This chapter contains sections titled: Sexual Morality is a Required Course Morality and Sexuality Criteria of Mutually Respectful Sexual Interaction Moral Issues Associated with Specific Sexual Relationships and Activities Don't Flunk Your Test.

This paper explores the scope and limits of rational consensus through mutual respect, with the primary focus on the best known formal model of consensus: the Lehrer–Wagner model. We consider various arguments against the rationality of the Lehrer–Wagner model as a model of consensus about factual matters. We conclude that models such as this face problems in achieving rational consensus on disagreements about unknown factual matters, but that they hold considerable promise as models of how to rationally resolve (...) non-factual disagreements. (shrink)

Contemporary theories of civic education frequently appeal to an ideal of mutual respect in the context of ethical, ethical and religious disagreement. This paper critically examines two recently popular criticisms of this ideal. The first, coming from a postmodern direction, charges that the ideal is hypocritical in its effort to be maximally impartial and fair. The second, which I associate with such 'new atheists' as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, argues that notions of mutual respect pose (...) a threat to such basic goals of education as the cultivation of critical thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores care ethics and the roles that power, trust, and stereotypes play in establishing and building caring relationships. The work is the result of the evolution of collaboration between teacher and student as that teacher/student dichotomy evolved to one of shared trust and respect and considers the oft-neglected aspect of respect in an ethic of care. By tracing the evolution of the authors’ relationship, we argue that mutual respect in an ethic of care has (...) the potential to enrich our interactions and reshape the way we think about care from primarily unilinear to a more reciprocal model. We propose a modified ethic of care based on mutual trust as a working model for ethics of care-based relationships, particularly with regard to student-teacher interactions, but also perhaps to more broadly extend into our daily interactions with others. (shrink)

Contractualism is a normative theory which characterizes principles of right in terms of the idea of mutual respect. In this theory, mutual respect is regarded as having deliberative priority over other values. This essay aims to examine how contractualists can provide a satisfactory justification for prioritizing mutual respect. I will argue that the ‘value of mutual respect argument,’ which is a justification commonly adopted by contractualists, is inadequate because an unconditional priority of (...) mutual respect cannot be grounded on the desirability of a relationship of mutual respect. Then I will suggest that a ‘consistency argument’ can provide a better justification of why the idea of mutual respect should have priority. Mutual respect is of special importance, not because it is highly desirable, but rather because it is required by an a priori guiding principle of consistency. Individuals become inconsistent if they ask others to respect them as reason-assessing individuals, while at the same time refusing to respect others in the same way. (shrink)

How can we proactively rehearse a collective sense of humanity, and let go of the focuson our cultural differences as an obstacle? The dissimilarity of people has become a popular reasonfor social exclusion, regularly leading up to hate speech, dehumanization and destruction. This essaydemonstrates how community music programs can create a sense of intercultural community,both between musicians as throughout all participants including teachers, family and the audience.Firstly, the relevance of collective music making is discussed along with the ideas of RichardSennett (...) on music and mutual respect, and of Alicja Gescinska on feeling at home in music. This createsan interdisciplinary framework of political and philosophical theories, which is expanded bypsychological research. To maintain respect between people from different cultural and religiousbackgrounds is not something that tends to be stimulated in the individualistic belief systems ofWestern commercialisation and competitive education systems. Where do our children and futuregenerations practice teamwork, intercultural communication and a curiosity for cultures thatreach beyond their own belief systems? Arts in general, and music in particular, can and shouldoffer fertile grounds for these learnings through working together, active listening and practices incollective resonation. To illustrate these arguments, examples such as the El Sistema Europe YouthOrchestra (SEYO) and Musicians Without Borders will be discussed to show the serious potential ofmusic in the nurturing of mutual respect in an intercultural society. In order to enable such powerfulprojects, it is essential that governmental institutions, policymakers and academicians supportthe sustainability and growth of community music programs, to make them widely accessible inareas which could benefit from proactive, creative practices in intercultural and religious dialogue. (shrink)

Buber’s and Kant’s views as to how to achieve mutual respect are intertwined, contrary to the way each would likely see the other’s position. To this end, the author discussed each writer’s view of mutual respect and shows how the deficiencies in each are made up for in the arguments of the other. The author concludes by suggesting that a conception of liberal civil society, at its best and most democratic, embodied both Buber’s and Kant’s views (...) of mutual respect. (shrink)

The workings within the Holy See has one of the oldest diplomaticinstitutions. Unlike other states with their national interests the diplomaticrole of the Holy See within the international community is based on the moralauthority of the Pope in favour of the wellbeing of people. Malaysia is the 179thstate to have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The relations are ratherunique because no economy and consular divisions are involved. In fact, thecore of the relations is based on the mutual interest (...) of promoting justice, peaceand tolerance. Although the diplomatic relations were established in 2011, thisarticle demonstrates that there were already cordial engagements between thePopes and local leaders. This article explores the relations between Malaysiaand the Holy See and analyses the reasons for Malaysia to establish relationswith the Holy See and the bilateral activities. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Sex Is Morally Problematic Sex Is (Conditionally) Good Exchanging Ourselves: Marriage in the Moralphilosophie Collins Kant and Political Liberalism Transforming Ourselves into Husbands and Wives: Marriage in the Metaphysics of Morals Is Something Wrong Because It Is Unnatural? Pleasure as an End of Nature Marital Equality as a Criterion of Legitimacy How the Same‐Sex Marriage Debate Should Proceed.

There has been limited research investigating the effects of the recognition form of respect between leaders and their followers within the organisation literature. We investigated whether mutual recognition respect was associated with follower job performance and well-being after controlling for measures of liking and appraisal respect. Based on data we collected from 203 matched leader–follower dyads in the Insurance industry in Malaysia, we found mutual recognition respect predicted both follower job performance and well-being. Significantly, (...) appraisal respect was only found to be positively associated with job performance. Our findings suggest mutual recognition respect is an important form of respect in workplace relationships that can bring benefits to both the individual and the organisation. (shrink)

This article examines Lamb, Gable & de Ruyter's critique of consent as the standard by which one can determine if a sexual encounter is ethical in their ‘Mutuality in sexual relationships: a standard of ethical sex?’. Their examination of this issue is to be welcomed for a number of reasons, including growing criticism of ‘consent’ as the gold standard in medical and social science research ethics. The focus of this article is specifically on school sex education (principally, for 11–16-year-olds). Contrary (...) to Lamb et al., I argue that it is difficult to maintain that ‘The standard of mutuality should be taught in all schools and the government should indeed demand or support this, even with checks to see if children have learned this standard, at least in attitudes about sexual behavior’ for three reasons. First, while there are good arguments in favour of school children being introduced to the ideal of mutuality, it seems too high a bar to require children to ‘have learned’—a phrase that can be taken to mean to ‘have come to accept’ rather than merely to ‘understand’—this; consent is a more appropriate requirement and is itself a sufficiently rich term that it merits analysis by students, aided by their teachers. Second, my judgement as a sex educator is that sex education is more effective when students are given the opportunity to explore what is good and what is right, rather than simply being told. Third, if we have to adopt a single principle, there is much to be said for ‘respect for others’ to trump both ‘consent’ and ‘mutuality’. (shrink)

Philosophers and physicians alike tend to discuss the physician-patient relationship in terms of physician privilege and patient autonomy, stressing the duty of the physician to respect the autonomy and the variously elaborated rights of the patient. The authors of this article argue that such emphasis on rights was initially productive, in a first generation of debate on medical ethical issues, but that it is now time for a second generation effort that will stress the importance of the unique experiential (...) aspects of the physician-patient relationship — mutual trust, suffering and healing. We attempt here to initiate this second-generation discussion, presenting the first generation's philosophical background, criticizing it from the perspective of clinical experience, and seeking a synthesis in the relational qualities of patient and physician interacting in a medical context. (shrink)

This chapter examines whether solidarity can be understood as a form of mutual recognition; or possibly, as a social phenomenon, which combines different forms of mutual recognition. The emphasis is on the connection between the thin principle of universal mutual respect, and the thicker relations between people, more sensitive to their particular needs and contributions, which social solidarity involves.

This paper reconsiders some themes and arguments from my earlier paper “Fairness, Respect and the Egalitarian Ethos.” That work is often considered to be part of a cluster of papers attacking “luck egalitarianism” on the grounds that insisting on luck egalitarianism's standards of fairness undermines relations of mutual respect among citizens. While this is an accurate reading, the earlier paper did not make its motivations clear, and the current paper attempts to explain the reasons that led me (...) to write the earlier paper, assesses the force of its arguments, and locates it in respect to work of Richard Arneson and Elizabeth Anderson. The paper concludes by bringing out what now appears to be the main message of the earlier paper: that the attempt to implement an “ideal” theory of equality can harm the very people that the theory is designed to help. (shrink)

This essay by Suzanne Rosenblith and Benjamin Bindewald is motivated by the question of how do those who value civic liberalism give the religiously orthodox a reason to engage in pluralist democratic deliberations in a manner that does not allow intolerance to undermine the foundations of liberal democracy. Introducing the idea of tolerance as mutuality — that is, a will to relationship — the authors argue, strikes a balance between those theories that are too demanding of the religiously orthodox and (...) those that are not exacting enough. Applying the principle of tolerance as mutuality to the special space of public schools allows for a new way to conceptualize civic education in pluralist democracies. (shrink)

Respect, as Kant describes it, has a duality of nature that seems to embody a contradiction – i.e., it is both a moral motive and a feeling, where these are thought to be mutually exclusive. Most solutions involve eliminating one of the two natures, but unfortunately, this also destroys what is unique about respect. So instead, I question the non-cognitive theory of emotion giving rise to the contradiction. In its place, I develop the cognitive theory implicit in Kant's (...) work, one in which emotions take the form of evaluative judgments that determine the will. I then show that, as a purely rational emotion, respect is perfectly suited to be a moral motive. (shrink)

We formulate a distinctly 'political liberal' conception of mutual respect, which we call 'civic respect', appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to (...) be free and equal citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective 'comprehensive doctrines' (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the 'basic structure of society' as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection. (shrink)

Carl Craver’s mutual manipulability criterion aims to pick out all and only those components of a mechanism that are constitutively relevant with respect to a given phenomenon. In devising his criterion, Craver has made heavy use of the notion of an ideal intervention, which is a tool for illuminating causal concepts in causal models. The problem is that typical mechanistic models contain non-causal relations in addition to causal ones, which is why the standard concept of an ideal intervention (...) is not appropriate in that context. In this paper, I first show how top-down interventions in mechanistic models violate the conditions for ideal interventions. Drawing from recent developments in the causal exclusion literature, I then argue for extended interventionism better suited for the purposes of the new mechanist. Finally, I show why adopting such an extended account leads to the surprising consequence that an important subset of mechanistic interlevel relations comes out as causal. (shrink)

In the 1970s, feminist biblical scholars began to conduct research on the biblical traditions of wisdom and the manifestation of female images of God, named Sophialogy. There are different focus areas within Sophialogy, but the formulation of Wisdom/Sophia goals for liberation and equality was inter alia the focus area of feminist biblical interpretation. According to this approach, Jesus as the prophetic messenger of Wisdom/Sophia activates the Sophia tradition through his works or deeds of compassion for the poor, the outcasts, and (...) all those suffering from injustice. Women in Africa interpret these deeds as communal 'wise living' and the custodians of justice. This culminates in a motherhood agenda, namely, making peace for life; ensuring mutual respect, honour and care for life; looking for fairness; reciprocity; wholeness and inclusiveness. The aim of this paper is to discuss mutual-mothering in the African context as an ethos for living wisely and justly. Having instincts to care and to protect are not exclusively female attributes, but include also males. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This paper argues that relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust) contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. -/- Love is important for the quality of human life. Not only do everyday experiences and analyses of pop culture and world literature attest to this; scientific research does as well. How exactly does love contribute to well-being? This chapter discusses the suggestion that it not only matters for the experiential quality of life, or for successful (...) agency, but that it actualizes our nature as “relational selves” (Chen, Boucher & Kraus 2011). I defend a hybrid or pluralist theory, which sees humans not only as subjects of experiences, or agents, or valuers, but also as relational selves. Expanding from love to other interpersonal relations, thriving relations of mutual recognition (love, respect, esteem, trust), contribute directly and non-reductively to our flourishing as relational selves. The paper will start by putting forward the proposal (Section 2), and then discussing it in relation to important alternatives. The focus is on alternatives which hold that love, and other forms of mutual recognition, are important for well-being, but only indirectly. One kind of challenge against the constitutive role of relations to others for well-being comes from the traditional theories that accommodate relations in some indirect ways (Section 3). A second kind of challenge admits that perhaps love is central to well-being in a direct way, but do we have reason to believe that other forms of mutual recognition are as well? (Section 4) Yet another kind of challenge is that love matters for the quality of lives in some other way than contributing to its prudential value: love is good, but is it good for us? (Section 5) A fourth kind of challenge concerns what we are, and the nature of “essentialism” involved in the approach stressing relational selfhood: cannot, say, motherhood contribute to one’s good life even if motherhood is contingent and not essential? (Section 6). In debates on recognition the idea that mutual recognition is also relevant for well-being has been put forward, for example in Axel Honneth’s (1992, ch.9 ) ”formal” theory of good life. Whatever else constitutes good life, relations of recognition form its backbone (cf. Ikäheimo 2014). Surprisingly little however is written about mutual recognition and well-being in detail, or recognition in comparison to traditional theories of well-being. This chapter aims to fill some of that void, and at the same time defend the view that well-being is one of the normative notions with which mutual recognition has a constitutive relationship. (shrink)

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I (...) argue that a historicized difference principle considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts. (shrink)

It is a familiar idea that showing respect for someone requires an effort to take account of how she sees the world. There is more than one way we might do this. Williams suggests that each person is owed an effort at identification, whereas Rawls remarks that “mutual respect is shown … in our willingness to see the situation of others from their point of view.” The author explores these ideas as they apply to people with profound (...) and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities (PMLD), whose condition raises special difficulties in the way of complying with the conduct described here. The author examines the ideas of having a point of view and identifying with the person whose point of view it is, and shows how much—and also how little—these views can contribute to a principle of respect that includes people with PMLD. (shrink)

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 (...) class='Hi'>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. (shrink)

This chapter develops and defends an account of reason: to reason is to scrutinize one’s attitudes by consulting the perspectives of other persons. The principal attraction of this account is its ability to vindicate the unique of authority of reason. The chapter argues that this conception entails that reasoning is a robustly social endeavor—that it is, in the first instance, something we do with other people. It is further argued that such social endeavors presuppose mutual respect on the (...) part of those participating in them. The account therefore yields a form of Kantian constructivism: we have an unconditional duty of respect for persons because such a duty is implicit in the very nature of reasoning. -/- . (shrink)

This paper elaborates on the deliberative democracy argument for freedom of expression in terms of its relationship to different dimensions of autonomy. It engages the objection that Enlightenment theories pose a threat to cultures that reject autonomy and argues that autonomy-based democracy is not only compatible with but necessary for respect for cultural diversity. On the basis of an intersubjective epistemology, it argues that people cannot know how to live on mutually respectful terms without engaging in public deliberation and (...) developing some degree of personal autonomy. While freedom of expression is indispensable for deliberation and autonomy, this does not mean that people have no obligations regarding how they speak to each other. The moral insights provided by deliberation depend on the participants in the process treating one another with respect. The argument is related to the Danish cartoon controversy. (shrink)

Ever since its nascent days, psychoanalysis has enjoyed an uneasy coexistence with religion. However, in recent decades, many analysts have been more interested in the healing potential of both psychoanalytic and religious experience and have explored how their respective narrative underpinnings may be remarkably similar. In _Toward Mutual Recognition_, Marie T. Hoffman takes just such an approach. Coming from a Christian perspective, she suggests that the current relational turn in psychoanalysis has been influenced by numerous theorists - analysts and (...) philosophers alike - who were themselves shaped by an embedded Christian narrative. As a result, the redemptive concepts of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection - central to the tenets of Christianity - can be traced to relational theories, emerging analogously in the transformative process of mutual recognition in the concepts of identification, surrender, and gratitude, a trilogy which she develops as forming the "path of recognition." Each movement on this path of recognition is given thought-provoking, in-depth attention. Chapters dedicated to theoretical perspectives utilize the thinking of Benjamin, Hegel, and Ricoeur. In her historical perspectives, she explores the personal and professional histories of analysts such as Sullivan, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Erikson, Kohut, and Ferenczi, among others, who were influenced by the Christian narrative. Uniting it all together is the clinical perspective offered in the compelling extended case history of Mandy, a young lady whose treatment embodies and exemplifies each of the steps along the path of growth in both the psychoanalytic and Christian senses. Throughout, a relational sensibility is deployed as a cooperative counterpart to the Christian narrative, working both as a consilient dialogue and a vehicle for further integrative exploration. As a result, the specter of psychoanalysis and religion as mutually exclusive gives way to the hope and redemption offered by their mutual recognition. (shrink)

Since 2014, British schools have been required to ‘actively promote’ the value of ‘mutual respect’ to the children in their care. This is relatively unproblematic: liberals are agreed that good citizenship education will involve teaching mutual respect. However, there is disagreement over how ‘respect’ should be understood and what it should imply for norms of respectful classroom discussion. Some political liberals have indicated that when engaging in discussion in the classroom, students should provide only neutral (...) reasons to defend their views. This paper provides a number of arguments against this claim. For example, I argue that this norm relies on a distorted understanding of what it is to respect others and that it stifles the development of civic and epistemic virtue in the next generation of citizens. Even from within the perspective of political liberalism, there are good reasons to favour critical discussion of non-neutral reasons. Education policy should therefore accord greater priority to discussion of students’ actual motivating reasons than to discussion constrained by a norm of neutral discourse. (shrink)

Many medical‐ethics advisory boards have concluded that human embryonic stem cell research can be conducted in an ethical manner. Yet, almost all the recommendations of the ethics advisory boards have included a rather obscure requirement: the embryos that are to be destroyed for stem cell research must be treated with profound respect. In none of these recommendations, however, do we see an adequate explanation of what proper respect for human embryos actually entails. In this essay I argue that (...) showing proper respect for human embryos, on the one hand, and simultaneously destroying them for stem cell research, on the other hand, are not mutually exclusive. In addition, I maintain that given current U.S. in vitro fertilization practices, which deliberately produce more embryos than will be implanted, proper respect for surplus embryos requires their use in embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

This article defends a specific account of reasonableness as a virtue of liberal citizenship. I specify an account of reasonableness that I argue is more consistent with the phenomenology of intersubjective exchanges among citizens over political matters in contexts of deep disagreement. My reading requires reasonable citizens to undertake an attitude of epistemic modesty while deliberating public matters with agents who hold views different from theirs. In contrast with my view, I debate Martha Nussbaum’s and Steven Wall’s accounts of reasonableness (...) and specify why I believe that these proposals, although interesting, both require revisions. Distinguishing my account from theirs, I specify the normative relation between reasonableness and a general framework of political legitimacy that identifies citizens as ‘co-authors of democratic decisions’. Here, I argue that the liberal ideal of ascribing to each member of the constituency the status of putative epistemic authority can be properly fulfilled if coupled with a correct specification of the political ideal of mutual respect. I conclude claiming that opacity respect, a notion of respect according to which the recognition respect that is owed to individuals is expressed by the idea that we have to treat them as ‘opaque’, is the most adequate concept of political respect when dealing with interpersonal deliberations at political level in contexts of deep disagreement. (shrink)

This research is dedicated to the perspectives of dialogue betweentwomajorworld religions: Christianity and Islam in the context of contributing to the developmentof the contemporary world. Mutual respect and understanding expressedthroughinitiatives for constructive dialogue and cooperation can contribute to the consolidationof a culture of peace, to the promotion of social interaction and to the strengtheningofthe creative potential of society. The focus on the common heritage of both religious traditions, representedbythemultitude of insights and archetypes of Abrahamic origin, is the starting (...) point for progressin the dialogue. Regarding this, the need arises to reform educational programs atalllevels in education by introducing more religious-ethical content that will conveythemessage of fruitful inter- religious dialogue between different social groups, inordertostrengthen and promote social cohesion and to create a common dimensionof culturaland spiritual progress.In the proper setting of the teaching process, students can feel that fully belongtothecompetence of action and change, no matter how beginner it may seemat theirage.Thus peace-pedagogical stimuli receive a new emphasis that extends to caringforthecreated world. Justice is understood as a decisive condition for peace and preservationofthe created world. (shrink)

The literature on conscience in medicine has paid little attention to what is meant by the word ‘conscience.’ This article distinguishes between retrospective and prospective conscience, distinguishes synderesis from conscience, and argues against intuitionist views of conscience. Conscience is defined as having two interrelated parts: (1) a commitment to morality itself; to acting and choosing morally according to the best of one’s ability, and (2) the activity of judging that an act one has done or about which one is deliberating (...) would violate that commitment. Tolerance is defined as mutual respect for conscience. A set of boundary conditions for justifiable respect for conscientious objection in medicine is proposed. (shrink)

‘Sovereignty’, Arendt says, ‘is contradictory to’ the human condition. It is not, in any event, the kind of thing that can be shared across generations. Subsequent generations lack sovereignty to the precise degree that they are bound by the decisions of their predecessors. It is no answer to say that contemporary citizens participate in the sovereignty of a whole, transgenerational people. To paraphrase de Tocqueville, later generations are not free because they are not entirely equal, and they are not equal (...) because they are not entirely free. Where ‘sovereignty’ is a metaphysical concept that transcends time, recognition is an act of the imagination that extends empathy diachronically in both directions. An earlier generation treats its successors with recognition and respect by bequeathing the best system it can manage and entrusting later generations to exercise the same freedom that it enjoyed. Democratic law can exist across generations only through negation. Later citizens may accept as valid the law made by their predecessors. But, in doing so, they implicitly affirm their right to alter, amend, or abolish what came before. Only by freely affirming the choices of their predecessors can current citizens participate in something approaching freedom. (shrink)

This article investigates the forms of respect and responsiveness that must be present in the process of practical reason. Drawing upon Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory and his incidental remarks about aesthetics, I identify two modes of respect. The first is the mutual respect and equality that emerges in the process of coming to agreement on proposed norms; the second is the call to infinite responsibility that emerges in opening to the transcendent character of others. However, Habermas (...) makes an error in treating these two types of response as appropriate for different classes of beings when he suggests that mutual respect is appropriate for humans, but asymmetry is appropriate when humans deal with animals or others who are incapable of communicative action. Rather, drawing upon the work of Emmanuel Levinas, I argue that both responses are always present in all encounters with the world. There is therefore an aporia at the heart of the process of practical reason: the responsiveness required in the exercise of practical reason demands that participants be open not just to another's opinions and claims, but also to precisely that which is not understood, which entails the idea of infinite responsibility. It is the movement between these orientations that enacts the main features of ethical life. (shrink)

Many ethicists argue that we should respect persons when we distribute resources. Yet it is unclear what this means in practice. For some, the idea of respect for persons is synonymous with the idea of respect for autonomy. Yet a principle of respect for autonomy provides limited guidance for how we should distribute scarce medical interventions. In this article, however, I sketch an alternative conception of respect for persons—one that is based on an ethic of (...) mutual accountability. I draw in particular upon Stephen Darwall’s writings on respect and the second-person standpoint. I consider the implications of this conception of respect for the distribution of scarce, lifesaving healthcare resources. A second-personal account of respect rules out aggregative approaches to distribution, and instead requires that we give individual consideration to the claims that persons in need make on the resources in our control. The principles that we use to govern our allocation of resources, furthermore, should be principles that are acceptable to all reasonable agents. Building on this insight, the final section of this paper considers how a principle of need can be used as a means to make decisions about the allocation of lifesaving resources. -/- . (shrink)

Traditionally, transitional justice has referred to that field of theoretical scholarship that proffers recuperative strategies for political societies divided by a history of violence. Through the establishment of truth commissions, public confessionals and reparative measures, transitional justice regimes have sought to establish restorative conditions that might help reconcile historical antagonists both to each other and to the trauma of their shared past. Because of some of the theoretical lapses in this scholarship some have turned recently to the field of radical (...) democratic and ‘new pluralist’ thought – and especially to agonistic literature – to foreground a theory of post-conflict reconciliation based not on the principles of the sublimation of difference, but rather the perpetual deferral of accord. This essay works both to underscore that effort, as well as to problematize it. Through unorthodox readings of Giorgio Agamben, Jean Améry and Sheldon Wolin, the essay argues that an emphasis on messianicity as the temporal mode of political repair is ultimately less productive for what I call an agonistics of reconciliation than a more nuanced approach to what Wolin calls ‘fugitive democracy’. Where the former is allied with a problematic politics of mutual respect, the latter affirms a more germane politics of abiding resentment. In the end, a startling conclusion is drawn from reading agonistic reconciliation through Wolin: democracy may be a political experience reserved for scenes of transitional justice alone. (shrink)

This article investigates the forms of respect and responsiveness that must be present in the process of practical reason. Drawing upon Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory and his incidental remarks about aesthetics, I identify two modes of respect. The first is the mutual respect and equality that emerges in the process of coming to agreement on proposed norms; the second is the call to infinite responsibility that emerges in opening to the transcendent character of others. However, Habermas (...) makes an error in treating these two types of response as appropriate for different classes of beings when he suggests that mutual respect is appropriate for humans, but asymmetry is appropriate when humans deal with animals or others who are incapable of communicative action. Rather, drawing upon the work of Emmanuel Levinas, I argue that both responses are always present in all encounters with the world. There is therefore an aporia at the heart of the process of practical reason: the responsiveness required in the exercise of practical reason demands that participants be open not just to another's opinions and claims, but also to precisely that which is not understood, which entails the idea of infinite responsibility. It is the movement between these orientations that enacts the main features of ethical life. (shrink)

There is an urgent need to understand how private and public organisations can play a role in promoting human values such as fairness, dignity, respect and care. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Against this backdrop, organisations are being urged to make their contribution to the common good, take account of the interests of multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to complex (...) challenges which transcend traditional organisational and state boundaries. Ethics, Meaningfulness, and Mutuality poses critical questions related to organisational design by challenging limits to current thinking, such as the neglect by political philosophers of markets, firms and stakeholders, or by organisational theorists of business ethics. In so doing, the book advances our understanding of the theory and practice of ethical organising. Specifically, meaningfulness and mutuality will be used to yield values and principles for a philosophy of ethical organising which includes an account of human values in morally desirable collective action, and examines the relationship of collective action to the contested concept of shared value creation. Within a philosophy of ethical organising, mutuality permits an examination of the unavoidable relational nature of collective action, whereas meaningfulness addresses fundamental human concerns for significance and leading a life we have reason to value. By addressing our status as relational beings with human needs for meaning, a philosophy of ethical organising brings critical thinking to the creation of morally informed organisational practices which are not only instrumentally beneficial for addressing wicked problems, but are normatively desirable for human flourishing. (shrink)

This chapter reports the philosophy focusing mainly on just three foundational concerns. These are: the character of a phenomenological approach; its use to clarify the notion of phenomenal consciousness ; and its application to questions about a specifically sensory phenomenality and its ‘intentionality’ or ‘object-directedness’. Phenomenology involves the use of ‘first-person reflection’. The ways into the notion of phenomenality are elaborated. The ‘subjective experience’ conception of phenomenality uses a conception of experience on which this is something that coincides with the (...) subject's experience of it, and differs insofar as the subject experiences it differently. The conception of phenomenality combines subjective experience, subjective contrast, and subjective knowledge, elaborating on each of these to yield distinct but mutually reinforcing accounts. It then argues on phenomenological grounds that the character of sense experience makes it ‘objectual’ and susceptible to experiences of illusion and disillusion. (shrink)

One of political liberalism’s central commitments is to a principle of public reason. Political liberals frequently justify this principle by appeal to considerations of respect. In this article, I argue that political liberalism cannot be grounded in a moral principle of respect for persons. Instead, I argue that a particular interpretation of the principle of public reason can be justified as a key component of a political conception of mutual civic respect.