Respect-due and respect-earned: negotiating student-teacher relationships
Ethics and Education 4 (1):3-17 (2010)
| Abstract | Respect is a cardinal virtue in schools and foundational to our common ethical beliefs, yet its meaning is muddled. For philosophers Kant, Mill, and Rawls, whose influential theories span three centuries, respect includes appreciation of universal human dignity, equality, and autonomy. In their view children, possessors of human dignity, but without perspective and reasoning ability, are entitled only to the most minimal respect. While undeserving of mutual respect they are nonetheless expected to show unilateral respect. Dewey and Piaget, scions of the same liberal tradition, grant children a larger degree of autonomy and equality thereby approximating the full respect conditions reserved for adults in the prior theories. In this article, after reviewing the premises of respect, I attempt to blend the divide - between minimal and full respect - by separating respect-due from respect-earned . While the former, premised on human dignity, should be granted unconditionally to all, the latter is contingent upon qualities that one possesses or acquires over time. Adding the notion of respect-due is a constraint on the prevalent school practice of turning respect into demands for deference. The relevance of this distinction is discussed in terms of student-teacher relationships | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,882 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesCarla Bagnoli (2007). Respect and Membership in the Moral Community. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (2):113 - 128.
Gene Spitler (1982). Justifying a Respect for Nature. Environmental Ethics 4 (3):255-260.
Gerald Doppelt (2009). The Place of Self-Respect in a Theory of Justice. Inquiry 52 (2):127 – 154.
Johannes Giesinger (2012). Respect in Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 46 (1):100-112.
Sin Yee Chan (2006). The Confucian Notion of Jing (Respect). Philosophy East and West 56 (2):229 - 252.
M. Therese Lysaught (2004). Respect: Or, How Respect for Persons Became Respect for Autonomy. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 29 (6):665 – 680.
Victor J. Seidler (1986). Kant, Respect and Injustice: The Limits of Liberal Moral Theory. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
David Middleton (2006). Three Types of Self-Respect. Res Publica 12 (1).
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-07-27Total downloads19 ( #65,306 of 556,909 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #20,653 of 556,909 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
