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The Social Psychology of Respect: Implications for Delegitimization and Reconciliation

Ronnie Janoff-Bulman and Amelie Werther

in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation

This chapter focuses on the role of respect in intergroup reconciliation. It first distinguishes between two types of respect — one largely intergroup and the other primarily intragroup in nature — ... More

This chapter focuses on the role of respect in intergroup reconciliation. It first distinguishes between two types of respect — one largely intergroup and the other primarily intragroup in nature — and discusses the attributional components of these appraisals. It then moves to a discussion of disrespect and its implications for delegitimization, from invisibility to dehumanization, which is of paramount importance in the course and escalation of social conflict; the attributional elements of respect provide an important window for viewing these degrading processes. The chapter concludes with some implications of the analysis for reconciliation, focusing particularly on respect-enhancing strategies in intense social conflicts.Less

INSULT IN THE LAW: BLASPHEMY

Jerome Neu

in Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults

The Danish Muhammad cartoons enflamed much of the Muslim world. What does respect for another religion require? Must non‐believers follow all of its dictates? Which? Why? Heresy by fellow believers ... More

The Danish Muhammad cartoons enflamed much of the Muslim world. What does respect for another religion require? Must non‐believers follow all of its dictates? Which? Why? Heresy by fellow believers depends on the content of the beliefs. Is it the manner or matter of disagreement and/or disregard that makes for the disrespect in blasphemy? Some of the history of blasphemy law in England and the United States is considered.Less

‘You lookin’ at me?’ Discourses of respect and disrespect, identity and violence

Peter Squires

in Securing respect: Behavioural expectations and anti-social behaviour in the UK

This chapter develops an argument on the awkward parallels and contrasts between the uses of a discourse of ‘respect’ as a policy tool and the notions of ‘street respect’. There seems to be an irony ... More

This chapter develops an argument on the awkward parallels and contrasts between the uses of a discourse of ‘respect’ as a policy tool and the notions of ‘street respect’. There seems to be an irony in the fact that the issue of ‘respect governance’ emerged at a time when a street discourse of ‘respect’ was coming to be increasingly associated with urban youth violence. At a time when the government was insisting on a new form and culture of respect as a solution to the crime and disorder problems, it has been instructive to reflect upon the ways in which some of the ‘least respected’ appeared to negotiate this scarce commodity among themselves. In addition to comparing the two discourses of respect and disrespect, the chapter also reflects on some of the issues that may define these discourses.Less

‘The feeling’s mutual’: respect as the basis for cooperative interaction

Peter Somerville

in Securing respect: Behavioural expectations and anti-social behaviour in the UK

This chapter reviews the current understanding of mutual respect and recognition, identifying it as a general form of cooperative interaction and identifying is as practices of civility, sociability ... More

This chapter reviews the current understanding of mutual respect and recognition, identifying it as a general form of cooperative interaction and identifying is as practices of civility, sociability and intimacy. The chapter also differentiates the ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ variants of civility and sociability and offers a new perspective on solidarity. It aims to determine the correlation between disrespect and social inequality and attempts to illustrate how disrespect stems from the latter. It also provides a critic on the government approaches to respect, particularly the Respect Action Plan which is believed to be disrespectful and counterproductive. The chapter also examines the issue of ‘informal social control’ as an alternative to governmental approaches. The concluding discussion focuses on suggestions on how mutual respect and recognition may be better promoted in communities.Less

Conclusion

Benjamin Eidelson

in Discrimination and Disrespect

This concluding chapter highlights certain connections among the book’s parts and synthesizes its overall argument. This final section of the book includes an extended discussion of racial profiling ... More

This concluding chapter highlights certain connections among the book’s parts and synthesizes its overall argument. This final section of the book includes an extended discussion of racial profiling in law enforcement. Although profiling may not itself effectuate an attitude of basic disrespect, it contributes to a set of contingent social understandings that undermine the conditions of mutual respect. The failure to clearly separate these two lines of criticism, the concluding chapter argues, has confounded popular and philosophical discussion of profiling and similar practices.Less

The Moral Value of Contempt

Macalester Bell

in Hard Feelings: The Moral Psychology of Contempt

This chapter offers a defense of contempt’s moral value. When its aptness conditions are satisfied, contempt may be the best response to the vices of superiority, and it has both instrumental and ... More

This chapter offers a defense of contempt’s moral value. When its aptness conditions are satisfied, contempt may be the best response to the vices of superiority, and it has both instrumental and noninstrumental moral value. Despite what some have argued, contempt is not precluded by the respect we owe all persons; an ethic of contempt is compatible with an ethic of respect.Less

Intersections of Inequality with Correctional Staff

Barbara Owen, James Wells, and Joycelyn Pollock

in In Search of Safety: Confronting Inequality in Women's Imprisonment

Chapter 6 expands on the consequences of the obvious inequality between correctional worker and prisoner. Much of this inequality is routinely expressed in disrespectful and derogatory comments made ... More

Chapter 6 expands on the consequences of the obvious inequality between correctional worker and prisoner. Much of this inequality is routinely expressed in disrespectful and derogatory comments made by staff about women prisoners. Narrative and survey data is used to describe how staff sexual harassment, misconduct, and physical violence are relatively rare, but are a serious concern to most members of the women’s prison community. The problem of staff sexual misconduct is not one of magnitude. Rather, the fact that any number of staff employed to provide care and custody of women prisoners harm women through sexually-based actions should be troubling to all of us.Less

Washington’s Scapegoat?

Phillip Papas

in Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of General Charles Lee

This chapter focuses on Charles Lee's court-martial that was initiated due to his actions in the Battle of Monmouth. On July 4, 1778, Lee was in a makeshift courtroom in New Brunswick to hear the ... More

This chapter focuses on Charles Lee's court-martial that was initiated due to his actions in the Battle of Monmouth. On July 4, 1778, Lee was in a makeshift courtroom in New Brunswick to hear the charges against him. Judge Advocate General John Lawrence read the three distinct charges: disobedience of orders in not attacking the enemy; misbehavior by making an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat; and disrespect to the commander-in-chief, George Washington, in two letters dated June 30, 1778. Lee pled not guilty in all three charges. This chapter discusses Lee's military trial and the court's guilty verdict, along with his unsuccesful bid to convince the Continental Congress to reverse the court's decision.Less

What is Lost?

in Poetry & Translation: The Art of the Impossible

This chapter examines the validity of American poet Robert Frost's aphorism that poetry is what gets lost or left out in poem translation. It discusses the view that the effects of form, structure ... More

This chapter examines the validity of American poet Robert Frost's aphorism that poetry is what gets lost or left out in poem translation. It discusses the view that the effects of form, structure and meaning in the original poem cannot reconstituted in the translated poem using the materials of another set of interrelations from a different culture and suggests that the poetic quality of the translation would be something created entirely in the terms of the translating poet's skills as a composer of verse in the receiver language. This chapter also considers the views of Robert Lowell on poetry translation and his critic Vladimir Nabokov who claims that poetry translation is morally wrong and a cruel disrespect for the readers.Less

Dignity, Self-Respect, and Bloodless Invasions

Saba Bazargan

in Who Should Die?: The Ethics of Killing in War

Wars often have unjust political subjugation as their aim. This raises the question, How much violence can we impose on those attempting to politically subjugate us? Just war theorists inclined to ... More

Wars often have unjust political subjugation as their aim. This raises the question, How much violence can we impose on those attempting to politically subjugate us? Just war theorists inclined to what has come to be called reductive individualism have argued that we can answer this question by determining how much violence you can impose on an individual wrongly attempting to prevent you from voting, or from political participation more broadly construed. Some have argued that the amount of violence we can permissibly impose in such a situation is decidedly sublethal. This in turn yields a largely pacifist response to the question of how much violence we can impose to avert political subjugation. This chapter argues that political subjugation involves a fundamental disrespect of a sort missed both by proponents of the pacifist response and by their detractors.Less

Introduction

Benjamin Eidelson

in Discrimination and Disrespect

Hardly anyone disputes that discrimination can be a grave moral wrong. Yet this consensus masks fundamental disagreements about what makes something discrimination, as well as precisely why (and ... More

Hardly anyone disputes that discrimination can be a grave moral wrong. Yet this consensus masks fundamental disagreements about what makes something discrimination, as well as precisely why (and hence when) acts of discrimination are wrong. This book aims to develop systematic answers to those two questions. It offers a philosophical account of what discrimination is, and a moral theory to explain what is characteristically wrong with it. This short introductory chapter explains the motivations for the project of the book, situates it in the philosophical and legal literature, and summarizes its principal arguments.Less

The Role of Disrespect in Wrongful Discrimination

Benjamin Eidelson

in Discrimination and Disrespect

This chapter begins the project of developing a disrespect-based theory of wrongful discrimination by clarifying the kind of respect (or disrespect) at issue. It argues that the relevant sort of ... More

This chapter begins the project of developing a disrespect-based theory of wrongful discrimination by clarifying the kind of respect (or disrespect) at issue. It argues that the relevant sort of respect imposes an affirmative obligation that one take to heart the normative upshots of someone’s being a person and regulate one’s action accordingly. What is of fundamental importance to determining whether an action is disrespectful, then, is the set of reasons for which an agent acts, rather than the effects or social meaning of her action. But her deliberation is marred not simply by the presence of some form of animus or a defamatory belief, as some have suggested, but by the absence of appropriate responsiveness to someone’s standing as a person, whether that absence comes about willfully or by neglect. The chapter develops this understanding by distinguishing between “basic” and “conventional” senses of respect and analyzing their connections.Less

Respect for Individuality

Benjamin Eidelson

in Discrimination and Disrespect

This chapter considers the idea that people have a moral claim to be treated as individuals out of respect for their autonomy. That notion is often criticized as incompatible with the widespread and ... More

This chapter considers the idea that people have a moral claim to be treated as individuals out of respect for their autonomy. That notion is often criticized as incompatible with the widespread and mundane use of statistical evidence in a host of contexts. But in fact, the chapter argues, respecting people as individuals is not a matter of forswearing the use of any sort of evidence about them. What respect for a person’s individuality requires is not that we exclude informative patterns about those who share some of her traits, but rather that we at least include certain kinds of information where it is reasonably available—information that manifests her own efforts, as an autonomous agent, to give shape to her life. The chapter offers an argument for the existence of such a respect-based duty of and then develops its contours.Less

Hit Me  with Your Best Shot: An Anatomy of the Antagonistic Emotions

Berit Brogaard

in Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion

In common parlance, “contempt” is often subsumed under “hate.” When we speak of group hate, hate groups, hate crimes, hate speech, hate campaigns, and hate mail, this is the sense of “hate” we have ... More

In common parlance, “contempt” is often subsumed under “hate.” When we speak of group hate, hate groups, hate crimes, hate speech, hate campaigns, and hate mail, this is the sense of “hate” we have in mind. We can call this the “wide sense” of hate. This chapter offers an analysis of hate and contempt as complex emotions that have other emotions as proper parts. Contempt, it is argued, is composed of disgust and condemnation, which is a strong form of disrespect for or disapproval of a person for her failings overall or as engaged in a particular pursuit. Hate, in its narrow sense, is composed of resentment (or indignation), condemnation, and apprehension. Along the way, it is shown that disrespect is the component that unites what the author calls the “antagonistic emotions.” The latter include anger, resentment, indignation, envy, blame, contempt, and hate.Less

It’s a Thin Line between Love and Hate: When We Hate the People We Love

Berit Brogaard

in Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion

We expect a lot from strangers, for instance, that the valet guy doesn’t steal our wheels, that the babysitter doesn’t abduct our children, and that the barista at Starbucks doesn’t poison our white ... More

We expect a lot from strangers, for instance, that the valet guy doesn’t steal our wheels, that the babysitter doesn’t abduct our children, and that the barista at Starbucks doesn’t poison our white chocolate mocha. But romantic relationships, friendships, parent-child relationships, and other varieties of intimate relationships introduce a whole new dimension to what we expect and demand of each other. It’s against the backdrop of our intimate relationships that we sign prenups, make custody agreements, write wills, and open joint bank accounts. But most of our interactions in intimate settings are shaped not by contractual agreements but by our preferences, core values, and prior expectations about how other people should behave. No wonder people embark on relationships with clashing concepts of what count as oversights, slights, betrayals, and unforgivable sins. Our differing expectations, preferences, and core values create ample opportunities for misunderstandings to arise and wreak havoc. It is not surprising, then, that antagonistic emotions, such as disrespect, resentment, hate, and contempt, are commonplace in intimate settings. But, as we will see, they are not equally toxic. Our intimate relationships can survive the torments of hate and resentment, but they crumple under the weight of disrespect and contempt.Less

Bad Blood: Vengeance and Hate’s Justification

Berit Brogaard

in Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion

In his landmark essay “Freedom and Resentment,” the philosopher Peter Strawson coined the term “reactive attitude” to refer to our emotional reactions to wrongdoing or acts of goodwill in the context ... More

In his landmark essay “Freedom and Resentment,” the philosopher Peter Strawson coined the term “reactive attitude” to refer to our emotional reactions to wrongdoing or acts of goodwill in the context of social relationships, such as your resentment toward a person who wronged you or gratitude toward a person who did you a favor. These emotional reactions, Strawson argued, are beneficial because they serve to uphold the standards of our moral community. Strawson didn’t take an official stance on whether hatred can perform a similar beneficial role. But subsequently, a number of thinkers have argued that it serves no worthwhile purpose. In terms of safeguarding our moral ideals, we are better off without it. Hate is frowned upon because of its close ties to vengeance. Vengeful hate is dehumanizing. But, this chapter argues, vengeance is not essential to hate. Without it, hate can be a gateway to moral vision.Less

Why Do They Paint Her This Way? She Is Our Mother

María Del Socorro Castañeda-Liles

in Our Lady of Everyday Life: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Catholic Imagination of Mexican Women in America

Chicana feminist interpretations of Our Lady of Guadalupe tend to depart from traditional representations and have caused controversy. This chapter examines the responses of three different groups of ... More

Chicana feminist interpretations of Our Lady of Guadalupe tend to depart from traditional representations and have caused controversy. This chapter examines the responses of three different groups of women of different ages and backgrounds to some of these feminist artistic representations of Our Lady of Guadalupe in order to explore how the women articulate feminism and how their own definitions relate to their understanding of this sacred figure. The chapter analyzes how Las Damas, Las Madres, and Las Mujeres’ understanding of La Virgen informs their responses, revealing much about their understanding of feminism and the workings of lived religion in their Mexican Catholic imagination.Less

Insult and Equality

Jason Hanna

in In Our Best Interest: A Defense of Paternalism

This chapter critically assesses three related objections to paternalism: that paternalism is prompted by insulting motives (the motive-based objection), that paternalism expresses an insulting ... More

This chapter critically assesses three related objections to paternalism: that paternalism is prompted by insulting motives (the motive-based objection), that paternalism expresses an insulting message (the expressive objection), and that paternalism denies the moral equality of those subject to it (the status-based objection). Such objections have been pressed most prominently by Seana Shiffrin and Jonathan Quong. This chapter argues that none of these insult-based objections shows that there is anything even presumptively wrong about successful paternalistic intervention. Three of its central arguments are that the paternalist agent’s motives are probably irrelevant to the permissibility of her behavior, that any message expressed by effective paternalistic intervention is likely to be true and thus unobjectionable, and that treating someone as though she is unlikely to make a good choice does not involve denying that she possesses capacities that are important to her status as an equal.Less