciple, a duty, an entitlement, a moral virtue, an epistemicvirtue: are any of these categories more central than others? (b) Arethere different kinds of respect? If so, is any more basic thanothers? (c) Are there different levels or degrees of respect? (d) Whatare the distinctive elements of respect, or a specific kind ofrespect? What beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and motives does (aspecific kind of) respect involve, and what ways of acting andforbearing to act express or constitute or are regulated by it? (e) Towhat other attitudes, actions, valuings, duties, etc., is respect (ora specific kind) similar, and with what does it contrast? Inparticular, how is respect similar to, different from, or connectedwith esteem, honor, love, awe, reverence, recognition, toleration,dignity, contempt, indifference, discounting, denigration, and soon? (2) A second set of questions concerns objects of respect,including (a)What sorts of things can be reasonably be said to warrantrespect? (b) What are the bases or grounds for respect, i.e., thefeatures of or facts about objects in virtue of which it is reasonableand perhaps obligatory to respect them? (c) Must every appropriateobject always be respected? Can respect be forfeited, can lost respectbe regained? (3) A third set of questions focuses on moral dimensionsof respect, including (a) Are there moral requirements to respectcertain types of objects, and, if so, what are the scope and groundsof such requirements? (b) Why is respect morally important? What, ifanything, does it add to morality over and above the conduct,attitudes, and character traits required or encouraged by variousmoral principles or virtues? (c) What does respect entail morally forhow we should treat one another in everyday interactions, for issuesin specific contexts such as health care and the workplace, and forfraught issues such as abortion, racial and gender justice, and globalinequality?

1.1 Elements of respect

It is widely acknowledged that there are different forms or kinds ofrespect. This complicates the answering of these questions, sinceanswers concerning one form or kind of respect can divergesignificantly from those about another. Much philosophical work hasgone into explicating differences and links among the variouskinds.

One general distinction concerns respect simply as behavior andrespect as an attitude or feeling that may or may not be expressed inor signified by behavior. When we speak of drivers respecting thespeed limit, hostile forces respecting a cease fire agreement, or theCovid-19 virus not respecting national borders, we can be referringsimply to behavior which avoids violation of or interference with someboundary, limit, or rule, without any reference to attitudes,feelings, intentions, or dispositions, and even, as in the case ofviruses, without imputing agency (Bird 2004). In such cases thebehavior is regarded as constitutive of respecting. Where respect isconceived of as a duty or an entitlement, a certain kind of behavioror treatment may be all that is owed. Similarly, respect as a tributecould be just a certain mode of behavior, such as bowing or standingin silence. In other cases, however, we take respect to be or toexpress or signify an attitude or feeling, as when we speak of havingrespect for someone or of certain behaviors as showing respect ordisrespect. Here, actions and modes of treatment count as respectinsofar as they either manifest an attitude of respect or are of thesort through which the attitude is characteristically expressed; aprinciple of respect is one that necessarily must be adopted bysomeone with the attitude of respect or that prescribes the attitudeor actions that express it (Frankena 1986; Downie and Telfer 1969); amoral virtue of respect involves having the attitude as a settledaspect of one’s way of being toward appropriate objects. Mostdiscussions of respect for persons take attitude to be central. Inwhat 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 asubject and an object in which the subject responds to the object froma certain perspective in some appropriate way. Respect necessarily hasan object: respect is always directed toward, paid to, felt about,shown for some object. While a very wide variety of things can beappropriate objects of one kind of respect or another, the subject ofrespect (the respecter) is typically a person, that is, a consciousrational being capable of recognizing objects, intentionallyresponding 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 orthrough things that are not persons, such as guidelines, rules, laws,and principles, systems, and institutional organizations andoperations. So, we can say that laws that prohibit torture expressrespect for persons while the institution of slavery is profoundlydisrespectful of human beings.

Ordinary discourse about respect as a responsive relation identifiesseveral key elements, including attention, deference, judgment,valuing, and behavior. First, as its derivation from the Latinrespicere, (to look back at, look again) suggests, respect isa form of regard: a mode of attention to and acknowledgment of anobject as something to be taken seriously. Respecting somethingcontrasts with being oblivious or indifferent to it, ignoring orquickly dismissing it, neglecting or disregarding it, or carelessly orintentionally misidentifying it. Respect is also perspectival: we canrespect something from a moral perspective, or from prudential,evaluative, social, or institutional perspectives. From differentperspectives, we might attend to different aspects of the object inrespecting it or respect it in different ways. For example, one mightregard another human individual as a rights-bearer, a judge, asuperlative singer, a trustworthy person, or a threat to one’ssecurity, and the respect one accords her in each case will bedifferent. It is in virtue of this aspect of careful attention thatrespect 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. Werespect something not because we want to but because we recognize thatwe have to respect it (Wood 1999); respect involves “a deonticexperience”—the experience that onemust payattention and respond appropriately (Birch 1993). It thus ismotivational: it is the recognition of something “as directlydetermining our will without reference to what is wanted by ourinclinations” (Rawls 2000, 153). In this way respect differsfrom, for example, liking and fearing, which have their sources in thesubject’s interests or desires. When we respect something, weheed its call, accord it its due, acknowledge its claim. Thus, respectinvolves deference, in the most basic sense of yielding to theobject’s demands.

The idea that the object “drives” respect, as it were, isinvolved in the view that respect is an unmediated emotional response(Buss 1999b). But respect is typically treated as also an expressionof the agency of the respecter: respect is deliberate, a matter ofdirected rather than grabbed attention, of reflective considerationand judgment. On this view, respect is reason-governed: we cannotrespect a particular object for just any old reason or no reason atall. Rather, we respect something for the reason that it has, in ourjudgment, some respect-warranting characteristic, that makes it thekind of object that calls for that kind of response (Cranor 1975;Pettit 2021). And these reasons are both objective, in the sense thattheir weight or stringency does not depend on the respecter’sinterests, goals, or desires, and categorical, in the sense thatacting against these reasons, other things equal, is wrong (Raz 2001).Respect is thus both subjective and objective. It is subjective inthat the subject’s response is constructed from herunderstanding of the object and its characteristics and her judgmentsabout the legitimacy of its call and how fittingly to address thecall. The objectivity of respect means that an individual’srespect for an object can be inappropriate or unwarranted, for theobject may not have the features she takes it to have, or the featuresshe takes to be respect-warranting might not be, or her idea of howproperly to treat the object might be mistaken. Moreover, the logic ofrespect is the logic of objectivity and universality, in several ways.In respecting an object, we respond to it as something whosesignificance is independent of us, not determined by our feelings orinterests. Our reasons for respecting something are, logically,reasons for other people to respect it (or at least to endorse ourrespect for it from a common point of view). Respect is thus, unlikeerotic or filial love, an impersonal response to the object. And if Fis a respect-warranting feature of object O, then respecting O onaccount of F commits us, other things equal, to respecting otherthings with feature F.

There are many different kinds of objects that can reasonably berespected and many different reasons why they warrant respect. Thus,warranted responses can take different forms. Some things aredangerous or powerful; respecting them can involve fear, awe,self-protection, or submission. Other things have authority over usand the respect they are due includes acknowledgment of theirauthority and perhaps obedience to their authoritative commands. Otherforms of respect are modes of valuing, appreciating the object ashaving worth or importance that is independent of, perhaps even atvariance with, our desires or commitments. Thus, we can respect thingswe don’t like or agree with, such as our enemies or someoneelse’s opinion. Valuing respect is kin to esteem, admiration,veneration, reverence, and honor, while regarding something as utterlyworthless or insignificant or disdaining or having contempt for it isincompatible with respecting it. Respect also aims to value its objectappropriately, so it contrasts with degradation and discounting. Thekinds of valuing that respect involves also contrast with other formsof valuing such as promoting or using (Anderson 1993, Pettit 1989).Indeed, regarding a person merely as useful (treating her as just asexual object, an ATM machine, a research subject) is commonlyidentified as a central form of disrespect for persons, and manypeople decry the killing of endangered wild animals for their tusks orhides as disrespectful of nature.

Finally, attitudes of respect typically have a behavioral component.In respecting an object, we often consider it to be making legitimateclaims on our conduct as well as our thoughts and feelings and so weare disposed to behave appropriately. Appropriate behavior includesrefraining from certain treatment of the object or acting only inparticular ways in connection with it, ways that are regarded asfitting, deserved by, or owed to the object. And there are very manyways to respect things: keeping our distance from them, helping them,praising or emulating them, obeying or abiding by them, not violatingor interfering with them, destroying them only in some ways,protecting or being careful with them, talking about them in ways thatreflect their worth or status, mourning them, nurturing them. One canbehave in respectful ways, however, without having respect for theobject, as when a teen who disdains adults behaves respectfully towardher friend’s parents in a scheme to get the car, manipulatingrather than respecting them. To be a form or expression of respect,behavior has to be motivated by one’s acknowledgment of theobject as rightly calling for that behavior. On the other hand,certain kinds of feelings would not count as respect if they did notfind expression in behavior or involved no dispositions to behave inappropriate ways, and if they did not spring from perceptions orjudgments 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 conativedimensions (motivations, dispositions to act and forbear from acting);some forms also have valuational dimensions. One last dimension isnormative: the attitudes and actions of respect are governed by normsthat set standards of success or failure in responding torespect-worthy-objects. Some norms are moral, grounded in moralprinciples or morally important characteristics of respect-worthyobjects 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, andauthoritative or applicable (only) for participants in that form ofsociality.

1.2 Kinds of Respect

That it is the nature of the object that determines itsrespect-worthiness, and that there are different kinds of objectscalling for correspondingly different responses, have led manyphilosophers to argue that there are different kinds of respect. Inwhat follows, three sets of distinctions will be discussed.

Speculating on the historical development of the idea that all personsas such deserve respect, and using terms found in Kant’swritings onAchtung (the German word usually translated as“respect”), Feinberg (1975) identifies three concepts forwhich “respect” has been the name. (1)Respekt,is the “uneasy and watchful attitude that has ‘the elementof fear’ in it” (1975, 1). Its objects are dangerous orpowerful things. It isrespekt that woodworkers areencouraged to have for power tools, a new sailor might be admonishedto have for the sea, and a child might have for an abusive parent.Respekt contrasts with contemptuous disregard; it is shown inconduct that is cautious, self-protective, other-placating. (2) Thesecond concept,observantia, is the moralized analogue ofrespekt. It involves regarding the object as making arightful claim on our conduct, as deserving moral consideration in itsown right, independently of considerations of personal well-being. Itisobservantia, Feinberg maintains, that historically wasextended first to classes of non-dangerous but otherwise worthy peopleand then to all persons as such, regardless of merit or ability.Observantia encompasses both the respect said to be owed toall humans equally and the forms of polite respect and deference thatacknowledge different social positions. On Kant’s account,observantia is the kind of respect we have an inviolablemoral duty to give every person, both by acknowledging their claim tomoral equality with us and by never treating persons as if they havelittle or no worth compared with ourselves (Kant 1797, 6:499). (3)Reverentia, the third concept, is the special feeling ofprofound awe and respect we involuntarily experience in the presenceof something extraordinary or sublime, a feeling that both humbles anduplifts us. On Kant’s account, the moral law and people whoexemplify it in morally worthy actions elicitreverentia fromus, for we experience the law or its exemplification as“something that always trumps our inclinations in determiningour wills” (Feinberg 1975, 2). Feinberg sees different forms ofpower as underlying the three kinds of respect; in each case, respectis the acknowledgment of the power of something other than ourselvesto demand, command, or make claims on our attention, consideration,and deference. (See further discussion of Kant’s account insection 2.2.)

Hudson (1980) draws a four-fold distinction among kinds of respect,according to the bases in the objects. Consider the followingexamples: (a) respecting a colleague highly as a scholar and having alot of respect for someone with “guts”; (b) a mountainclimber’s respect for the elements and a tennis player’srespect for her opponent’s strong backhand; (c) respecting theterms of an agreement and respecting a person’s rights; and (d)showing respect for a judge by rising when she enters the courtroomand respecting a worn-out flag by burning it rather than tossing it inthe trash. The respect in (a),evaluative respect, is similarto other favorable attitudes such as esteem and admiration; it isearned or deserved (or not) depending on whether and to the degreethat the object is judged to meet certain standards.Obstaclerespect, in (b), is a matter of regarding the object as somethingthat, if not taken proper account of in one’s decisions abouthow to act, could prevent one from achieving one’s ends. Theobjects of (c)directive respect are directives: things suchas requests, rules, advice, laws, or rights claims that may be takenas guides to action. One respects a directive when one’s actionsintentionally comply with it. The objects of (d)institutionalrespect are social institutions or practices, positions or rolesin an institution or practice, and persons or things that occupypositions in or represent the institution. Institutional respect isconstituted by behavior that conforms to rules that prescribe certainconduct as respectful. These four forms of respect differ in severalways. Each identifies a quite different kind of feature of objects asthe basis of respect. Each is expressed in action in quite differentways, although evaluative respect need not be expressed at all.Evaluative respect centrally involves having a favorable attitudetoward the object, while the other forms do not. Directive respectdoes not admit of degrees (one either obeys the rule ordoesn’t), but the others do (we can have more evaluative respectfor one person than another). Hudson uses this distinction to arguethat respect for persons is not a unique kind of respect but should beconceived rather as involving some combination or other of thesefour.

To Hudson’s four-fold classification, Dillon (1992a) adds afifth form,care respect, which draws on feminist ethics ofcare. Care respect, which is exemplified in anenvironmentalist’s deep respect for nature, involves bothregarding the object as having profound and perhaps unique value andso cherishing it, and perceiving it as fragile or calling for specialcare and so acting or forbearing to act out of felt benevolent concernfor it.

Darwall (1977) distinguishes two kinds of respect:recognitionrespect andappraisal respect. Recognition respect isthe disposition to give appropriate weight or consideration inone’s practical deliberations to some fact about the object andto 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 beobjects of recognition respect, including laws, dangerous things,someone’s feelings, social institutions, nature, the selvesindividuals present in different contexts, people occupying certainsocial roles or positions, and persons as such. Appraisal respect, bycontrast, is an attitude of positive appraisal, the “thinking highlyof” kind of respect that we might have a great deal of for someindividuals, little of for others, or lose for those whose clay feetor dirty laundry becomes apparent. Appraisal respect involves agrading assessment of a person in light of some qualitative standardsthat they can meet or not to greater and lesser degrees. It differsfrom the more widely grounded esteem and admiration in that it isconcerned specifically with the moral quality of people’scharacter or conduct, or with other characteristics that are relevantto their moral quality as agents.

The recognition/appraisal distinction has been quite influential andis widely regarded as the fundamental distinction. Indeed, evaluativerespect is similar to appraisal respect, whilerespekt,obstacle respect,observantia, directive respect,institutional respect, and care respect could be analyzed as forms ofrecognition respect. Some philosophers, however, have found therecognition/appraisal distinction to be inadequate, inasmuch as itseems to have no room forreverentia, especially in the formof the felt experience of the sublimity of the moral law and ofpersons as such (e.g., Buss 1999b), and it seems to obscure thevariety of valuings that different modes of respect can involve. Muchphilosophical work has involved refining the recognition/appraisaldistinction.

In the rest of this article, I will discuss respect and self-respectusing Darwall’s term “recognition respect,”Hudson’s term “evaluative respect,” andFeinberg’s “reverential respect” (the last for thevaluing feeling that is involuntary motivational without beingdeliberative), specifying the valuing dimensions as necessary.

In everyday discourse, respect most commonly refers to one of twoattitudes or modes of conduct. The first is the kind of respectindividuals show (or should show) others because of the latter’ssocial role or position. For example, children should respect theirparents by listening and courtroom spectators should respect thejudge. by rising upon her entrance. This is a social form ofrecognition respect that is, typically, structured by socialinstitutions whose norms are authoritative for participants in theinstitutions and that need not involve any positive valuing of theobject. “Respect” is also commonly used, second, in avaluing sense, to mean thinking highly of someone: having a lot ofrespect for someone who has overcome adversity or losing all respectfor a betrayer. This is evaluative respect. However, philosophicalattention to respect has tended to focus on recognition respect thatacknowledges or values the object from a moral point of view, which wecan call “moral recognition respect.” These discussions tend to relatesuch respect to the concepts of moral standing or moral worth. Moralstanding, or moral considerability, is the idea that certain thingsmatter morally in their own right and so are appropriate objects ofdirect fundamental moral consideration or concern (Birch 1993; P.Taylor 1986). Alternatively, it is argued that certain thingshave a distinctive kind of intrinsic moral worth, often called“dignity,” in virtue of which evoke reverential respect orought to be accorded some valuing form of moral recognition respect.In modern philosophical discussions, humans are universally regardedas the paradigm objects of moral respect. Although some theoristsargue that nature (or, all living beings, species, ecosystems) orsocieties (or, cultures, traditions) also warrant the moralconsideration and valuing of moral recognition respect, mostphilosophical discussion of respect has focused on moral recognitionrespect 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 herin her concrete particularity, (evaluatively) respect an individualfor her commitment to a worthy project, and accord one person the samebasic moral respect we think any person deserves. Thus, the idea ofrespect for persons is ambiguous. Because both institutional respectand evaluative respect can be for persons in roles or position, thephrase “respecting someone as an R” might mean eitherhaving high regard for a person’s excellent performance in therole or behaving in ways that express due consideration or deferenceto an individual qua holder of that position. Similarly, the phrase“respecting someone as a person” might refer to appraisingher as overall a morally good person, or acknowledging her standing asan equal in the moral community, or attending to her as the particularperson she is as opposed to treating her like any other human being.In the literature of moral and political philosophy, the notion ofrespect for persons commonly means a kind of respect that all peopleare owed morally just because they are persons, regardless of socialposition, individual characteristics or achievements, or moralmerit.

In times past, it was taken for granted that respect for human beingswas a hierarchical notion; some humans, it was thought, have a highermoral standing and a greater moral worth than others and so aremorally entitled to greater recognition respect. (Not just in timespast – this is still the core of racism, sexism, and other formsof bigotry.) However, the modern understanding of respect for personsrests on the idea that all persons as such have a distinctive moralstatus in virtue of which we have unconditional obligations to regardand treat them in ways that are constrained by certain inviolablelimits. This is sometimes expressed in terms of rights: all persons,it is said, have a fundamental moral right to respect simply becausethey are persons. Connected with this is the idea that all persons arefundamentally equal, despite the very many things that distinguish oneindividual from another. All persons, that is, have the moral standingof equality in the moral community and are equally worthy of and owedrespect. Respect acknowledges the moral standing of equal persons assuch and is also the key mode of valuing persons as persons.

But which kind of respect are all persons owed? It is obvious that wecould not owe every individual evaluative respect, let alone equalevaluative respect, since not everyone acts morally correctly or hasan equally morally good character. Moreover, since reverential respectis an involuntary emotional response to something that is“awesome,” but we can’t have a moral obligation toexperience an emotion, reverential respect can’t be the kind weowe all persons. So, if it is true that all persons are owed or have amoral right to respect just as persons, then the concept of respectfor person has to be analyzed as some form or combination of forms ofmoral recognition respect. One analysis takes moral recognitionrespect for a person as a person to involve recognizing that thisbeing is a person, appreciating that persons as such have adistinctive moral standing and worth, understanding this standing andworth as the source of moral constraints on one’s attitudes, desires,and conduct, and viewing, valuing, and treating this person only inways 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 moralobligation 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 thatare respectful of persons.

One source of controversy concerns the scope of the concept of aperson. Although in everyday discourse the word “person”is synonymous with “human being,” some philosophicaldiscussions treat it as a technical term whose range of applicationmight not be coextensive with the class of human beings (just as, forlegal purposes, business corporations are regarded as persons). Thisis because some of the reasons that have been given for respectingpersons entail both that some non-human things warrant the samerespect on the very same grounds as humans and that not all humans do.Consequently, one question an account of respect for persons has toaddress is: Who or what are persons that are owed respect? Differentanswers have been offered, including all human beings; all and onlythose humans who are themselves capable of respecting persons; allbeings capable of rational activity, or of sympathy and empathy, or ofvaluing, whether human or not; all beings capable of functioning asmoral agents, whether human or not; all beings capable ofparticipating in certain kinds of social relations, whether human ornot. The second, third, and fourth answers would seem to excludedeceased humans and humans who lack sufficient mental capacity, suchas the profoundly mentally disabled, the severely mentally ill andsenile, those in persistent vegetative states, the pre-born, andperhaps very young children. The third, fourth, and fifth answersmight 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 arenaturally led to a question about the ground or basis of respect: Whatis it about persons that makes them matter morally in such a way as tomake them worthy of respect? One common way of answer this question isto look for some morally valuable natural qualities or capacities thatare common to all beings that are noncontroversially owed respect (forexample, all normal adult humans). Even regarding humans, there is aquestion of scope: Areall humans owed respect? If respect issomething to which all human beings have an equal claim, then, it hasbeen argued, the basis has to be something that all humans possessequally or in virtue of which humans are naturally equal, or athreshold quality that all humans possess, with variations above thethreshold ignored. Some philosophers have argued that certaincapacities fit the bill; others argue that there is no qualityactually possessed by all humans that could be a plausible ground fora moral obligation of equal respect. Some draw from this theconclusion that respect is owed not to all but only to some humanbeings, for example, only morally good persons (Dean 2014). Anotherview is that the search for valuable qualities possessed by all humansthat could ground universally owed moral recognition respect getsthings backwards: rather than being grounded in some fact abouthumans, respect confers moral standing and worth on them (Sensen 2017;Bird forthcoming). But the last view still leaves the questions: whyshould this morally powerful standing and worth be conferred onhumans? And is it conferred on all humans? Yet another question ofscope is: Must personsalways be respected? One view is thatindividuals forfeit their claim to respect by, for example, committingheinous crimes of disrespect against other persons, such as murder inthe course of terrorism or genocide. Another view is that there are nocircumstances under which it is morally justifiable to not respect aperson, and that even torturers and child-rapists, though they maydeserve the most severe condemnation and punishment and may haveforfeited their rights to freedom and perhaps to life, still remainpersons to whom we have obligations of respect, since the grounds ofrespect are independent of moral merit or demerit (Hill 2000b).

There is a further question of justification to be addressed, for itis one thing to say that persons have a certain valuable quality, butquite another thing to say that there is a moral obligation to respectpersons (Hill 1997). So, we must ask: What reasons do we have forbelieving that the fact that persons possess quality X entails that weare morally obligated to respect persons by, for example, treatingthem in certain ways? Another way of asking a justification questionseeks not a normative connection between qualities of persons andmoral obligation, but an explanation for our belief that humans (andperhaps other beings) are owed respect, for example: What in ourexperience of other humans or in our evolutionary history explains thedevelopment and power of this belief? On some accounts, our actualfelt experiences of reverential respect play a significant role (Buss1999b). In other accounts, what justifies accepting our experience ofrespect for humans (or other beings) as grounds for an obligation isits coherence with our other moral beliefs (Hill 2000b; Margalit 1996;Gibbard 1990).

Other questions concern what respecting persons requires of us. Somephilosophers argue that the obligation to respect person functions asa negative constraint: respect involves refraining from regarding ortreating persons in certain ways. For example, we ought not to treatthem as if they were worthless or had value only insofar as we findthem useful or interesting, or as if they were mere objects orspecimens, or as if they were vermin or dirt; we ought not to violatetheir basic moral rights, or interfere with their efforts to maketheir 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 fromtheir own points of view, or help them to promote their morallyacceptable ends, or protect them from their own self-harmingdecisions. And some philosophers note that it may be more respectfulto judge someone’s actions or character negatively or to punishsomeone for wrongdoing than to treat them as if they were notresponsible for what they did, although requirements of respect wouldimpose limits on how such judgments may be expressed and how personsmay be punished. Another question concerns equality of respect. Whilemost theorists agree that moral recognition respect is owed equally toall persons and that it requires treating persons as equals (as allhaving the same basic moral worth and status), there is disagreementabout whether respect requires that persons be treated equally(whatever is done or not done for or to one person must be done or notdone for or to everyone). One view is that equal treatment would failto respect important differences between individuals (Frankfurt1999). Perhaps, however, as regards respect as a negativeconstraint, it is appropriate to treat all persons the same: no oneshould be treated like worthless garbage (just as no U.S. citizenshould be compelled to incriminate themselves), while as regardsrespect as a positive duty, it may be more respectful of each personto treat individuals with different needs, aims, and circumstancesdifferently (as a loving parent might allow her older children but notthe 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 themoral philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1785, 1788, 1793, 1797). Indeed,most contemporary discussions of respect for persons explicitly claimto 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, ormoral track-record, are owed respect just because they are persons,that is, beings with rational and autonomous wills. To be a person isto have a status and worth unlike that of any other kind ofbeing: it is to be an end in itself with dignity. And the onlyappropriate response to such a being is respect. Moreover, respect forpersons is not only appropriate but also unconditionally required:persons must always be respected. Because we are all too ofteninclined not to respect each other, one formulation of the CategoricalImperative, which is the supreme principle of morality, commands thatour actions express due respect for persons: “Act in such a waythat you treat humanity, whether in your own person or the person ofany other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as anend” (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten(Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals) (1785, 4:429).Although commentators disagree about how precisely to understand thisimperative, one common view is that it defines our fundamental moralobligation as respect all persons, including ourselves, and thusdefines morally right actions as those that express respect forpersons as ends in themselves and morally wrong actions as those thatexpress disrespect or contempt for persons (Wood 1999). (On otherreadings, respect is one of our fundamental duties, but there areothers, such as love, justice, and moral self-improvement.) Inaddition to this general commandment, Kant argues that there are alsomore specific duties of respect for other persons and self-respect, towhich we’ll return. For now, we must address the question, Whatis it to be an end in itself and to possess dignity?

An end, for Kant, is anything for the sake of which we act. Kantidentifies two kinds of ends. The first are subjective ends, which arethings we want, which we pursue or promote through means we think willhelp us to get or advance them. The value of subjective ends isconditional on or relative to the desire or interests of theindividual who values them. The other kind of end is objective. Theseare ends in themselves, ends whose value is not dependent on anyinterests or desires but is absolute and unconditional, groundedsolely in what they are. Kant maintains that all and only rationalbeings are ends in themselves. The technical term“persons” delineates the category of beings whose rationalnature “already marks them out as ends in themselves…andan 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 theunconditionally valuable beings they are. It is also to acknowledgethat there are constraints on our treatment of persons, for to be anend in itself is also to be a limit--just as the end of the road putsa limit on our travels, so an end in itself puts an absolute limit onthe subjective ends we may set, the means we may use to pursue them,and, very importantly, on how we may treat ends in themselves. Suchbeings must never be used as if they were merely means, as if theywere nothing more than tools that we may use however we want toadvance our ends. Note, however, that it is not wrong to treat personsas means to our ends; indeed, we could not get along in life if wecould not make use of the talents, abilities, service, and labor ofother people. What we must never do is treat persons asmeremeans to our ends, to treat them as if the only value they have iswhat derives from their usefulness to us. Rather, we must always treatthem “as the same time as an end.”

Kant holds that persons, as ends in themselves, have dignity (DieMetaphysik der Sitten (The Metaphysics of Morals)(1797), 6: 435). But what is dignity? Until the last century or so,“dignity” (from the Latindignitas, worthiness)referred to a high social status associated with the aristocracy,offices of power, and high church positions. Dignity thusdistinguished socially important people from thehoi polloi,who had no dignity (Debes 2017). Kant’s view that every personhas dignity thus marks a revolution in valuation (but see Dean 2014and Hay 2012 for the view that only morally good people have dignity).Commentators disagree about how to understand what Kant means bydignity (cf. Sensen 2017, 2011; Cureton 2013; Darwall 2008). But themost common interpretation is that dignity is a distinctive kindobjective worth that is absolute (not conditional on anyone’s needs,desires, or interests, and a value that everyone has an overridingreason to acknowledge); intrinsic or inherent (not bestowed orearned and not subject to being lost or forfeited); incomparable andthe highest form of worth (a being with dignity cannot rationally beexchanged for or replaced by any other valued object, and isinfinitely valuable, we might say, rather than worth $5 or $5million).

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

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

InThe Metaphysics of Morals, Kant agrees with Hobbes that ifwe think of humans as merely one kind of animal among others “inthe system of nature,” we can ascribe a price to them, anextrinsic value that depends on their usefulness. But, he argues,

a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of morallypractical reason, is exalted above all price…as an end inhimself he possesses adignity by which he exactsrespect for himself from all other beings in the world.(MM, 6: 434–435)

Against the aristocratic view Kant argues that although individuals asmembers of some social community or other may have or lack meritoriousaccomplishment or status or may deserve honor or evaluative respect todifferent degrees or not at all, and some people deserve socialrecognition respect based on their socially significant features orpositions, all persons as members of the moral community, i.e., thecommunity of all and only ends in themselves, are owed the same moralrecognition respect, for the dignity that they possesses as rationalis unconditional and independent of all distinguishing facts about orfeatures of them.

As the Categorical Imperative indicates, in virtue of the humanity inthem that persons are, and so ought to be treated as, ends inthemselves. Commentators generally identify humanity (that which makesus distinctively human beings and sets us apart from all other animalspecies) with two closely related aspects of rationality: the capacityto set ends and the capacity to be autonomous, both of which arecapacities to be a moral agent (for example, Wood 1999; Hill 1997;Korsgaard 1996). The capacity to set ends, which is the power ofrational choice, is the capacity to value things through rationaljudgment: to determine, under the influence of reason independently ofantecedent instincts or desires, that something is valuable orimportant, that it is worth seeking or valuing. It is also, thereby,the capacity to value ends in themselves, and so it includes thecapacity for respect (Velleman 1999). The capacity to be autonomous isthe capacity to be self-legislating and self-governing, that is, (a)the capacity to legislate moral laws that are valid for all rationalbeings through one’s rational willing by recognizing, usingreason alone, what counts as a moral obligation, and (b) the capacitythen to freely resolve to act in accordance with moral laws becausethey are self-imposed by one’s own reason and not because one iscompelled to act by any forces external to one’s reason andwill, including one’s own desires and inclinations. The capacityto be autonomous is thus also the capacity to freely direct, shape,and determine the meaning of one’s own life, and it is thecondition for moral responsibility. It is then, not as members of thebiological specieshomo sapiens that human beings havedignity and so are owed moral recognition respect, but as rationalbeings who are capable of moral agency.

There are several important consequences of the Kantian view of thescope of moral recognition respect for persons as persons. First,while all normally functioning human beings possess the rationalcapacities that ground recognition respect, there can be humans inwhom these capacities are altogether absent and who therefore, on thisview, are not persons and are not owed respect. Second, thesecapacities could, in principle, be possessed by beings who are notbiologically human, and such beings would also be persons with dignitywhom we are morally obligated to respect. Third, because dignity doesnot depend on how well or badly the capacities for moral agency areexercised, on whether a person acts morally or has a morally goodcharacter or not, dignity is not a matter of degree and cannot bediminished or lost through vice or morally bad action or increasedthrough virtue or morally correct action. Thus, the morallyworst person has the same dignity as the morally best, although theformer, we might say, fail to live up to their dignity. Likewise,moral recognition respect is not something individuals have to earn ormight fail to earn, so even the morally worst individuals must stillbe regarded as ends in themselves and treated with respect. Of course,wrongdoing may call for punishment and may be grounds for forfeitingcertain rights, but it is not grounds for losing dignity, for beingregarded as worthless scum, or denied all respect (Hill 2000b). Whatgrounds dignity is something that all persons have in common, notsomething that distinguishes one individual from another. Thus, eachperson is to be respected as an equal among equals, withoutconsideration of individual achievements or failures, social rank,moral merit or demerit. However, the equality of all rational beingsdoes not entail that persons cannot also be differentially evaluatedand valued in other ways for their particular qualities,accomplishments, merit, or usefulness, although such valuing andtreatment must always be constrained by the moral requirement toaccord recognition respect to persons as ends in themselves.

InThe Metaphysics of Morals, Kant develops the implicationsof this view of persons as ends in themselves. His doctrine of justiceholds that the fundamental freedom and equality of persons is thebasis of the legitimate state, that freedom of choice must berespected and promoted, that persons are bearers of fundamental rightsand that the moral status of persons imposes limits on permissiblelegal punishment. In his doctrine of virtue, Kant discusses specificmoral duties of recognition respect for other persons, as well asduties of recognition self-respect, to which we’ll return below.Here, Kant explicitly invokes the notion of respect asobservantia. We have no moral duty to feel respect forothers; rather, the respect we owe others is “to be understoodas the maxim of limiting our self-esteem by the dignity of humanity inanother person, and so as respect in the practical sense”(MM, 6:449). This duty of recognition respect owed to othersrequires two things: first, that we adopt as a regulating policy acommitment to control our own desire to think well of ourselves (thisdesire being the main cause of disrespect), and, second, that werefrain from treating others in the following ways: treating themmerely as means (valuing them as less than ends in themselves),showing contempt for them (denying that they have any worth), treatingthem arrogantly (demanding that they value us more highly than theyvalue themselves), making them look like worthless beings by defamingthem by publicly exposing their faults, and ridiculing or mockingthem.

Subsequent work in a Kantian vein on the duty of respect for othershas expanded the list of ways that we are morally required by respectto treat persons. In particular, although Kant says that the duties ofrecognition respect are strictly negative, consisting in not engagingin certain conduct or having certain attitudes, many philosophers haveargued that respecting others involves positive actions and attitudesas well. The importance of autonomy and agency in Kant’s moralphilosophy has led many philosophers to highlight respect forautonomy. Thus, we respect others as persons (negatively) by doingnothing to impair or destroy their capacity for autonomy, by notinterfering with their autonomous decisions and their pursuit of the(morally acceptable) ends they value, and by not coercing or deceivingthem or treating them paternalistically. We also respect them(positively) by protecting them from threats to their autonomy (whichmay require intervention when someone’s current decisions seemto put their autonomy at risk) and by promoting autonomy and theconditions for it (for example, by allowing and encouragingindividuals to make their own decisions, take responsibility for theiractions, and control their own lives). Some philosophers havehighlighted Kant’s claim that rationality is the ground forrecognition respect, arguing that to respect others is to engage withthem not as instruments or obstacles but as persons who are to bereasoned with. The importance of the capacity to set ends and valuethings has been taken by some philosophers to entail that respect alsoinvolves helping others to promote and protect what they value and topursue their ends, provided these are compatible with due respect forother persons, and making an effort to appreciate values that aredifferent from our own. Kant’s emphasis in the doctrine ofjustice on the fundamental rights that persons have has led stillothers to view the duty of recognition respect for persons as the dutyto respect the moral rights they have as persons; some have claimedthat the duty to respect is nothing more than the duty to refrain fromviolating these rights (Benn 1988; Feinberg 1970).

Finally, it is worth noting that on Kant’s account, both the moral lawand morally good people--those who do what is right out of respect forthe moral law--are also objects of respect. The respect here isreverentia, the inescapable felt consciousness of theunconditional authority of the law and compelling examples ofobedience to it, a consciousness of one’s mind “bowing,” as it were,in submission.Reverentia can give rise both to recognitionrespect of the law and persons as such and to evaluative respect forgood people. (See discussions in kant’sGroundwork (4:401n);Metaphysics of Morals (6:399–418);Kritik der praktischenVernunft (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788)(5:72–76); andDie Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßenVernunft(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 theone hand, to develop or apply various aspects of it, or on the other,to take issue with it or develop alternative accounts of respect. Someof the discussions have focused on more theoretical issues. Forexample, Kant gives the notion of respect for persons a central andvital role in moral theory. One issue that has since concernedphilosophers is whether respect for persons is the definitive focus ofmorality, either in the sense that moral rightness and goodness andhence all specific moral duties, rights, and virtues are explainablein terms of respect or in the sense that the supreme moral principlefrom which all other principles are derived is a principle of respectfor persons. Some philosophers have developed ethical theories inwhich a principle of respect for persons is identified as thefundamental and comprehensive moral requirement (for example, Donagan1977; Downie and Telfer 1969). Others (for example, Hill 1993;Frankena 1986; Cranor 1975) argue that while respect for persons issurely a very important moral consideration, it cannot be theprinciple from which the rest of morality is deduced. They maintainthat there are moral contexts in which respect for persons is not anissue and that there are other dimensions of our moral relations withothers that seem not to reduce to respect. Moreover, they argue, sucha principle would seem not to provide moral grounds for believing thatwe ought to treat mentally incapacitated humans or nonhuman animalsdecently, or would (as Kant argues) make a duty to respect such beingsonly an indirect duty—one we have only because it is a way ofrespecting persons who value such beings or because our duty torespect ourselves requires that we not engage in activities that woulddull our ability to treat persons decently—rather than a directduty to such beings (Metaphysics of Morals, 6:443).

Some theorists maintain that utilitarianism, a moral theory generallythought to be a rival to Kant’s theory, is superior with regardto this last point. A utilitarian might argue that it is sentiencerather than the capacity for rational autonomy that is the ground ofmoral recognition respect, and so would regard mentally incapacitatedhumans and nonhuman animals as having moral standing and so as worthyof at least some moral respect in themselves. Another issue, then, iswhether utilitarianism (or more generally, consequentialism) canindeed accommodate a principle of respect for persons. In oppositionto the utilitarian claim, some Kantians argue that Kant’s ethicsis distinguishable from consequentialist ethics precisely inmaintaining that the fundamental demand of morality is not that wepromote some value, such as the happiness of sentient beings, but thatwe respect the worth of humanity regardless of the consequences ofdoing so (Wood 1999; Korsgaard 1996). Thus, some philosophers arguethat utilitarianism is inconsistent with respect for persons, inasmuchas utilitarianism, in requiring that all actions, principles, ormotives promote the greatest good, requires treating persons as meremeans on those occasions when doing so maximizes utility, whereas thevery point of a principle of respect for persons is to rule out suchtrading of persons and their dignity for some other value (Benn 1988,Brody 1982). In opposition, other theorists maintain not only that aconsequentialist theory can accommodate the idea of respect forpersons (Cummiskey 2008, 1990; Pettit 1989; Gruzalski 1982; Landesman1982; Downie and Telfer 1969), but also that utilitarianism isderivable from a principle of respect for persons (Downie and Telfer1969) and that consequentialist theories provide a better groundingfor 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 respectfor persons in Habermasian communicative ethics (Young 1997; Benhabib1991) and in exploring respect in the ethics of other philosophers,including ancient Greek poets (Giorgini 2017), Plato (Rowe 2017),Aristotle (Thompson 2017; Weber 2017; Rabbås 2015; Jacobs 1995;Preus 1991), Hobbes (2017), Hegel (Laitinen 2017; Moland 2002), andMill (Loizides 2017). Cross-cultural explorations include discussionsof similarities and differences between western (Kantian) views ofrespect for persons and Indian (Ghosh-Dastidar 1987), Confucian (Liu2019; Lu 2017; Chan 2006; Wawrytko 1982), and Taoist views (Wong1984). Several theorists have developed distinctively feminist accountof respect for persons (Farley 1993; Dillon 1992a).

Other philosophical discussions have been concerned with clarifyingthe nature of the respect that is owed to persons and of the personsthat are owed respect. Some of these discussions aim to refine anddevelop Kant’s account, while others criticize it, or offeralternatives. One significant non-Kantian account is Pettit’sconversive theory of respect for persons (Pettit 2021, 2015). Aninfluential development of the Kantian account is Darwall’ssecond-personal account (2021, 2015, 2008, 2006, 2004), according towhich the regulation of conduct that moral recognition respectinvolves arises from our directly acknowledging each other as equalpersons who have the moral authority to address moral demands to oneanother that each of us is morally obligated to accept. The reciprocalrelations of persons as authoritative claims-makers and mutuallyaccountable claims-responders is, in Darwall’s view, one way ofunderstanding what Kant calls in theGroundwork a“kingdom of ends.”

Another area of interest has been the connections between respect andother attitudes and emotions, especially love and between respect andvirtues such as trust. For example, Kant argues that we have duties oflove to others just as we have duties of respect. However, neither thelove nor the respect we owe is a matter of feeling (or, ispathological, as Kant says), but is, rather, a duty to adopt a certainkind of maxim, or policy of action: the duty of love is the duty tomake the ends of others my own, the duty of respect is the duty to notdegrade others to the status of mere means to my ends (Metaphysicsof Morals, 6: 449–450). Love and respect, in Kant’sview, are intimately united in friendship; nevertheless, they are intension with one another and respect seems to be the morally moreimportant of the two. Critics object to what they see here asKant’s devaluing of emotions, maintaining that emotions aremorally significant dimensions of persons both as subjects and asobjects of both respect and love. In response, some philosopherscontend that respect and love are more similar and closely connectedin Kant’s theory than is generally recognized (Bagnoli 2003;Velleman 1999; Baron 1997; R. Johnson 1997). Others have developedaccounts of respect that is or incorporates a form of love (agape) orcare (Dillon 1992a; Downie and Telfer 1969; Maclagan 1960), and somehave argued that emotions are included among the bases of dignity andthat a complex emotional repertoire is necessary for Kantian respect(Wood 1999; Sherman 1998a; Farley 1993). In a related vein, somephilosophers maintain that it is possible to acknowledge that anotherbeing is a person, i.e., a rational moral agent, and yet not have orgive respect to that being. What is required for respecting a personis not simply recognizing what they are but emotionally experiencingtheir value as a person (Thomas 2001a; Buss 1999b; Dillon 1997). Otherattitudes, emotions, and virtues whose connections with respect havebeen 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 Pettit1997), reverence (Woodruff 2003, 2001), honor (Darwall 2015), andappreciation (Hill 2021). Work has also been done on attitudes andemotions that are (usually taken to be) opposed to respect, such asarrogance (Dillon 2003) and contempt (Miceli and Castelfranci 2018;Mason 2017; Bell 2013).

Another source of dissatisfaction with Kant’s account has beenwith his characterization of persons and the quality in virtue ofwhich they must be respected. In particular, Kant’s view thatthe rational will which is common to all persons is the ground ofrespect is thought to ignore the moral importance of the concreteparticularity of each individual, and his emphasis on autonomy, whichis often understood to involve the independence of one person from allothers, is thought to ignore the essential relationality of humanbeings (for example, Noggle 1999; Farley 1993; Dillon 1992a; E.Johnson 1982). Rather than ignoring what distinguishes one person fromanother, it is argued, respect should involve attending to each personas a distinctive individual and to the concrete realities of humanlives, and it should involve valuing difference as well as samenessand interdependence as well as independence. Other critics respondthat respecting differences and particular identities inevitablyreintroduces hierarchical discrimination that is antithetical to theequality among persons that the idea of respect for persons issupposed to express (for example, Bird 2004). Identity and differencemay, however, be appropriate objects of other forms of considerationand appreciation.

The ideas of mutual respect or disrespect and respect forparticularity and relationality has also become an important topic inmoral and political philosophy. Helm has argued that a“community of respect” is essential to understanding whata person is (Helm 2017). Margalit argues that humiliation, bothdisrespect and the result of being disrespected, is a form ofexclusion of individuals from the good of community (Margalit 1996).One issue is how persons ought to be respected in multiculturalliberal democratic societies (for example, Balint 2006; Tomasi 1995;C. Taylor 1992; Kymlicka 1989). Respect for persons is one of thebasic tenets of liberal democratic societies, which are founded on theideal of the equal dignity of all citizens and which realize thisideal in the equalization of rights and entitlements among allcitizens and so the rejection of discrimination and differentialtreatment. Some writers argue that respecting persons requiresrespecting the traditions and cultures that permeate and shape theirindividual identities (Addis 1997). But as the citizenry of suchsocieties becomes increasingly more diverse and as many groups come toregard their identities or very existence as threatened by ahomogenizing equality, liberal societies face the question of whetherthey should or could respond to demands to respect the unique identityof individuals or groups by differential treatment, such as extendingpolitical rights or opportunities to some cultural groups (forexample, Native Americans, French Canadians, African-Americans) andnot others. Some of these discussions are carried out in terms ofrecognition rather than of respect, although some theorists contrastrecognition and respect (McBride 2013). Honneth develops a broader,critical account of recognition that argues for a harmoniousrelationship among universal (recognition) respect, esteem, and love,arguing that each is essential for the development of positiverelations towards ourselves (Honneth 2007, 1995).

The idea that all persons are owed respect has been applied in a widevariety of contexts. For instance, some philosophers employ it tojustify various positions in normative ethics, such as the claim thatpersons have moral rights (Benn 1971; Feinberg 1970; Downie and Telfer1969) or duties (Fried 1978; Rawls 1971), or to argue for principlesof equality (Williams 1962), justice (Narveson 2002a, 2002b; Nussbaum1999), and education (Andrews 1976). Others appeal to respect forpersons in addressing a wide variety of practical issues such asabortion, racism and sexism, rape, punishment, physician-assistedsuicide, pornography, affirmative action, forgiveness, terrorism,sexual harassment, cooperation with injustice, treatment of gays andlesbians, sexual ethics, and many others. In political philosophy,respect for persons has been used to examine issues of globalinequality (e.g., Moellendorf 2010). One very important applicationcontext is biomedical ethics, where the principle of respect forautonomy is one of four basic principles that have become “thebackbone of contemporary Western health care ethics” (Branniganand Boss 2001, 39; see also Beauchamp and Childress 1979/2001 and, forexample, Kerstein 2021; Munson 2000; Beauchamp and Walters 1999). Theidea of respect for patient autonomy has transformed health carepractice, which had traditionally worked on physician-basedpaternalism, and the principle enters into issues such as informedconsent, truth-telling, confidentiality, respecting refusals oflife-saving treatment, the use of patients as subjects in medicalexperimentation, and so on.

3. Respect for Nature and Nonhuman Beings

Although persons are the paradigm objects of moral recognitionrespect, it is a matter of some debate whether they are the onlythings that we ought morally to respect. One serious objection raisedagainst Kant’s ethical theory is that in claiming that onlyrational beings are ends in themselves deserving of respect, itlicenses treating all things which aren’t persons as mere meansto the ends of rational beings, and so it supports domination andexploitation of all nonpersons and the natural environment. Takingissue with the Kantian position that only persons are respect-worthy,many philosophers have argued that humans who are not agents or notyet agents, human embryos, nonhuman animals, sentient creatures,plants, species, all living things, biotic communities, the naturalecosystem of our planet, and even mountains, rocks, and viruses have(full or perhaps just partial) moral standing or worth and so areappropriate objects of or are owed moral recognition respect. Ofcourse, it is possible to value such things instrumentally insofar asthey serve human interests, but the idea is that such things mattermorally and have a claim to respect in their own right, independentlyof their usefulness to humans.

A variety of different strategies have been employed in arguing forsuch respect claims. For example, the concept of moral recognitionrespect is sometimes stripped down to its essentials, omitting much ofthe content of the concept as it appears in respect for personscontexts. The respect that is owed to all things, it can be argued, isa very basic form of attentive contemplation of the object combinedwith aprima facie assumption that the object might haveintrinsic value (Birch 1993). Another strategy is to argue that thetrue grounds for moral worth and recognition respect are other than orwider than rationality. One version of this strategy (employed by P.Taylor 1986) is to argue that all living things, persons andnonpersons, have equal inherent worth and so equally deserve the samekind of moral respect, because the ground of the worth of livingthings that are nonpersons is continuous with the ground of the worthfor persons. For example, we can regard all living things asrespect-worthy in virtue of being quasi-agents and centers oforganized activity that pursue their own good in their own unique way.I

A third strategy, which is employed within Kantian ethics, is to arguethat respect for persons logically entails respect for nonpersons. Forexample, one can argue that rational nature is to be respected notonly by respecting humanity in someone’s person but also byrespecting things that bear certain relations to rational nature, forexample, by being fragments of it or necessary conditions of it.Respect would thus be owed to humans who are not persons and toanimals and other sentient beings (Foreman 2017; Rocha 2015; Wood1998). Another strategy argues against Kant that we can bothacknowledge that rational moral agents have the highest moral standingand worth and are owed maximal respect, and also maintain that otherbeings have lesser but still morally significant standing or worth andso deserve less but still some respect. So, although it is alwayswrong to use moral agents merely as means, it may be justifiable touse nonpersons as means (for example, to do research on human embryosor kill animals for food) provided their moral worth is alsorespectfully acknowledged (Meyer and Nelson, 2001). Much philosophicalwork has been done, particularly in environmental ethics, to determinethe practical implications of the claim that things other than personsare 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 otherthings, there is surprising agreement among moral and politicalphilosophers 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 tothe ability to live a satisfying, meaningful, flourishing life—alife worth living—and just as vital to the quality of our livestogether. Saying that a person has no self-respect or acts in a way noself-respecting person would act, or that a social institutionundermines the self-respect of some people, is generally a strongmoral criticism. Nevertheless, as with respect itself, there isphilosophical disagreement, both real and merely apparent, about thenature, scope, grounds, and requirements of self-respect. Self-respectis often defined as a sense of worth or as due respect for oneself; ithas been analyzed in various ways: it is treated as a moral dutyconnected with the duty to respect all persons, as something to whichall persons have a right and which it would be unjust to undermine, asa moral virtue essential to morally good living, and as something oneearns 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 anddifferent from these other attitudes and stances is important tohaving a good understanding of self-respect and the other things.

In addition to the questions philosophers have addressed about respectin general, other questions have been of particular concern to thoseinterested in self-respect, such as: (1) What is self-respect, and howis it connected to or different from related notions such asself-esteem, self-confidence, pride, and so on? How are respect forpersons and respect for oneself alike and unalike? (2) How isself-respect related to such things as moral rights, virtue, autonomy,integrity, and identity? (3) Is there a moral duty to respectourselves as there is a duty to recognition respect others? (4) Arethere objective conditions—for example, moral standards orcorrect judgments—that a person must meet in order to haveself-respect, or is self-respect a subjective phenomenon that gainssupport from any sort of self-valuing without regard to correctness ormoral acceptability? (5) Does respecting oneself conceptually entailor causally require or lead to respecting other persons (or anythingelse)? And how are respect for other persons and respect for oneselfalike and unalike? (6) What features of an individual’spsychology and experience, what aspects of the social context, andwhat modes of interactions with others support or undermineself-respect? (7) Are social institutions and practices to be judgedjust or unjust (at least in part) by how they affect self-respect? Canconsiderations of self-respect help us to better understand the natureand wrongness of injustices such as oppression and to determineeffective 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 importantworth. Self-respect is thus essentially a valuing form of respect. Itis, moreover, a normative stance--it isdue regard foroneself,proper regard for the dignity of one’s personor position (as theO.E.D. puts it). Like respect for others,self-respect is a complex of multilayered and interpenetratingphenomena; it involves all those aspects of cognition, valuation,affect, expectation, motivation, action, and reaction that compose amode of being in the world at the heart of which is an appropriateappreciation of oneself as having significant worth. Unlike some formsof respect, self-respect is not something one has only now and againor that might have no effect on its object. Rather, self-respect hasto do with the structure and attunement of an individual’sidentity and of her life, and it reverberates throughout the self,affecting the configuration and constitution of the person’sthoughts, desires, values, emotions, commitments, dispositions, andactions. As expressing or constituting one’s sense of worth, itincludes an engaged understanding of one’s worth, as well as adesire and disposition to protect and preserve it. Accounts ofself-respect differ in their characterizations of the beliefs,desires, affects, and behaviors that are constitutive of it, chieflybecause of differences concerning both the aspects or conception ofthe self insofar as it is the object of one’s respect and alsothe nature and grounds of the worth of the self or aspects of theself.

Most theorists agree that as there are different kinds of respect, sothere are different kinds of self-respect. However, we clearly cannotapply all kinds of respect to ourselves: it makes no sense to talk ofdirective respect for oneself, for instance, and although one mightregard oneself or some of one’s characteristics as obstacles(“I’m my own worst enemy”), this would not generallybe considered a form of self-respect. Because the notion of self-worthis the organizing motif for self-respect, and because in the dominantWestern tradition two kinds of worth are ascribed to persons, twokinds of self-respect can be distinguished.

One way of expressing the distinction is to focus on the kinds ofself-worth around which it is oriented. One kind of worth has to dowith what the individual is: occupant of a social role, member of acertain class, group, or people, someone with a certain place in asocial hierarchy, or simply a human person. Kantian dignity is oneform, but not the only form, of this kind of worth. Such status- oridentity-grounded worth entails both entitlements to due treatmentfrom others and responsibilities for the individual in virtue of beingthe kind of thing that is rightly the object of respect.Recognition self-respect centers on this kind of worth. (Birdcalls this “entitlement self-respect” (Bird 2010);Schemmel calls it “standing self-respect” (Schemmel2019)). The censuring question, “Have you noself-respect?”, the phrase “No self-respecting personwould ...,” and the idea that everyone has a right toself-respect concern recognition self-respect. Another kind ofself-respect depends not on what one is but on the kind of person oneis making of oneself, on the extent to which one’s character andconduct meet standards of worthiness.Evaluative self-respecthas to do with this second kind of worth, an acquired worth that wecan call “merit,” which is based on the quality ofone’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 thestandards to which one holds oneself and by which one evaluates orappraises oneself.) We earn or lose merit, and so deserve ordon’t deserve evaluative self-respect, through what we do orbecome. Although they are different, recognition self-respect andevaluative self-respect are related. The former involves, among otherthings, recognizing certain norms as entailed by one’sidentity-based worth and valuing oneself appropriately by striving tolive in accord with them. The latter involves regarding oneself ashaving merit because one is or is becoming the kind of person who doeslive in accord with what one regards as appropriate norms orstandards.

Individuals have numerous identities and so worth bases for differentforms of recognition self-respect. While self-respect based onone’s social role or position can be quite important to theindividual and how she lives her life as a self-respecting chef,rabbi, mother, teacher, Hindu, or member of the aristocracy, mostphilosophical discussions, heavily influenced by Kant, focus ondignity-based respect for oneself as a person, that is, on moralrecognition self-respect. Recognition respect for oneself as a person,then, involves living in light of an understanding and appreciation ofoneself as having dignity and moral status just in virtue of being aperson, and of the moral constraints that arise from that dignity andstatus. All persons are morally obligated or entitled to have thiskind of self-respect. Because the dominant Kantian conception ofpersons grounds dignity in three things—equality, agency, andindividuality—we can further distinguish three kinds ofrecognition self-respect. The first is respect for oneself as a personamong persons, as a member of the moral community with a status anddignity equal to every other person (see, for example, Thomas 1983a;Boxill 1976; Hill 1973). This involves having some conception of thekinds of treatment from others that would count as one’s due asa person and treatment that would be degrading or beneath one’sdignity, desiring to be regarded and treated appropriately, andresenting and being disposed to protest disregard and disrespectfultreatment. Thinking of oneself as having certain moral rights thatothers 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 appreciationof oneself as an agent, a being with the ability and responsibility toact autonomously and value appropriately (see, for example, G. Taylor1985; Telfer 1968). Persons who respect themselves as agents taketheir responsibilities seriously, especially their responsibilities tolive in accord with their dignity as persons, to govern themselvesfittingly, and to make of themselves and their lives something theybelieve to be good. So, self-respecting persons regard certain formsof acting, thinking, desiring, and feeling as befitting them aspersons and other forms as self-debasing or shameful, and they expectthemselves to adhere to the former and avoid the latter. They takecare of themselves and seek to develop and use their talents andabilities in pursuit of their plans, projects, and goals. Those whoare shameless, uncontrolled, weak-willed, self-consciouslysycophantic, chronically irresponsible, slothfully dependent,self-destructive, or unconcerned with the shape and direction of theirlives may be said to not respect themselves as agents.

A third kind of recognition self-respect involves the appreciation ofthe importance of being autonomously self-defining. One way aself-respecting individual does this is through having, and living inlight, of a normative self-conception, i.e., a conception of being andliving that she regards as worthy of her as the particular person sheis. Such a self-conception both gives expression to ideals andcommitments that shape the individual’s identity, and alsoorganizes desires, choices, pursuits, and projects in ways that givesubstance and worth to the self. Self-respecting people holdthemselves to personal expectations and standards the disappointmentof which they would regard as unworthy of them, shameful, evencontemptible (although they may not apply these standards to others)(Hill 1982). People who sell out, betray their own values, liveinauthentic lives, let themselves be defined by others, or arecomplacently self-accepting lack this kind of recognitionself-respect.

To these three Kantian kinds of recognition self-respect, we can add afourth, which has to do with the fact that it is not just as abstracthuman beings or as agents with personal and universalizable moralgoals and obligations that individuals can, do, or should respectthemselves but also as concrete persons embedded in particular socialstructures and occupying various social positions with status-relatedresponsibilities they must meet to be self-respecting (Middleton2006). This last kind also has political implications, as discussedbelow.

Evaluative self-respect, which expresses confidence in one’smerit as a person, rests on an appraisal of oneself in light of thenormative self-conception that structures recognition self-respect.Recognition self-respecting persons are concerned to be the kind ofperson they think it is good and appropriate for them to be and theytry to live the kind of life such a person should live. Thus, theyhave and try to live by certain standards of worthiness by which theyare committed to judge themselves. Indeed, they stake themselves,their value and their identities, on living in accord with thesestandards. Because they want to know where they stand, morally, theyare disposed to reflectively examine and evaluate their character andconduct in light of their normative vision of themselves. And itmatters to them that they are able to “bear their ownsurvey,” as Hume says (1739, 620). Evaluative self-respectcontains the judgment that one is or is becoming the worthy kind ofperson one seeks to be, and, more significantly, that one is not indanger 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. Thosewhose conduct is unworthy or whose character is shameful by their ownstandards do not deserve their own evaluative respect. However, peoplecan be poor self-appraisers and their standards can be quiteinappropriate to them or to any person, and so their evaluativeself-respect, though still subjectively satisfying, can beunwarranted, as can the loss or lack of it. Interestingly, althoughphilosophers have paid scant attention to evaluative respect forothers, significant work has been done on evaluative self-respect.This may reflect an asymmetry between the two: although our evaluativerespect for others may have no effect on them, perhaps because wedon’t express it or they don’t value our appraisal, ourown self-evaluation matters intensely to us and can powerfully affectour self-identity and the shape and structure of our lives. Indeed, anindividual’s inability to stomach herself can profoundlydiminish the quality of her life, even her desire to continueliving.

Some philosophers have contended that a third kind of self-valuingunderlies both recognition and evaluative self-respect. It is a morebasic sense of worth that enables an individual to develop theintellectually more sophisticated forms, a precondition for being ableto take one’s qualities or the fact that one is a person asgrounds of positive self-worth. It has been called “basicpsychological security” (Thomas 1989), “self-love”(Buss 1999), and “basal self-respect” (Dillon 1997). Basalself-valuing is our most fundamental sense of ourselves as matteringand our primordial interpretation of self and self-worth. Strong andsecure basal self-respect can immunize an individual against personalfailing or social denigration, but damage to basal self-respect, whichcan occur when people grow up in social, political, or culturalenvironments that devalue them or “their kind,” can makeit impossible for people to properly interpret themselves and theirself-worth, because it affects the way in which they assess realityand weigh reasons. Basal self-respect is thus the ground of thepossibility of recognition and evaluative self-respect.

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

It is common in everyday discourse and philosophical discussion totreat self-respect and self-esteem as synonyms. It is evaluativeself-respect, typically, with which self-esteem is conflated (Dillon2013). Evaluative self-respect and (high) self-esteem are both formsof positive self-regard concerned with one’s worth, both involvehaving a favorable view of oneself in virtue of one’s activitiesand personal qualities, and a person can have or lack either oneundeservedly. Nevertheless, many philosophers have argued that the twoattitudes are importantly different (for example, Dillon 2004, 2013;Harris 2001; Chazan 1998; Sachs 1981; Darwall 1977), although sometheorists treat the evaluative stance as a form of self-esteem(“mortal self-esteem”). The main difference between thetwo is that evaluative self-respect is a normative stance andself-esteem is not: the former calls for justification in light ofstandards one has good reason to regard as appropriate, while thelatter arises from beliefs about oneself whose justification need notmatter to one and that need not involve standards-basedself-assessment. Many philosophers agree that evaluative self-respectis morally important, which makes sense inasmuch as it is in theservice of the moral demands of dignity, worthy character, agency, andone’s moral commitments, and so is a motivation for morallyappropriate living. Self-esteem--having a good opinion of oneself orfeeling good about oneself--is one of the most extensively studiedphenomena in psychology and social psychology; it is generallyregarded by social scientists as central to healthy psychologicalfunctioning and well-being, although they note that it has nonecessary connection to moral values, is central to such negativestates as narcissism, and can lead to serious disrespect of others andharm unless appropriately constrained (Baumeister et al 1996). (Butsee Keshen (2017) on the value of reasonable self-esteem.) One way ofdistinguishing evaluative self-respect and self-esteem is by theirgrounds and the points of view from which they are appraised.Evaluative self-respect involves an assessment from a moral point ofview of one’s character and conduct in light of standards oneregards as implied by one’s moral worth as an agent and aperson. Self-esteem, as popularly and scientifically understood, isbased both on whatever qualities or activities one prizes or thinksothers prize, and on the esteem one believes one gets from otherswhose esteem one values. It does not essentially concern morallysignificant worth, appropriate self-valuing, or self-assessment from amoral point of view, and it can be based on features wholly unrelatedto or even opposed to good character. For example, one can have a goodopinion of oneself in virtue of being a good joke-teller or for havingwon an important sports competition and yet not think one is a goodperson because of it (Darwall 1977). And depending on what servesone’s psychological needs or suits one’s companions, onecan derive high self-esteem from successful thuggery as from beinghonest and kind. To have self-esteem is to feel good about oneself; tohave evaluative self-respect is to feel justified, to be able to holdone’s head up, look others in the eye, face oneself in themirror. Another way of distinguishing them focuses on what it is tolose them: to lose evaluative respect for oneself is to find oneselfto be shameful, contemptible, or intolerable; to lose self-esteem isto think less well of oneself, to be downcast because one believes onelacks qualities that would add to one’s luster (Harris 2001) orthat others think less well of one.

Self-respect is also often identified with pride, although the two arerather different (Morton 2017). Just as there are different kinds ofself-respect so, there are different kinds of pride, which arecomplexly related. In one sense, pride is the pleasure or satisfactiontaken in one’s achievements, possessions, or associations; thiskind of pride can be an affective element of either evaluativeself-respect or self-esteem. In another sense, pride is inordinateself-esteem or vanity, an excessively high opinion of one’squalities, accomplishments, or status that can make one arrogant andcontemptuous of others. This kind of pride contrasts with bothwell-grounded evaluative self-respect and the interpersonal kind ofmoral recognition self-respect. But pride can also be a claim to andcelebration of a status worth or to equality with others, especiallyother groups (for example, Black Pride), which is interpersonalrecognition self-respect (Thomas 1993a, 1978–79). Pride can also be“proper pride,” which is a sense of one’s dignitythat prevents one from doing what is unworthy; this is the agenticdimension of recognition self-respect. Pride’s opposites, shameand humility, are also closely related to self-respect. A loss ofevaluative self-respect may be expressed in shame, but shamelesspeople manifest a lack of recognition self-respect; and althoughhumiliation can diminish or undermine recognition self-respect andevaluative self-respect, humility is an appropriate dimension of theevaluative self-respect of any imperfect person.

One issue with which contemporary philosophers have been concerned iswhether self-respect is an objective concept or a subjective one. Ifit is the former, then there are certain beliefs, attitudes, anddispositions a person must have to be self-respecting. A person whothought of herself as a lesser sort of being whose interests andwell-being are less important than those of others would not count ashaving moral recognition self-respect, no matter how appropriate sheregards her stance. If self-respect is a subjective concept, then aperson counts as having self-respect if, for example, she believes sheis not tolerating treatment she regards as unworthy or behaving inways she thinks is beneath her, regardless of whether her judgmentsabout herself are accurate or her standards or sense of what she isdue are judged by others to be reasonable or worthy (Massey 1983a).Psychologists, for whom “self-esteem” is the term ofpractice, tend to regard the various dimensions of a person’ssense of worth as subjective. Many philosophers treat theinterpersonal dimension of recognition self-respect objectively, andit is generally thought that having manifestly inaccurate beliefsabout oneself is good grounds for at least calling anindividual’s sense of worth unjustified or compromised (Meyers1989). But there is no consensus regarding the standards to whichindividuals hold themselves and by which they judge themselves, andcertainly the standards of the self-defining dimension of moralrecognition self-respect are inescapably, though perhaps notexclusively, subjective. Complicating the objective/subjectivedistinction, however, is the fact of the social construction ofself-respect. What it is to be a person or to have a status worthy ofrespect, what treatment and conduct are appropriate to a person or onewith such a status, what forms of life and character havemerit—all of these are given different content in differentsociocultural contexts. Individuals necessarily, though perhaps notinalterably, learn to engage with themselves and with issues ofself-worth in the terms and modes of the sociocultural conceptions inwhich they have been immersed. And different kinds of individuals maybe given different opportunities in different sociocultural contextsto acquire or develop the grounds of the different kinds ofself-respect (Dillon 2021, 1997; Moody-Adams 1992–93; Meyers1989; Thomas 1983b). Even fully justified self-respect may thus beless 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 widevariety of philosophical claims or positions, generally in argumentsof the form:x promotes (or undermines) self-respect;therefore,x is to that extent to be morally approved (orobjected to). For example, appeals to self-respect have been used toargue for, among many other things, the value of moral rights(Feinberg 1970), moral requirements or limits regarding forgivingothers or oneself (Dillon 2001; Holmgren 1998, 1993; Novitz 1998;Haber 1991; Murphy 1982), and both the rightness and wrongness ofpractices such as affirmative action. Such arguments rely on ratherthan establish the moral importance of self-respect. Most philosopherswho attend to self-respect tend to treat it as important in one of twoways, which are exemplified in the very influential work of Kant andJohn Rawls.

Kant argues that, just as we have a moral duty to respect others aspersons, so we have a moral duty to respect ourselves as persons, aduty that derives from our dignity as rational beings. This dutyrequires us to act always in an awareness of our dignity and so to actonly in ways that are consistent with our status as ends in ourselvesand to refrain from acting in ways that abase, degrade, defile, ordisavow our rational nature. That is, we have a duty of moralrecognition self-respect. InThe Metaphysics of Morals(1797), Kant argues for specific duties to oneself generated by thegeneral duty to respect humanity in our persons, including duties tonot engage in suicide, misuse of our sexual powers, drunkenness andother unrestrained indulgence of inclination, lying, self-deception,avarice, and servility. Kant also maintains that the duty ofself-respect is the most important moral duty, for unless there wereduties to respect oneself, there could be no moral duties at all.Moreover, fulfilling our duty to respect ourselves is a necessarycondition of fulfilling our duties to respect other persons. Kantmaintains that we are always aware of our dignity as persons and so ofour moral obligation to respect ourselves, and he identifies thisawareness as a feeling of reverential respect for ourselves. This isone of the natural capacities of feeling which we could have no dutyto acquire but that make it possible for us to be motivated by thethought of duty. Reverence for self is, along with “moralfeeling,” conscience, and love of others, a subjective source ofmorality, and it is the motivational ground of the duty ofself-respect. Kant also discusses evaluative self-respect, especiallyinCritique of Practical Reason (1788) and hisLectureson Ethics (1779), as a combination of noble pride, which is theawareness that we have honored and preserved our dignity by acting inmorally worthy ways, and a healthy dose of humility, which is theawareness that we inevitably fall short of the lofty requirements ofthe moral law. Kant regards well-grounded evaluative self-respect as asubjective motivation to continue striving to do right and begood.

Rawls, by contrast, views self-respect neither as something we aremorally required to have and maintain nor as a feeling we necessarilyhave, but as an entitlement that social institutions are required byjustice to support and not undermine. InA Theory of Justice(1971) he argues that self-respect (which he sometimes calls“self-esteem” is a “primary good,” somethingthat rational beings want whatever else they want, because it is vitalboth to the experienced quality of individual lives and to the abilityto carry out or achieve whatever projects or aims an individual mighthave. It is, moreover, a social good, one that individuals are able toacquire only under certain social and political conditions. Rawlsdefines self-respect as including “a person’s sense of hisown value, his secure conviction that his conception of the good, hisplan of life, is worth carrying out,” and it implies “aconfidence in one’s ability, so far as it is within one’spower, to fulfill one’s intentions” (Rawls 1971, 440). Heargues that individuals’ access to self-respect is to a largedegree a function of how the basic institutional structure of asociety defines and distributes the social bases of self-respect,which include the messages about the relative worth of citizens thatare conveyed in the structure and functioning of institutions, thedistribution of fundamental political rights and civil liberties,access to the resources individuals need to pursue their plans oflife, the availability of diverse associations and communities withinwhich individuals can seek affirmation of their worth and their plansof life from others, and the norms governing public interaction amongcitizens. Since self-respect is vital to individual well-being, Rawlsargues that justice requires that social institutions and policies bedesigned to support and not undermine self-respect. Rawls argues thatthe principles of justice as fairness are superior to utilitarianprinciples insofar as they better affirm and promote self-respect forall citizens.

Rawls’s view that the ability of individuals to respectthemselves is heavily dependent on their social and politicalcircumstances has been echoed by a number of theorists working inmoral, social, and political philosophy. For example, Margalit (1996)argues that a decent society is one whose institutions do nothumiliate people, that is, give people good reason to consider theirself-respect to be injured (but see Bird 2010). Honneth’s theoryof social criticism (1995) focuses on the way people’sself-respect and self-identity necessarily depend on the recognitionof others and so are vulnerable to being misrecognized or ignored bothby social institutions and in interpersonal interactions. Sometheorists have used the concept of self-respect to examine theoppression of women, people of color, gays and lesbians, and othergroups that are marginalized, stigmatized, or exploited by thedominant culture, identifying the plethora of ways in which oppressiveinstitutions, images, and actions can do damage to the self-respect ofmembers of these groups. Other writers discuss ways that individualsand groups might preserve or restore self-respect in the face ofinjustice or oppression, and the ways in which the development ofself-respect in individuals living under oppression or injusticeempowers them to participate in the monumental struggles for justiceand 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; Mohr1992, 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 thatthe prevailing conceptions of self-respect in Kantian theory or incontemporary liberal societies themselves contain features thatreflect objectionable aspects of the dominating culture, and they haveattempted to reconceive self-respect in ways that are more conduciveto empowerment and emancipation (for example, Borgwald 2012, Dillon1992c).

In moral philosophy, theorists have also focused on connectionsbetween 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; Novitz1998), self-improvement (Johnson 2011), general immorality (Bagnoli2009; Bloomfield 2008), and arrogance (Dillon 2022, 2021, 2015, 2007,2003).

5. Conclusion

Everyday discourse and practices insist that respect and self-respectare personally, socially, politically, and morally important, andphilosophical discussions of the concepts bear this out. Their rolesin our lives as individuals, as people living in complex relationswith other people and surrounded by a plethora of other beings andthings on which our attitudes and actions have tremendous effects,cannot, as these discussions reveal, be taken lightly. The discussionsthus far shed light on the nature and significance of the variousforms of respect and self-respect and their positions in a nexus ofprofoundly important but philosophically challenging and contestableconcepts. These discussions also reveal that more work remains to bedone in clarifying these attitudes and their places among andimplications for our concepts and our lives.

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• Palmer, C., 2004, “‘Respect for Nature’ in theEarth Charter: The Value of Species and the Value ofIndividuals,”Ethics, Place, and Environment, 7:97–107.
• Panichas, G.E., 2000, “Rights, Respect, and the DecentSociety,”Journal of Social Philosophy, 31:51–67.
• Partridge, E., 1981, “Posthumous Interests and PosthumousRespect,”Ethics, 91: 243–264.
• Pelser, A.C., 2015, “Respect for Human Dignity as an Emotionand Virtue,”Res Philosophica, 92: 743–763.
• Pettit, P., 2021, “A Conversive Theory of Respect,” inRespect: Philosophical Essays, R. Dean and O. Sensen (eds.),Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2015,The Robust Demands of the Good:Ethics with Attachment, Virtue, and Respect, Oxford UniversityPress.
• –––, 1989, “Consequentialism and Respectfor Persons,”Ethics, 100: 116–126.
• Preus, A., 1991, “Aristotle and Respect for Persons,”inEssays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV, J. P. Anton (ed.),Albany: State University Of New York Press.
• Rabbås, Ø., 2015, “Virtue, Respect, andMorality in Aristotle,”Journal of Value Inquiry, 49:619–643.
• Rawls, J., 2000,Lectures on the History of MoralPhilosophy, Barbara Herman (ed.), Cambridge, Mass: HarvardUniversity Press.
• Raz, J., 2002, “On Frankfurt’s Explanation of Respectfor People,” inContours of Agency: Essays on Themes fromHarry Frankfurt, S. Buss (ed), Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MITPress.
• –––, 2001,Value, Respect, andAttachment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Reath, A., 2006, “Kant’s Theory of Moral Sensibility:Respect for the Moral Law and the Influence of Inclination,” inReath,Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory, NewYork: Oxford University Press.
• Richardson, H.S., 1998, “Nussbaum: Love and Respect,”Metaphilosophy, 29: 254–262.
• Roberts-Thomson, S., 2008, “An Explanation of the Injusticeof Slavery,”Res Publica, 14: 69–82.
• Rocha, J., 2015, “Kantian Respect for Minimally RationalAnimals,”Social Theory and Practice, 41:309–327.
• Rolston III, H., 2004, “Caring for Nature: From Fact toValue, From Respect to Reverence,”Zygon, 39:277–302.
• Roth, A., 2010, “Second-Personal Respect, the ExperientialAspect of Respect, and Feminist Philosophy,”Hypatia,25: 316–333.
• Rowe, C. J., 2017, “Plato on Respect and What‘Belongs’ to Oneself,” inRoots of Respect: AHistorical–Philosophical Itinerary,, G. Giorgini and E.Irrera (eds.), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
• Sangiovanni, A., 2017Humanity Without Dignity: MoralEquality, Respect, and Human Rights, Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
• Scanlon, T., 1998,What We Owe Each Other, Cambridge, MA:Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
• Schmidt, L.K., 2000, “Respecting Others: The HermeneuticVirtue,”Continental Philosophy Review, 33:359–379.
• Schmidtz, D., 2011, “Respect for Everything,”Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 14: 127–138.
• –––, 2002, “Equal Respect and EqualShares,”Social Philosophy and Policy, 19:244–274.
• –––, 1998, “Are All Species Equal?”Journal of Applied Philosophy, 15: 57–67.
• Scholz, S.J., 2015, “Engaged Respect,”SocialPhilosophy Today, 31: 151–160.
• Schwarz, L., 2021, “Species Egalitarianism and Respect forNature: Of Mice and Carrots,” inRespect: PhilosophicalEssays, R. Dean and O. Sensen (eds.), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• Sensen, O., 2021, “How to Treat Someone with Respect,”inRespect: Philosophical Essays, R. Dean and O. Sensen(eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2018, Respect for Human Beings withIntellectual Disabilities,“ inDisability in Practice:Attitudes, Policies, and Relationships, A. Cureton and T.E. Hill,Jr., (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2014, ”Respect Towards ElderlyDemented Patients,“Diametros, 39: 109–124.
• –––, 2013, ”Kant on Duties to Others fromRespect,“ inKant’s Tugendlehre, A. Trampota, O.Sensen, and J. Timmerman (eds.), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
• –––, 2009, ”Kant’s Conception ofHuman Dignity,“Kant-Studien, 100: 309–331.
• Shafer, C.M. and Frye, M., 1977, ”Rape and Respect,“inFeminism and Philosophy, M. Vetterling-Braggin, F.A.Elliston, and J. English (eds.), Totowa, N.J.: Rowman &Littlefield.
• Sherman, N., 1998a, ”Concrete Kantian Respect,“Social Philosophy and Policy, 15: 119–148.
• –––, 1998b, ”Empathy, Respect, andHumanitarian Intervention,“Ethics and InternationalAffairs, 12: 103–119.
• Shields, P.R., 1998, ”Some Reflections on RespectingChildhood,“Journal of Value Inquiry, 32:369–380.
• Shockley, K., 2009, ”Practice Dependent Respect,“Journal of Value Inquiry, 43: 41–54.
• Shostak, S., 2013, ”Respect for Nature: A Theory ofEnvironmental Ethics,“The European Legacy, 18:799–800.
• Simpson, E., 1979, ”Objective Reasons and Respect forPersons,“Monist, 62: 457–469.
• Singleton, J., 2007, ”Kant’s Account of Respect: ABridge Between Rationality and Anthropology,“KantianReview, 12: 40–60.
• Skorupski, J., 2005, ”Blame, Respect, and Recognition: AReply to Theo Van Willigenberg,“Utilitas, 17(3):333–347.
• Smith, D.H., ed., 1984,Respect and Care in MedicalEthics, Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
• Spelman, E.V., 1977, ”On Treating Persons as Persons,“Ethics, 88: 150–161.
• Spitler, G., 1982, ”Justifying Respect for Nature,“Environmental Ethics, 4:255–260.
• Stark, C., 2009, ”Respecting Human Dignity: Contract vs.Capabilities,“Metaphilosophy, 40: 366–381.
• Steinhoff, U., 2015, ”Against Equal Respect and Concern,Equal Rights, and Egalitarian Impartiality,“ inDo AllPersons Have Basic Worth? On ”Basic Equality“ and EqualRespect and Concern, U. Steinhoff (ed.), Oxford: OxfordUniversity of Press.
• Stith, R., 2004, ”The Priority of Respect: How Our CommonHumanity Can Ground Our Individual Dignity,“InternationalPhilosophical Quarterly, 44(2): 165–184.
• Stohr, K., 2012,On Manners, New York: Routledge.
• Stratton-Lake, P., 2000,Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth,London: Routledge.
• Strauss, M., 2003, ”The Role of Recognition in the Formationof Self-Understanding,“ inRecognition, Responsibility, andRights, R. N. Fiore and H. L. Nelson (eds.), Lanham, MD: Rowman& Littlefield.
• Taylor, C., 1992, ”The Politics of Recognition,“ inMulticulturalism and ”The Politics ofRecognition,“ A. Gutmann (ed.), Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.
• Taylor, P.W., 1986,Respect for Nature, Princeton:Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1981, ”The Ethics of Respect forNature,“Environmental Ethics, 3: 197–218.
• Thomas, L., 2001a, ”Morality, Consistency, and the Self: ALesson in Rectification,“Journal of Social Philosophy,32: 374–381.
• –––, 1992–93, ”MoralDeference,“The Philosophical Forum, 24:233–250.
• Thompson, N., 2017, ”Respect in the Ethics ofAristotle,“ in N. Thompson,What Is Honor?, New Haven:Yale University Press.
• Timmons, M. and R. Johnson (eds.), 2015,Reason, Value, andRespect: Kantian Themes From the Philosophy of Thomas E. Hill,Jr., New York: Oxford University Press.
• Tomasi, J., 1995, ”Kymlicka, Liberalism, and Respect forCultural Minorities,“Ethics, 105: 580–603.
• Tse, P., 2014, ”Species Egalitarianism and Respect forNature,“ inDimensions of Moral Agency, D. Boersema(ed.), Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars.
• van Wietmarschen, H., 2021, ”Political Liberalism andRespect,“Journal of Political Philosophy,29:353–374.
• Vanhoutte, W.M.A., 2011, ”Human and Non-Human Animals: EqualRights or Duty,“Philosophia, 40: 192–211.
• Velleman, J.D., 1999, ”Love as a Moral Emotion,“Ethics, 109: 338–374.
• Ware, O., 2014, ”Forgiveness and Respect for Persons,“American Philosophical Quarterly, 51: 247–260.
• Wawrytko, S.A., 1982, ”Confucius and Kant: The Ethics ofRespect,“Philosophy East and West, 32:237–257.
• Weber, S., 2017, ”Aristotle on Respect for Persons,“inRoots of Respect: A Historical–PhilosophicalItinerary,, G. Giorgini and E. Irrera (eds.), Berlin: Walter deGruyter.
• Westra, L., 1989, ”‘Respect,’‘Dignity,’ and ‘Integrity:’ An EnvironmentalProposal for Ethics,“Epistemologia, 12:91–123.
• Wiggens, D., 2000, ”Nature, Respect for Nature, and theHuman Scale of Values,“ Presidential Address,Proceedings ofthe Aristotelian Society, 100: 1–32.
• Williams, B.A.O., 1962, ”The Idea of Equality,“ inPolitics, Philosophy, and Society, vol. 2, P. Laslett and W.G. Runciman (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell.
• Wilson, E., 2009, ”Is Kant’s Concept of AutonomyAbsurd?“History of Philosophy Quarterly, 26:159–174.
• Wolff, J., 1998, ”Fairness, Respect, and EgalitarianEthics,“Philosophy and Public Affairs, 27:97–122.
• Wong, D., 1984, ”Taoism and the Problem of EqualRespect,“Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 11:165–183.
• Wood, A.W., 2010. ”Respect and Recognition,“ in J.Skorupski (ed.),The Routledge Companion to Ethics, London:Routledge.
• ––, 2009, ”Duties to Oneself, Duties of Respectto Others, inThe Blackwell Companion to Kant’s Ethics,T.E. Hill, Jr. (ed.), Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• ––, 1999,Kant’s Ethical Thought,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 1998, “Kantian Duties RegardingNonrational Nature,”Proceedings of the AristotelianSociety, Supp. 72: 189–210.
• Woodruff, P., 2003, “Reverence, Respect, andDependence,” inVirtues of Independence and Dependence onVirtues, L. Beckman (ed.), New Brunswick: TransactionalPress.
• ––, 2001,Reverence: Renewing a ForgottenVirtue, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Young, I.M., 1997, “Asymmetrical Reciprocity: On MoralRespect, Wonder, and Enlarged Thought,”Constellations,3: 340–363.
• Zinkin, M., 2017, “Kantian Constructivism, Respect, andMoral Depth,” inRealism and Antirealism in Kant’sMoral Philosophy, E.E. Schmidt and R. dos Santos (eds.), Berlin:De Gruyter.
• –––, 2006, “Respect for the Law and theUse of Dynamic Terms in Kant’s Theory of MoralMotivation,”Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 88:31–53.

Philosophical works chiefly on self-respect and related concepts

• Adler, M.J., et al., 1952, “Honor,” inThe GreatIdeas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Chicago:Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
• Allen, R.F., 2008, “Free Agency and Self-Esteem,”Sorites, 20: 74–79.
• Andrew, B., 2011, “Self-Respect and Loving Others,” inSex, Love, and Friendship, A. L. McEvoy (ed.), New York:Rodopi.
• Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics, W.D. Ross (trans.), inBasic Works of Aristotle, R. McKeon (ed.), New York: RandomHouse, 1941.
• Babbitt, S., 2000,Artless Integrity: Moral Imagination,Agency, and Stories, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, 1993, “Feminism and ObjectiveInterests: The Role of Transformation Experiences in RationalDeliberation,” inFeminist Epistemologies, L. Alcoffand E. Potter (eds.), New York: Routledge.
• Balaief, L., 1975, “Self-Esteem and Human Equality,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 36:25–43.
• Bagnoli, C., 2009, “The Mafioso Case: Autonomy andSelf-Respect,”Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 12:477–493.
• Bartky, S.L., 1990a, “Feminine Masochism and the Politics ofPersonal Transformation,” in Bartky,Femininity andDomination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, New York:Routledge.
• –––, 1990b, “On PsychologicalOppression,” Bartky,Femininity and Domination: Studies inthe Phenomenology of Oppression, New York: Routledge
• –––, 1990c, “Shame and Gender,” inBartky,Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology ofOppression, New York: Routledge.
• Basevich, E., 2022, “Self-Respect and Self-Segregation: A DuBoisian Challenge to Kant and Rawls,”Social Theory andPractice, 3.
• Baumeister, R.L, L. Smart, and J.M Boden, “Relation ofThreatened Egotism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of HighSelf-Esteem,”Psychological Review, 103: 5–33.
• Becker, L.C., 1992, “Pride,” inEncyclopedia ofEthics, L. C. Becker and C. B. Becker (eds.), New York: GarlandPublishing, Inc.
• Bernick, M., 1978, “A Note on Promoting Self-Esteem,”Political Theory, 6: 109–118.
• Bird, C., 2010, “Self-Respect and the Respect ofOthers,”European Journal of Philosophy, 18:17–40.
• Bloomfield, P., 2011, “Justice as a Self-RegardingVirtue,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82:46–64.
• ––, 2008, “The Harm of Immorality”Ratio, 21: 241–259.
• Borgwald, K., 2012, “Women’s Anger, EpistemicPersonhood, and Self-Respect,”Philosophical Studies,161: 69–76.
• Boxill, B.R., 1992,Blacks and Social Justice, Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, 1976, “Self-Respect andProtest,”Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6:58–69; reprinted inDignity, Character, andSelf-Respect, R.S. Dillon (ed.), New York: Routledge, 1995.
• Boxill, B., and J. Boxill, 2015, “Servility andSelf-Respect: An African American and Feminist Critique,” inReasons, Value, and Respect: Kantian Themes From the Philosophy ofThomas E. Hill, Jr., M. Timmons and R. Johnson (eds.), Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• Bratu, C., 2019–2020, “Self-Respect and the Disrespectof Others,”Ergo, 6 [Bratu 2019–20 available online] doi: 10.3998/ergo.12405314.0006.013.
• Braybrooke, D., 1983,Ethics in the World of Business,Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld.
• Campbell, R., 1979,Self-Love and Self-Respect: APhilosophical Study of Egoism, Ottawa: Canadian Library ofPhilosophy.
• Care, N., 2000,Decent People, Lanham, MD: Rowman &Littlefield.
• Carter, J.A., and E.C. Gordon (eds.),The Moral Psychology ofPride, London: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Champlin, T.S., 1995, “Hanfling on Self-Love,”Philosophy, 70: 107–110.
• Chazan, P., 1998, “Self-Esteem, Self-Respect, and Love ofSelf: Ways of Valuing the Self,”Philosophia, 26:41–63.
• Christensen, D., 2007, “Epistemic Self-Respect,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 107:319–337.
• Collins, P.H., 1990,Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, New York:Routledge.
• Cunningham, A., 2013,Modern Honor: A PhilosophicalDefense, New York: Routledge.
• Cureton, A., 2013, “From Self-Respect to Respect forOthers,”Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94:166–187.
• Daniels, N., 1975, “Equal Liberty and Unequal Worth ofLiberty,” inReading Rawls: Critical Studies of “ATheory of Justice,” N. Daniels (ed.), New York: BasicBooks, Inc.
• Darwall, S.L., 1988, “Self-Deception, Autonomy, and MoralConstitution,” inPerspectives on Self-Deception, B.P.McLaughlin and A.O. Rorty (eds.), Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.
• DeGrazia, D., 1991, “Grounding a Right to Health Care inSelf-Respect and Self-Esteem,”Public AffairsQuarterly, 5: 301–318.
• Deigh, J., 1983, “Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critique,”Ethics, 93: 225–245; reprinted inDignity,Character, and Self-Respect, R.S. Dillon (ed.), New York:Routledge, 1995.
• Diller, A., 2001, “Pride and Self-Respect in Unjust SocialOrders,”Philosophy of Education 2001:308–310.
• Dillon, R. S., forthcoming, “Old-Fashioned Vices inContemporary Crises, or, It Matters How You Value Yourself,” inOxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol 12, M. Timmons (ed.),Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2021, “Self-Respect, Arrogance, andPower: A Feminist Analysis,” inRespect: PhilosophicalEssays, R. Dean and O. Sensen (eds.), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• –––, 2020, “Humility and Self-Respect:Kantian and Feminist Perspectives,” inRoutledge Handbook onthe Philosophy of Humility, M. Alfano, M.P. Lynch, and A.Tanesini (eds.), London and New York: Routledge.
• –––, 2015, “Self-Respect and Humility inKant and Hill,” inReason, Value, and Respect: KantianThemes from the Philosophy of Thomas E. Hill, Jr., M. Timmons andR. Johnson (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2013, “Self-Respect andSelf-Esteem,”International Encyclopedia of Ethics, H.LaFollette (ed.), New York: Wiley–Blackwell.
• –––, 2007, “Arrogance, Self-Respect, andPersonhood,”Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14:101–126.
• –––, 2004, “‘What’s a WomanWorth? What’s Life Worth? Without Self-Respect?’: On theValue of Evaluative Self-Respect,” inMoral Psychology:Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, P. DesAutels and M. Walker(eds.), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, 2003, “Kant on Arrogance andSelf-Respect,” inSetting the Moral Compass: Essays by WomenPhilosophers, C. Calhoun (ed.), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• –––, 2001, “Self-Forgiveness andSelf-Respect,”Ethics, 112: 53–83.
• –––, 1997, “Self-Respect: Moral,Emotional, Political,”Ethics, 107: 226–249.
• ––– (ed.), 1995,Dignity, Character, andSelf-Respect, New York: Routledge.
• –––, 1992b, “How to Lose YourSelf-Respect,”American Philosophical Quarterly, 29:125–139.
• –––, 1992c, “Toward a Feminist Conceptionof Self-Respect,”Hypatia, 7: 52–69; reprinted inDignity, Character, and Self-Respect, R.S. Dillon (ed.), NewYork: Routledge, 1995.
• Doppelt, G., 2009, “The Place of Self-Respect in a Theory ofJustice,”Inquiry, 52: 127–154.
• –––, 1981, “Rawls’s System ofJustice: A Critique from the Left,”Noûs, 15:259–307.
• Elster, J., 1985–86, “Self-Realization in Work andPolitics: The Marxist Conception of the Good Life,”SocialPhilosophy and Policy, 3: 97–126.
• Eyal, N., 2005, “Perhaps the Most Important Primary Good:Self-Respect and Rawls’ Principles of Justice,”Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 4: 195–215.
• Ezorsky, G., 1991,Racism & Justice: The Case forAffirmative Action, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Falk, W.D., 1986, “Morality, Form, and Content,” inOught, Reasons, and Morality: The Collected Papers of W. D.Falk, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Feinberg, J., 1970, “The Nature and Value of Rights,”Journal of Value Inquiry, 4: 243–257.
• Ferguson, A., 1987, “A Feminist Aspect Theory of theSelf,” inScience, Morality, and Feminist Theory, M.Hanen and K. Nielsen (eds.), Calgary: University of CalgaryPress.
• Ferkany, M., 2009, “Recognition, Attachment, and the SocialBases of Self-worth,”Southern Journal of Philosophy,47: 263–283.
• –––, 2008, “The Educational Importance ofSelf-Esteem,”Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42:119–132.
• Flanagan, O., 1991,Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics andPsychological Realism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.
• Friedman, M., 1985, “Moral Integrity and the DeferentialWife,”Philosophical Studies, 47: 141–150.
• Gewirth, A., 1992, “Human Dignity as the Basis ofRights,” inThe Constitution of Rights: Human Dignity andAmerican Values, M.J. Meyer and W.A. Parent (eds.), Ithaca:Cornell University Press.
• –––, 1978,Reason and Morality,Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Govier, T., 1993, “Self-Trust, Autonomy, andSelf-Esteem”Hypatia, 8: 99–120.
• Grace, H.A., 1953, “The Self and Self-Acceptance,”Educational Theory, 3: 220–235.
• Grenberg, J., 2010,Kant and the Ethics of Humility,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gutman, A., 1980,Liberal Equality, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
• Haber, J.G., 1991,Forgiveness, Savage, MD: Rowman &Littlefield.
• Hadji Haldar, H., 2009, “The Qu’ranic Principle ofPeace,”Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies, 2:159–180.
• Hampton, J., 1997, “The Wisdom of the Egoist: The Moral andPolitical Implications of Valuing the Self,”SocialPhilosophy and Policy, 14: 21–51.
• –––, 1993, “Selflessness and the Loss ofSelf,”Social Philosophy and Policy, 10:135–165.
• Hansberg, O.E., 2000, “The Role of Emotions in MoralPsychology: Shame and Indignation,”Proceedings of theTwentieth World Congress of Philosophy, vol 9: Philosophy ofMind, B. Elevitch (ed.), Bowling Green: Philosophy DocumentationCenter.
• Harris, G.W., 2001, “Self-Esteem,” inEncyclopediaof Ethics, 2^nd edition, L.C. Becker and C.B. Becker(eds.), New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Hay, C., 2013,Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism: ResistingOppression, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• –––, 2011, “The Obligation to ResistOppression,”Journal of Social Philosophy, 42:21–45.
• Heins, V., 2008, “Realizing Honneth: Redistribution,Recognition, and Global Justice,”Journal of GlobalEthics, 4: 141–153.
• Held, V., 1973, “Reasonable Progress andSelf-Respect,”The Monist, 57: 12–27.
• Hill, T.E., Jr., 1992, “Self-Respect,” inEncyclopedia of Ethics, L.C. Becker and C.B. Becker (eds.),New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• –––, 1991,Autonomy and Self-Respect,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 1986, “Darwall on PracticalReason.”Ethics 96: 604–619.
• –––, 1982, “Self-RespectReconsidered,” inRespect for Persons, O. H. Green(ed.), Tulane Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 31, New Orleans: TulaneUniversity Press; reprinted inDignity, Character, andSelf-Respect, R.S. Dillon (ed.), New York: Routledge, 1995.
• –––, 1973, “Servility andSelf-Respect,”Monist, 57: 12–27; reprinted inDignity, Character, and Self-Respect, R.S. Dillon (ed.), NewYork: Routledge, 1995.
• Hoffman, G., 2014, “The Self-Disrespect Objection toBioenhancement Technologies: A Feminist Analysis of the ComplexRelationship between Enhancement and Self-Respect,”SouthernJournal of Philosophy, 45: 448–521.
• Holberg, E.A., 2017, “Kant, Oppression, and the Possibilityof Nonculpable Failures to Respect Oneself,”SouthernJournal of Philosophy, 55: 285–305.
• Holroyd, J., 2010, “Substantively Constrained Choice andDeference,”Journal of Moral Philosophy, 7:180–199.
• Holmgren, M., 1998, “Self-Forgiveness and Responsible MoralAgency,”Journal of Value Inquiry, 32:75–91.
• Honneth, A., 1995,The Struggle for Recognition: The MoralGrammar of Social Conflicts, Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Horsburgh, H.J.N., 1954, “The Plurality of MoralStandards,”Philosophy, 24: 332–346.
• Hudson, S.D., 1986,Human Character and Morality: Reflectionsfrom the History of Ideas, Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Hume, D., 1751,Enquiries Concerning the Principle ofMorals, J.B. Schneewind (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett PublishingCompany, 1983.
• –––, 1739,A Treatise of Human Nature,L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
• Ikuenobe, P., 2004, “Culture of Racism, Self-Respect, andBlameworthiness,”Public Affairs Quarterly, 18:27–55.
• Isenberg, A., 1949, “Natural Pride and Natural Shame,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 10:1–24.
• Johnson, R., 2011,Self-Improvement: An Essay in KantianEthics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kekes, J., 1988, “Shame and Moral Progress,” inEthical Theory: Character and Virtue, Midwest Studies inPhilosophy, vol. 13, P.A. French, T.E. Uehling, and H.K. Wettstein(eds.), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Kelleher, W., 2009, “Respect and Empathy in the SocialScience Writings of Michael Polanyi,”Tradition andDiscovery, 35: 8–32.
• Keshen, R., 2017,Reasonable Self-Esteem: A Life ofMeaning, Second Edition, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-QueensUniversity Press.
• Khader, S.J., 2021, “Self-Respect under Conditions ofOppression,” inRespect: Philosophical Essays, R. Deanand O. Sensen (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kramer, M.H., 2017, “On Political Morality and theConditions of Warranted Self-Respect,”Journal ofEthics, 21: 335–349.
• –––, 2002,Justifying Emotions: Pride andJealousy, New York: Routledge.
• –––, 1998, “Self-Respect,Megalopsychia, and Moral Education,”Journal ofMoral Education, 27: 5–17.
• Kristjansson, K., 2007, “Measuring Self-Respect,”Journal forthe Theory of Social Behavior, 37: 225–242.
• Kupfer, J., 1997, “What’s Wrong withProstitution?” inExplorations in Value, T. Magnal(ed.), Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• –––, 1995, “Prostitutes, Musicians, andSelf-Respect,”Journal of Social Philosophy, 26:75–88.
• LaCaze, M., 2008, “Seeing Oneself Through the Eyes of theOther: Asymmetrical Reciprocity and Self-Respect,”Hypatia, 23: 118–135.
• Lane, R.E., 1982, “Government and Self-Esteem,”Political Theory, 10: 5–31.
• Lomasky, L., 1987,Persons, Rights, and the MoralCommunity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Maclaren, E., 1974, “Dignity,”Journal of MedicalEthics, 3: 40–41.
• Margalit, A., 1996,The Decent Society, Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
• Martin, M.W., 1996,Love’s Virtues, Lawrence, KS:University Press of Kansas.
• –––, 1989,Everyday Morality: AnIntroduction to Applied Ethics, Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.
• –––, 1986,Self-Deception and Morality,Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
• Massey, S. J., 1983a, “Is Self-Respect a Moral or aPsychological Concept?”Ethics, 93: 246–261;reprinted inDignity, Character, and Self-Respect, R.S.Dillon (ed.), New York: Routledge, 1995.
• –––, 1983b, “Kant on Self-Respect,”Journal of the History of Philosophy, 21: 57–73.
• Mauri, M., 2011, “Self-Respect and Honesty,”Filozofia, 66: 74–82.
• McGary, H., 1988, “Reparations, Self-Respect, and PublicPolicy,” inEthical Theory and Society, D. Goldberg(ed.), New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
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