Abstract
Some philosophers object that Kant’s respect cannot express mutual recognition because it is an attitude owed to persons in virtue of an abstract notion of autonomy and invite us to integrate the vocabulary of respect with other persons-concepts or to replace it with a social conception of recognition. This paper argues for a dialogical interpretation of respect as the key-mode of recognition of membership in the moral community. This interpretation highlights the relational and practical nature of respect, and accounts for its governing role over other persons-regarding concepts.
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Notes
This is a specific philosophical use of the notion of “respect” that Darwall characterizes as “recognition-respect” as opposed to “appraisal-respect,” see Darwall (1977). This paper will be concerned solely with recognition-respect as the alleged structural principle of morality.
Rawls (1980, p. 546).
I will not be concerned with the normative issue as to whether this conception of respect correctly instructs us as to how to treat others. In fact, I doubt that any conception of respect suffices as a ground for a complete system of duties, and I do not regard this as a failure. On this issue, compare Dillon (1992), Noggle (1999), Cranor (1983), and Raz (2001).
I therefore endorse the so-called “post-Kantian reading” of Hegel, which takes Hegel to radicalize and extend the Kantian project about the source of normativity. On this interpretation, see Pippin (1989), Pinkard (1994). My contribution here is to show that this continuity can be highlighted by a dialogical interpretation of the Kantian conception of respect as the key mode of mutual recognition.
For example, Dennett argues “Human culture supported the evolution of minds powerful enough to capture reasons from things and make them our reasons. We are not perfectly rational agents, but the social arena we live in sustains processes of dynamic interaction that both require and permit renewal of endorsement of our reasons, making us into agents that can take responsibility for our acts. Our autonomy does not depend on anything like the miraculous suspension of causation, but rather on the integrity of processes of education and mutual sharing of knowledge” (Dennett 2003, p. 287). Other support for this claim comes from recent findings about mirror-neurons, which are supposed to explain the psychology of social recognition, see Razzolatti and Sinigaglia (2006). On the relation between self-respect and acknowledgement of autonomy, see Roland and Foxx (2003); on the priority of some rational concepts (such as respect) over moral sensibility, see Kennett (2002).
The view I defend here draws from Korsgaard (1996b).
I take this view to be a development of Korsgaard’s conception of reasons. According to Korsgaard, reasons are relational. Their institution requires a legislator and a citizen: “It takes two to make a reason” (Korsgaard 1996a, p. 137, cpr Korsgaard 1996b). But the two are the two elements of reflective conscience, “the thinking self” and the “acting self”. For this reason, Korsgaard’s conception of relationality remains ultimately monological.
To this extent, respect plays a crucial role in situations of disagreements and warrants tolerance. That respect functions as a warrant of tolerance is remarked also by philosophers who do not take it as a defining feature of morality, see Gibbard (1990, pp 237–238, 244–247). Compare Kant (1797, pp. 471–473).
This is also to say that the demand of recognition of equal worth is not “homogeneizing” as Taylor objects, see Taylor (1992, p. 72).
This objection is presented from different camps, notably by feminists and communitarian philosophers. I am solely concerned with the common structure of the argument against autonomy. Compare Meyers (1989, 1997), Friedman (2000), Calhoun (2004), and Sandel (1982), Taylor (1979), MacIntyre (1981), Keller (1997), MacKenzie and Stoljar (2000).
This is partly admitted by communitarians by Sandel, as we are granted with the capacity for interpreting the meaning of practices (Sandel 1984, p. 91). But this must be also affecting their assessment, hence it is not obvious to what extent this is different from the capacity for criticizing and rejecting some existing practice.
Sandel (1982, pp. 94, 100).
“As free persons, citizens recognize one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. This means that they do not view themselves as inevitably tied to the pursuit of the particular conception of the good and its final ends which they espouse at any given time. Instead, as citizens, they are regarded as, in general, capable of revising and changing this conception on reasonable and rational grounds. Thus it is held to be permissible for citizens to stand apart from conceptions of the good and to survey and assess their various final ends” (Rawls 1980, p. 544).
The priority of the community over the self is assumed, if not openly defended, also by philosophers who insist on mutual recognition, such as Axel Honneth. I suppose that this divergence depends on the attempt at “naturalizing” Hegel’s conception of recognition (Honneth 1996). Honneth’s account of mutual recognition is based on Hegel as well as on anthropological and psychological studies. In particular, Honneth appeals to G.H. Mead’s theory as offering the adequate psychological background for his conception of mutual recognition, see Honneth (1992, p. 189), Honneth (1996, pp. 71–91).
Kant sometimes uses “esteem” and “respect” as interchangeable, but always adding the qualification as to their moral status. To make the argument clean, I chose to maintain a systematic distinction between esteem (which depends on the opinion of others) as respect (which depends solely on the moral law). Interestingly, this distinction is recognized as useful also in recent psychological studies, see Roland and Foxx (2003, pp. 247–287).
This relational structure of respect also implies a relational structure of the self, as I argued elsewhere. I insist on the practical nature of the relation of authority in order to distinguish the dialogical account of relationality I propose from feminist accounts such as Friedman (2000). These feminist philosophers are concerned with the causal and ontological constitution and formation of the self. The dialogical account is devised to address the normative issue of authority.
This qualification is very important to understand the complex phenomenology of respect and its constitutive emotionality. When others disregard our value, we are entitled to feel anger and resentment, and we are also entitled to expect, demand, and hope for reparation. Emotions that follow the experience of being disrespected are constitutive parts of its complex phenomenology. We can also say that such emotions constitute the experience of not being appropriately considered and recognized.
I should note that, against the mainstream reading, Markell argues that Hegel’s conception of mutual recognition is incoherent because it presupposes the priority of the self, and construes lack of recognition in terms of recognitions of selves that are already there, prior and independently of such recognition (Markell 2003, pp. 59–60). This picture represents the self as fix and static, instead of evolving and developing toward fuller forms of self-determination. This is a likely source of injustice because it tends to take for granted and thus unchangeable certain practices.
I owe this interpretation to Brandom (1999, p. 217).
In Kant’s ethics, conscience can be taken as an internal sanction that mirrors respect, see Kant (1788, p. 98), Kant (1797, p. 404). Conscience works as the ‘inner judge’ and it cannot err because it concerns one’s inner thoughts. On conscience as an internal sanction and its relation to respect, see Hill (1997, p. 65).
On the characterization of morality in terms of blame and self-blame, see also Gibbard (1990, pp. 299–300), Williams (1995, pp. 40–44). For an intermediate position which deserves closer attention than I can give it on this occasion, see Scanlon (1998, Section 6.4). I focus on Skorupski’s account because he elaborates on the Hegelian notion of recognition in a way which I find particularly interesting. Skorupski notices that on some crucial issues, his account does not differ much from the Kantian view, see Skorupski (2005f, section III). Differently from what I have suggested in Section l, Skorupski takes Kantian respect to be a moral ideal of honor code. Skorupski and Van Willigenburg comment on passages where Kant uses respect both as a sentiment that is peculiar of rational agents, and as sentiment deserved on the basis of a special talent, role or position. These are two different kinds of respect, which ought to be distinguished, as shown in Darwall (1977).
Skorupski suggests that because it is administered publicly through communal practices of withdrawal of recognition, moral disapproval deeply affects our identity (Skorupski 2005). Blame as other forms of public disapproval certainly resonate deeply with the moral offender. However, it is a question whether they shake our identity more than the “inner judge” does. We can insulate ourselves from the community, but we cannot dispose of our conscience without risking a split of personality. Hill speaks of Kant’s conception of conscience as the “dark side” of reverence for the moral law, see Hill (1997, p. 65).
Of course, I am not suggesting that Hegel makes no attempt to answer this question, as he famously claims that the justification of anything real resides in the way things historically unfold. His approach leads to a philosophy of history that seems to me less promising than the bare rationalist and democratic ideal of Kant.
This is an interesting feature of respect as a mode of recognition as opposed to respect as a mode of appraisal, see Darwall (1977). One may say “I used to respect him as a Director before I learned how he treats his orchestra” or “I stopped respecting him as an actor after his last performance”. These are judgments of appraisal stating withdrawal of social recognition regarding a specific role or talent.
On this reading, punishment is not a deterrent, but expressive of disapproval, see Hill (1997). As a deterrent, fear of punishment would not qualify as a “moral motive”. Kantian accounts of morality refrain from focusing on reactive attitudes to avoid reliance on morally unworthy motives (such as fear).
On the relation between duties of respect and duties of benevolence, see Baron (1997).
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I would like to thank Stephen Darwall, Christine Korsgaard, Joseph Raz, Julius Sensat, and in particular John Skorupski for having shared their views. I am also grateful to the Editor and to two anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments and criticisms.
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Bagnoli, C. Respect and Membership in the Moral Community. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 10, 113–128 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9053-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9053-3