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The Politics of Self‐Respect: A Feminist Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Diana T Meyers
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Abstract

Recent liberal moral and political philosophy has placed great emphasis on the good of self‐respect. But it is not always evident what is involved in self‐respect, nor is it evident how societies can promote it. Assuming that self‐respect is highly desirable, I begin by considering how people can live in a self‐respecting fashion, and I argue that autonomous envisaging and fulfillment of one's own life plans is necessary for self‐respect. I next turn to the question of how societal implementation of rights may affect self‐respect, and I urge that discretionary rights, which allow people to decline the benefits they confer, support self‐respect more effectively than mandatory rights, which forbid people to refuse the benefits they confer. I conclude by examining the import of these contentions for feminist theory. I believe that my arguments are of particular concern to women because women have traditionally been victimized by a mandatory right to play a distinctively “feminine” role which has undermined their self‐respect.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 1986 , pp. 83 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by Hypatia, Inc.

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