I have been thinking about all of this for quite some time, and knew that I was inclined not to favor ethical relativism, because I believe that ethics matters just beyond our own thoughts about it. But for a long time I hesitated to try to list what I regarded were clear absolutes. Finally, one day I sat down and tried to clarify my thinking on this, and came up with one ethical claim that I knew I regarded as absolute. Here it is:
We owe everyone respect. Or, it can be put another way: Everyone deserves respect.
Upon further thought, I realized that I wasn't the first one to think of this. What I'm getting at is in fact the very same point that Kant makes in the third formulation of the categorical imperative: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means" (Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785, Second Section, 429).
While I have heard many say that people must earn respect, I disagree. People must earn trust, but not respect. Trust is appropriately based on what people are willing and able to do, but respect is rooted in who they are.
Here is more of what I think respect is:
- Respect is the acknowledgement that there is goodness within everyone (even if people aren't always acting on that goodness!), and trying to appeal to that potential of goodness within others.
- Respect is the realization that people generally are doing the best they can, given the limitations of their knowledge, courage, background, and experiences thus far in life.
- Respect involves honoring others' autonomy and appreciating that everyone is trying to set worthy goals and chart effective paths towards those goals.
- Respect involves the humility of knowing that you do not always know others' motivations or feelings. Instead of guessing those motives or feelings, or attributing ignoble motives or harsh feelings to others, it is better to ask, and honor people's answers.
- Respect involves not trying to control others. (But respect may sometimes involve trying to persuade people to change -- see next.)
- Respect doesn't mean letting people do whatever they want, whenever they want, however. If others are behaving in ways that are disrespectful or hurtful to others, it is respectful to call them into account on this (because it is not respectful to allow others to continue in disrespectful, hurtful behavior -- they will very likely come to regret this later), trying to persuade them to change the problematic behavior.
These are some preliminary thoughts. I really do believe that respecting everyone is a moral absolute. What do others think?
8 comments:
I suppose the question for the ethical relativist, the person who claims that there are no claims that can be said to be absolutely true, is whether that claim itself is absolutely true. Relativism seems like just another kind of absolutism so the issue really is a matter of choosing which absolute truth is best and why. Everyone deserves respect is your absolute. Fair enough, but let's examine it. Should we respect George W. Bush? Or Hitler? Or David Duke? You get the idea. Kant grounds his ethical claim in the principle of non-contradiction. How do you ground your respect claim? You go on to describe different aspects of your respect principle, but you never say why we ought to choose it or why you chose it. Let's take one of these aspects: "If others are behaving in ways that are disrespectful or hurtful to others, it is respectful to call them into account on this (because it is not respectful to allow others to continue in disrespectful, hurtful behavior -- they will very likely come to regret this later), trying to persuade them to change the problematic behavior." But what if the person who you call disrepectful disagrees with your judgment; and what if she were to say in retort that it is in fact you who are being disrespectful by calling her disrespectful! Who decides who is being disrespectful? And how do we call someone disrespectful without being disrespectful ourselves (thus violating out own ethical absolute). Your respect principle seems pretty vacuous, and I have to say, no disrespect intended, that this post comes off as moralistic preening -- "I respect other people -- aren't I great!"
Thank you for your comment.
Yes, I do think that even people like Hitler would deserve respect, but look carefully at how respect is defined. Note that it does not include "approval of everything everyone does" -- in fact, respect allows for calling others on their disrespectfulness. And so it is possible to face someone like Hitler realizing, on the one hand, that he may have thought he was doing the right thing, but, on the other hand, pointing out that oppressing and killing people is disrespectful.
Since my principle is really the same as Kant's categorical imperative, it is justified on exactly the same principle. In the case of the third formulation of the categorical imperative, it hinges on understanding the nature of human autonomy, and how that connects with human worthiness. (I may expand on this in another posting, later.)
What confuses people about respect is that too often these days people think that respect is supposed to mean tolerating everything. But "tolerating everything" does create inconsistencies. I remove the inconsistencies of that misconception by being explicit that respect includes calling people on their disrespect.
And, finally, what counts as disrespect is anything that contradicts the principles of respect that I lay out (which may not be exhaustive -- but at least it is a start). Also, it should be noted that respectfully calling people on their disrespect requires focusing on particular behaviors -- saying things like "I regard your behavior as wrong, because..." (instead of "you are worthless for doing that..."). You are right that people are likely to disagree initially, but further conversation, if conducted respectfully, usually clears things up and brings both people to better understanding and increased mutual respect in the end.
Sorry if my posting sounded preachy. I'm not sure there's a way to describe a moral absolute without sounding preachy, since the idea is to get at the difference between right and wrong!
And I would be the first to admit that taking this seriously as a life principle by which to guide one's life is very challenging!
Again, thanks for writing!
You say..Respect is the realization that people generally are doing the best they can, given the limitations of their knowledge, courage, background, and experiences thus far in life.
That is not respect, that is condescending ignorance. To the majority of people (6.5 billion on this planet) the concept of doing the best that they can is never considered. They live and exist in a state of mind very much influenced by their real life situation (I can give you a very long list). The majority do not have the luxury of living in the style of the few million well-educated high standard of living Americans. It is not a matter of doing the best that they can but just surviving another day or week (even in your affluent country). They do not have the conditions or environment to philosophise about doing the best that they can. It is such a condescending remark. I am not religious but I would ask you the same question that Jesus asked. Can you give everything that you own to the poor (that is doing the best that YOU can). You would be better to consider your position in regards to your intelligence (intelligence not cleverness) as to what is really worthwhile, for example does anyone have free will? I have no doubt that you are a well-meaning person. BUT..OPEN your eyes to the real world and think, stop living in your illusional unreal world. Examine yourself and tell me what you consider doing the best you can is and the reasons why so that I might comment on it.
Robert robert77@fsmail.net Eastbourne UK
Philosopher philo (love) sophia (wisdom) that is a love of wisdom or a searcher for absolute truths.
Robert,
Thanks for writing. You raise very good points.
I don't know why you seem to be suggesting that people have to be well-off and educated in order to be doing their best. I really do believe that everyone is doing their best. If they are struggling to survive, then their struggle for survival is how they are doing their best. To survive is good, and so to struggle to survive is one way that a person might be doing his or her best.
Also, I do not see why people would have to be philosophizing about what it means to do one's best in order to do their best. I trust that people just are doing their best, even if they haven't had a chance to reflect on what that means.
I totally do not understand why it is condescending to believe that everyone is doing their best. It would seem to be that what is condescending is to judge people to be not doing their best (i.e., to judge them as flawed, weak-willed, lazy, etc., just because they may not be doing what we might think they should do).
To regard everyone is doing the best they can seems to me to be the very opposite of condescension. Instead of judging people negatively and/or trying to control their behavior, it is a way of letting them be who they are and respecting that they are doing their best to make good decisions in their lives.
Thank you for your reply,
I do appreciate a philosophical discussion. I only use facts and logic and I have lived a long time on this planet. But I would want you to ignore my age and go for it..smile.
My guess is that you are a relatively young person. When you said that you respect them (all) for doing their best that they can you implied a morale prerogative. Regarding your comment that I seem to think that only people who are well off and educated can be doing their best. That is the paradox, I would suggest that it is the people who are well off and educated and who have no idea of the life’s and mind sets of the majority of people who live on this planet are probably doing in ignoble ignorance wrongly the best that they can.. Consider the majority of people in both your country and the rest of the world. I will give you one small example of your ignorance of the real world. In the country that I live in (UK..I was born here) there has been a very evil story reported in the press. A young woman was abducted, raped, and killed in a dreadful way by men at the bequest of her father. The father and uncle of honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod were jailed for life today for her murder.
Mahmod Mahmod, 54, was told he will have to serve a minimumn of 20 years while his brother Ari, 51, will have to serve at least 23 years.
Horrific details were revealed yesterday of the last hours of the young Kurdish woman murdered by her family for falling in love with the wrong man.
Banaz Mahmod, 20, was brutally raped and stamped on during a two-hour ordeal before being garotted.
One of her killers, the Old Bailey was told, was 30-year-old Mohamad Hama, who had been recruited by Banaz's father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari, 51.
Both were found guilty of murder last month.
The shocking details of the killing came to light when Hama was secretly recorded talking to a friend in prison.
He admitted "slapping" and "f***ing" Banaz, who was subjected to degrading sex acts.
Hama and his friend were heard laughing as he described how she was killed in her family home in Mitcham, South London, with Ari Mahmod "supervising"
There are hundreds of thousands of families with the same mindset of that father. Are they doing the best that they can? Consider the millions of people who buy shares in large corporations. Do they look at how those companies make their profits that supply them with their dividends? Do you respect them for doing the best that they can? Do you respect all the users of large motor vehicles who use jet passenger planes for doing the best that they can?
According to you, is the suicide bomber who wants to destroy himself and all those nearby in the belief that he will go to paradise served by servile virgins doing the best that he can? Are the millions of people who buy grade A drugs for recreation purposes doing the best that they can? They support an evil trade that originates at the lower level with poor farmers growing the poppy crop because it supplies them with an income above subsistence level. Do you respect those poppy growing farmers for doing the best that they can?
I really could go on and on and on. If you said that you respected me for doing the best that I can I would say that you have devalued your respect for me and that it is worthless. And in any case, I would not want you to respect me but to listen intelligently and to hope that we might both be better for the interchange of thoughts. But that can only take place if we are both intelligent (not clever). Laura please open your eyes. Every book, film, play, work of art would suggest that there is more good in the world than bad. That is a lie. Consider civilisations history and the unusual troubled times that we are living in. When you go out for a walk in the evening on your own anywhere in your amazing country do you think that the person who wants to rob/mug/use you is doing the best that he can.
And you avoided the question that I asked. What is the best that you are doing? If you said that you hoped that everyone was doing the best that they can (in a morale sense) but knew that in reality that will NEVER be true, I will love you and we will be as one.
But I am old and wise with open eyes and see all clearly. Laura you are prepared to give your respect to everyone. You are Alice in wonderland. I only give respect where I have examined with intelligence and because of that, your world is not my world. But who is wearing rose tinted glasses? Who is real and who is deceived Laura?
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. Rene Descartes
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. Rene Descartes
What is absolutely true is always correct, everywhere, all the time, under any condition. An entity's ability to discern these things is irrelevant to that state of truth." - Steven Robiner
'Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold! ….Lord Byron 1823
If you devalue a word it becomes usless in a discusion. Consider your use of the word respect Laura.
Hoping every thing good for you Laura.
Robert robert77@fsmail.net
In a very recent survey in the UK, they found that 50% of the middle class population (that is the affluent well-educated ones) were ready to break the law for their advantage and benefit. I would guess that it is roughly the same proportion in your country. Would you give those people your respect? Are they doing their best Laura? Open your eyes Laura and be discerning with your respect.
Robert robert77@fsmail.net
Thank you for continuing to share your thoughts, Robert.
Note that there is a very important distinction between saying that people are doing their best, and saying that everything that everyone does is morally right.
I am not claiming that everything everyone does is morally right. (The examples you give are very good examples of behaviors that seem morally very wrong indeed!)
But the people who do even these horrible things still probably themselves think that they are doing what is right.
For example, people who do terrible things to other people often feel that the people they do these terrible things deserve this "punishment." They may even believe that punishment is somehow redemptive.
Never am I suggesting that respect demands just letting all of this slide. As I have said before, it is not respectful to tolerate disrespect.
What I am saying in the passage in question is that being respectful requires starting from the assumption that people are generally trying to do the best they can, instead of starting from the assumption, for example, that some people are just plain evil, irrational, mean, weak-willed, or lazy, etc.
By starting from this assumption (of trying to figure out why they might have regarded their actions as the right thing to do), we are more likely to be able to reach them, communicate effectively, and perhaps even influence them to reconsider their ways, in those cases in which we do regard their behavior as morally problematic.
Starting from the assumption that they are irredeemably evil is probably not going to accomplish anything at all, realistically speaking, except inflame the tension and perhaps fuel further violence.
The cases you talk about are horrific, and I do believe that in cases like these, the respectful response is to find a way to bring their disrespectful behavior to an end, if possible.
But there are many many cases in most people's everyday lives when people are quick to take offense over misperceived or misunderstood actions because they were too quick to assume that others had bad motives instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt. And that is where this particular principle of respect is most useful. If everyone in everyday life had a "default" setting of giving each other the benefit of doubt and assuming that others generally are trying to do the right thing, then the little frustrations of life would be less likely to accumulate and build up to major clashes.
So, like I have said before, I am never saying that respect is the same as tolerating and accepting everything as okay. It is just to start with the default belief that, even when people do horrible things, they probably think they are justified -- and understanding why they think this (even if you disagree) is wiser than just writing them off as evil.
Finally: I also distinguish respect from trust. I respect everyone. I do not at all trust everyone. I think much of what you write about is more about trust than respect.
Respect = realizing that everyone is capable of goodness.
But not everyone lives true to moral goodness, and so trust should be reserved for those who do seem to be doing a pretty good job of living morally respectable lives.
Another thought:
An inverse way of describing the principle of respect is perhaps to say that punishment is never justified.
Since most of the times when people do horrible things to other people they do it in the name of inflicting punishment, maybe it is punishment itself that is always wrong.
So, another way to define respect = "never punish anyone."
(I think it is still okay to restrain people from hurting themselves or others -- but this is different from punishment.)
Post a Comment