Respect for the Unworthy |
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Authors: | Richard Dean |
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Affiliation: | Department of Philosophy, California State University Los Angeles |
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Abstract: | The claim that everyone ought to be treated with respect is a familiar and widely accepted prescription in recent moral philosophy, often expressed as a principle of ‘respect for persons.’ I argue that this principle need not be justified by a claim that every person possesses some feature – dignity, autonomy, value, or the like – that makes her worthy of respect. There is abundant conceptual space within many approaches to moral philosophy, including a Kantian approach, to affirm a duty of respect for all persons, while denying that the duty is justified by the respect‐worthiness of every person. |
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