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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 November 2012
Many moral philosophers assume that a person is entitled to respect; this suggests that there is a right to respect. I argue, however, that there is no such right. There can be no right to respect because of what respect is, in conjunction with what a right demands and certain limitations of human agency. In this article, I first examine the nature and ontological basis of rights. I next consider the notion of respect in general; I adduce several varieties of respect, then present a primary distinction needed to discern the notion of respect relevant to the putative right. Then I propound the argument that there can be no right to respect and consider some means of challenging its conclusion. In closing, I trace some of the consequences of this argument and suggest how it might motivate a different approach to understanding our most basic obligations to one another.
1 The assumption is widespread. For just a sample of those who have employed it, see Buss, S., ‘Respect for Persons’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 29 (1999), pp. 517–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 517; Frankena, W., ‘The Ethics of Respect for Persons’, Philosophical Topics 14 (1986), pp. 149–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), p. 182Google Scholar; Donagan, A., The Theory of Morality (Chicago, 1977), p. 66Google Scholar; Nozick, R., Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York, 1974), p. 32Google Scholar; Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 337–8Google Scholar; Williams, B., ‘The Idea of Equality’, Moral Concepts, ed. Feinberg, J. (Oxford, 1970), pp. 158–61Google Scholar; Downie, R. S. and Telfer, E., Respect for Persons (London, 1969), pp. 88–94Google Scholar; Gauthier, D., Practical Reasoning (Oxford, 1963), pp. 119–20Google Scholar.
2 See Hohfeld, W., Fundamental Legal Conceptions, ed. Cook, W. (New Haven, 1919)Google Scholar.
3 Incidentally, the United States ratified it, with a number of reservations, in 1992.
4 In the ICCPR and in the American Convention on Human Rights, one does find the basis for the right of treatment ‘with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person’ (ICCPR, Article 10, 2; American Convention on Human Rights, Article 5, 2). But this right to respectful treatment is distinct from any putative right to respect (the former, it seems, would be grounded on the latter). Furthermore, this particular right is reserved for those who are ‘deprived of their liberty’ as a result of arrest or detention; hence, it lacks the universality that the putative right to respect is supposed to have. One also finds, in the American Convention on Human Rights, Article 4, 1, the assertion that ‘Every person has the right to have his life respected.’ To have one's life respected, however, is different from having one's self or one's nature as a person respected. These documents are reprinted in Ishay, M., The Human Rights Reader (London, 1997)Google Scholar.
5 The right to privacy in the United States is thought to be a right that exists in the penumbras of the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights. The famous terminology, ‘penumbras, formed by emanations’, comes from Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas's opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
6 J. Locke, The Second Treatise of Government (1690), §4.
7 Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, §6.
8 In so far as it grounds or informs the discussions in, for example, Darwall, S., ‘Two Kinds of Respect’, Ethics, 88 (1977), pp. 36–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frankena, ‘Respect for Persons’; and Dillon, R., ‘Respect and Care: Toward Moral Integration’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992), pp. 105–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 In Cranor, C., ‘Toward a Theory of Respect for Persons’, American Philosophical Quarterly 12 (1975), pp. 309–19Google Scholar.
10 In Hudson, S., ‘The Nature of Respect’, Social Theory and Practice 6 (1980), pp. 69–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 In Dillon, ‘Respect and Care’.
12 See Darwall, ‘Two Kinds’.
13 Again, the specific feature in virtue of which a human person warrants respect is irrelevant to this argument.
14 Respect also requires appreciation, specifically an appreciation of why the respected object's having the feature that warrants respect is a good thing. To the extent that appreciation is an affective phenomenon, if one does not have the capability to choose one's emotions, then one cannot be obligated to appreciate. Since the right to respect would impose an obligation to appreciate as much as it would impose an obligation to have specific beliefs, this line of thought provides additional reason for thinking that there is no such right.
15 Walter Sinnott-Armstrong denies that ought has different senses, but this seems mistaken for the reasons given in the text. See Sinnott-Armstrong, W., ‘ “Ought” Conversationally Implies “Can” ’, The Philosophical Review 93 (1984), pp. 249–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 254.
16 Kant relies on the principle at many points in the development of his moral views; see, for example, Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (New York, 1956), pp. 190Google Scholar, 218. Another example is Kant, I., Lectures on Ethics (London, 1930), p. 192Google Scholar, where he writes: ‘Love is good-will from inclination. Now whatever depends upon my inclination and not upon my will cannot be laid upon me as a duty. I certainly cannot love at will, but only when I have an impulse to love.’ In so far as Kant would have said something similar about belief (one cannot believe at will, but only when one is led to believe or is impelled by the world to believe), the central argument of the present article shows that if the right to respect is a tenet of Kant's moral theory, the theory appears to be internally inconsistent. (For a discussion of the uses to which Kant puts the principle that ought implies can, see Silber, J., ‘Kant's Conception of the Highest Good as Immanent and Transcendent’, The Philosophical Review 68 (1959), pp. 469–92.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 So called because they are introduced and discussed in the famous paper, Frankfurt, H., ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), pp. 829–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 See Fischer, J. M., ‘Recent Work on Moral Responsibility’, Ethics 110 (1999), pp. 93–139CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 124. Fischer is responding to arguments in Widerker, D., ‘Frankfurt on “Ought Implies Can” and Alternative Possibilities’, Analysis 51 (1991), pp. 222–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haji, I., ‘Alternative Possibilities, Moral Obligation, and Moral Responsibility’, Philosophical Papers 22 (1993), pp. 41–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Copp, D., ‘Defending the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Blameworthiness and Moral Responsibility’, Noûs 31 (1997), pp. 441–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Copp, for one, explicitly accepts the principle that ought implies can (which he dubs ‘the Maxim’) and uses it in an attempt to undermine conclusions drawn by some in light of Frankfurt-type cases.
19 See Sinnott-Armstrong ‘ “Ought” Conversationally Implies “Can” ’. As the title of his paper suggests, Sinnott-Armstrong accepts that ought conversationally implies can; what he denies, for the reasons sketched in the text, is that ought entails can. Thus, he rejects the principle as I and others construe it.
20 John Kekes also rejects the principle that ought implies can in Kekes, J., ‘ “Ought Implies Can” and Two Kinds of Morality’, The Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1984), pp. 459–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. His argument against it, though, seems rather hasty.
21 I rely on William Alston's discussion of doxastic voluntarism for this historical background. See Alston, W., ‘The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification’, Philosophical Perspectives 2 (1988), pp. 257–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 119. He cites in this connection Pojman, L., Religious Belief and the Will (London, 1986)Google Scholar.
22 Such as prohibition, permission, reproach, responsibility, praiseworthiness, being in the clear and merit. The list comes from Alston, ‘Epistemic Justification’, p. 115.
23 The basis of this critique is clearly the principle that ought implies can. Alston adopts the principle at Alston, ‘Epistemic Justification’, p. 118.
24 See Alston ‘Epistemic Justification’ and Feldman, R., ‘Voluntary Belief and Epistemic Evaluation’, Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility and Virtue, ed. Steup, M. (New York, 2001), pp. 77–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Incidentally, Feldman presents a persuasive argument that demonstrates that one can consistently adopt the deontological conception of justification and reject doxastic voluntarism.
25 Alston ‘Epistemic Justification’, p. 134.
26 This attenuated notion of control is considered again, in greater detail and from a slightly different perspective, in the section below.
27 Ginet, C., ‘Deciding to Believe’, Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility and Virtue, ed. Steup, M. (New York, 2001), pp. 63–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 65.
28 See Steup, M., ‘Doxastic Voluntarism and Epistemic Deontology’, Acta Analytica 15 (2000), pp. 25–56Google Scholar.
29 Richard Feldman criticizes Steup's doxastic voluntarism on the grounds that forming an intention is essential to a voluntary action and that one does not, except in rare and rather artificial circumstances, form intentions to believe. See Feldman, ‘Voluntary Belief and Epistemic Evaluation’, p. 85.
30 Cf. ‘We have already noted that most of our beliefs spring from doxastic tendencies that are too deeply rooted to permit of modification by deliberate effort. Most of the matters on which we form beliefs are such that the project of deliberately producing belief or disbelief is one that is never seriously envisaged, just because it is too obvious that there is no chance of success.’ Alston, ‘Epistemic Justification’, p. 136.
31 As noted above, Alston calls such control long-range control. See Alston ‘Epistemic Justification’, p. 134.
32 When I presented this article as a paper at conferences and in more informal settings, some raised the issue of moral luck, and seemed to think that consideration of this issue casts doubt on the basic argument against the right to respect. I must admit that I am unable to see the connection between this rich and perplexing issue and the particular argument that is the basis of this article. Crucial to this argument is the notion of control. It is because human persons do not have adequate control over their beliefs that they cannot be legitimately obligated to respect. The problematic, therefore, pertains to the connection between (lack of) control and obligation. Although the notion of control is certainly relevant to the issue of moral luck, the ethical implications of moral luck are best understood in terms of responsibility and moral assessment. The problematic here pertains to the connection between (lack of) control and responsibility. It is, perhaps, the case that one can be held responsible (and praised or blamed) for something beyond one's control. However, the question of whether one is or is not responsible for the beliefs (or lack thereof) that prevent one from respecting all others is not pertinent to the argument against the right to respect. Regardless of how this question is answered, the problem remains: the putative right to respect would impose obligations beyond one's control. One might be responsible for something beyond one's control, but I cannot see how one can be obligated to do something beyond one's control. Thus, what eludes me, when the issue of moral luck is broached in this context, is a relevant connection between obligation and being held responsible.
33 Sarah Buss observes that: ‘[i]n the philosophical literature on political and moral obligation it is a commonplace that people have a right to be treated with respect’. She then goes on to note that the distinctions between the attitude of respect, the belief that persons deserve to be treated with respect, and the mode(s) of treatment required by this attitude or belief are not always recognized. See Buss ‘Respect for Persons’, pp. 518–19.
34 I would like to express my deep gratitude to Kevin Baumert, Anthony Brueckner and Mark Murphy for insightful and very helpful comments on an early draft of this article, and to Robin Dillon for discussion at the outset of the project. I would also like to thank Robert Audi, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, John Martin Fischer, Margaret Gilbert and Frank Henderson Stewart for their interest in this article and stimulating conversations pertaining to it and related topics.