6—
Respect, Egoism, and Self-Assessment

In this chapter, I begin to consider how respect is a human good for the respectful agent, how respect relates to the meaningfulness of life from the agent's own point of view, and how respect provides an agent with reasons for action. The arguments here should provide a basis for rejecting traditional Kantianism's account of the role of respect within practical reason. They should do this by showing how respect is related to the meaningfulness of the respectful agent's life from his or her own point of view.

1.

Perhaps the most illuminating way to begin to understand the relationship between the goods of respect and a person's integrity is by focusing on a question: What attitude would one have toward oneself if one failed to have the attitude of self-respect?

The first way someone could fail to have self-respect is simply by lacking the attitude of respect at all. People of this sort do not judge themselves deficient for not having R-qualities; they just do not make the evaluative judgments constitutive of the dispositional state of respect. This might be true of some people who are perfectly able to make the factual judgments that a person either has or lacks the relevant R-qualities. Hearing the talk of personal assessment, they pick up on the criteria used by others but are evaluatively disengaged from those criteria. They might even display behavior normally characteristic of respect, but when they do, that behavior has its origins in some source other than a respectful disposition. Such people are in an important sense evaluatively indifferent to R-qualities in themselves and others.

The difficulty, however, is that anyone lacking the good of self-respect because of evaluative indifference to it cannot be an agent of integrity. This is because of the relationships between self-worth and self-tolerance, on the one hand, and integrity, on the other. Self-worth is crucial to the concept of integrity because it is central to the concept of the distinctness or separateness of persons. I made this clear earlier, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand self-worth in a way that excludes the notion of self-tolerance.

It might be thought, however, that egoism denies the conceptual ties between the notions of integrity, self-worth, and self-tolerance. On one construal of egoism, the egoist has a sense of self but lacks any sense of self-worth or self-tolerance. Here the sense of self does not generate judgments of self-assessment. On another construal of egoism, judgments of self-assessment are not forthcoming because the egoist simply lacks a sense of self. But as arguments against a connection between the goods of respect and integrity, these alternatives fall on the horns of a dilemma.

Consider the first construal of egoism where the egoist has a sense of self but lacks any sense of self-worth or self-tolerance. Who is this creature? What kinds of interests does it have? And how are we to describe it? A being with only appetitive interests would perhaps lack a sense of self-worth, but it would not be recognizably human in any nongenetic sense. Nor would it be "egoistic." The popular view of pigs sees them as purely appetitive creatures, but they are not thought to be egoistic for that reason. To be egoistic with a sense of self is to care about oneself intrinsically and about others only instrumentally, if at all. A purely appetitive being has no sense of self to be concerned about. Who, then, is the egoist, according to the first construal of egoism, and how is the egoist concerned about his or her sense of self?

The problem is that the egoist must have nonappetitive interests but lack any interests that carry with them any concern for self-tolerance. But what could they be? Neither social nor individual interests seem plausible. Social interests are ruled out on two counts: They are not egoistic, and they carry with them a strong sense of self-evaluation. That they are not egoistic is clear from the fact that they include intrinsic interests in the interests of others. That they require self-tolerance is manifested in the fact that one cannot experience one's sense of self as a loving parent, friend, or neighbor and be indifferently disposed toward beliefs about the R-qualities associated with those relationships. On the other hand, individual, nonappetitive interests that do not require a sense of self-tolerance are elusive. One cannot experience one's fundamental sense of self as, for example, an artist, an

athlete, or a scientist and be indifferently disposed toward beliefs about the R-qualities associated with those roles.^[1] This is not because the interests in these roles need be nonegoistic but because there are success criteria attached to these roles and the interests in them. Assuming, then, that no sense is to be made of a bare interest in the self, it is difficult to see what nonappetitive individual interest could support this construal of egoism. If this is true, then the first construal of egoism must be rejected. It cannot offer a sense of self that does not carry with it the notions of self-worth and self-tolerance.

On the second construal of egoism, the cut between integrity and the concepts of self-worth and self-tolerance is between the concept of the egoist and the concept of having a sense of self. The egoist, on this view, has no substantial sense of self but only interests and an awareness of them, none of which expresses an intrinsic interest in the interests of others. Such a person, to be sure, can have the thought "my interests over the interests of others." Yet the only self-awareness such a person has is an interest, plus the thought that the interest can be threatened by the interests of others. But if this is to have a sense of self, it would seem to be one of which a dog is aware when it defends a bone. Someone like this might have, for example, aesthetic interests without "having a sense-of-self-as-artist" or as filling any role related to aesthetic activity. Indeed, she might even be an artist without "seeing" herself at all in terms of "myself-as-artist." She might simply have an intrinsic interest in aesthetic experience and artistic activity but not an interest in others or their interests. Thus the egoist can have interests that are not in the self without having an intrinsic concern for others.

If there are such persons, they are rare. But rare or not, this kind of egoist has no sense of self, let alone a sense of self-worth, and without a sense of self, there can be no question of self-tolerance. But for the person of integrity there is a sense of self that carries with it a sense of self-worth and thereby a sense of self-tolerance. Without this sense, there could be no sense of oneself as a separate and numerically distinct person, one of the basic elements of integrity in the thin sense. For this person, the evaluative

[1] . Of course, we are often self-deceived about these things, and it is possible that someone could be completely self-deceived about them. We might even call some such self-deceived persons egoists. But if this is the egoist, then the egoist is dispositionally sensitive to his or her beliefs about R-qualities, is very much concerned about self-worth, and achieves self-tolerance only at the expense of the loss of integrity that comes with self-deception. Moreover, such an egoist is not an egoist from his or her point of view.

indifference to beliefs about R-qualities is impossible. Therefore, we cannot sever integrity from self-worth and self-tolerance, which is one of the reasons that Aristotle persistently insisted that the beastly life with its lack of concern for others is not for humans.

Also, the egoist's lack of a sense of self that includes self-evaluation is the lack of something any person of integrity can see as nothing other than a human disfigurement, which is why we see beastly indifference to selfevaluation as natural only to something very distant from us in kind. For whatever else the relative factors are in the concept of self-respect, the respected person's perceived sensitivity to how he or she stands in terms of R-qualities is not among them. What follows, then, if self-respect is a categorical human good and if sensitivity to it is a universal R-quality for persons of integrity? It follows that the person of integrity cannot unmistakenly find the egoistic life worth living or the incorrigible egoist worthy of respect. Thus respectfulness is a regulative norm for any agent of integrity, and its regulative status is a function of those values that give life meaning from the agent's own point of view.

This in itself is revealing regarding traditional, externalist Kantianism. According to traditional Kantianism, a respectful agent might have to make a choice between two ways of life. One of these might be the egoistic, self-interested life, which might be meaningful from the agent's own point of view. The other might be the respectful life, which might not be meaningful from the agent's perspective. Moreover, should such a choice arise, it would be practically rational on this view to decide for the meaningless but respectful life. The advantage of internalist Kantianism is that it does not construe the role of respect within practical reason in this way. It recognizes, with the Aristotelian conception, that the egoistic life is ruled out as meaningful from the respectful agent's own point of view. Any serious deliberation about whether to live the egoistic life or the respectful life would show, on either the internalist Kantian view or the Aristotelian view, that the agent simply was not a respectfully sensitive person. Thus, for both internalist Kantianism and the Aristotelian conception, respect functions as a regulative norm in the form of a categorical aversion: Lives devoid of respectability are not worth living.

There are, however, differences between the Kantian (internalist) view and the Aristotelian view. First, for a Kantian internalist of the metaphysical school, the egoist would necessarily be irrational, a nonrational human being. On the Aristotelian view, the egoist might very well be rational from his own point of view. But since the respectful person has certain categorical values embedded within the foundation of his or her character and psy-

chology, the egoistic way of life could only be the object of a categorical aversion. For this reason, the egoistic way of life would be irrational for a respectful person because of the person's character. I take it that the constructivist Kantian would agree. But there is a difference between the Aristotelian view and the constructivist school. On the constructivist view, the irrationality is traced to the result of an impartial decision procedure, but on the Aristotelian view, the irrationality is a function of the fact that a set of priorities indicative of the egoistic way of life is not true to the agent's deliberative field and the goods that appear there, one of which is oneself as an end worthy of respect. Thus the priorities of the egoistic way of life fail both the finality and the self-sufficiency criteria. That way of life is neither to be chosen for itself nor does it include the goods that are fundamental to a life worth living for a respectful person.

2.

Having rejected, then, the egoist as an agent of integrity, but not necessarily as irrational, we can refine the statement of the current issue: What is the effect on the integrity of a nonegoistic agent who is disposed to simple respect of having the belief that he or she lacks the relevant R-qualities?^[2] The answer to this question further reveals the relationship between considerations of respect and the meaning of an agent's life from his or her own point of view.

Respecting another person involves the person appearing within one's deliberative field as an end, as someone with a degree of intrinsic worth. Without this sense of another's worth, there is either aversion, in the form of contempt, to the other person or indifference. But whether there is contempt or indifference, failure to respect another person is directly linked to one's attitude toward the other person's integrity. It is to evaluate the other as lacking the qualities that make a person worthy of respect as a separate and distinct person.

To have self-respect is to appear within one's own deliberative field as an end, as someone with a degree of intrinsic worth. Without this sense of one's own worth, there is either self-aversion, in the form of self-contempt, or indifference to allowing others to treat oneself as a mere means to any of their ends, which is itself a less active form of self-contempt. To lose one's

[2] . Lynne McFall finds other reasons associated with the concept of commitment for rejecting the egoist as an agent of integrity. See her article, "Integrity," Ethics 98 (October 1987): 5–20.

self-respect, then, is to lose one's sense of oneself as important as a separate and distinct person. It is to lose one's integrity. Thus it is not possible to have the attitude of simple respect and fail to care about one's own standing in terms of the relevant R-qualities. Therefore, the response of the person who has the attitude of simple respect and believes himself or herself to lack the relevant R-qualities can only be that of self-contempt.

To view oneself with self-contempt is not only to view oneself as lacking integrity; it is to lack integrity. It is to lose the sense of oneself as a separate and distinct person who is intrinsically important in one's own right. It is to have a categorical aversion to what one perceives oneself to be. The only life open to such a person is a life of self-contempt, of insanity, or of self-deception; in neither case is there an agent of integrity.

There are at least two forms of self-contempt that result from a blow to one's self-respect as the attitude of minimal self-tolerance. The first involves a blow that results from one's coming to believe that one is the kind of person who lacks the relevant R-qualities, even though one does not feel responsible for one's lack of worth. The second is the blow that results from coming to have one of two beliefs regarding responsibility. On the one hand is the belief that through one's actions one is responsible for being the kind of person who lacks the relevant R-qualities. On the other is the belief that through one's actions one is responsible for a threat to one's becoming the kind of person who lacks these qualities. The first form of self-contempt is the result of a blow of the first sort. I refer to it as shame. The second form of self-contempt, where one feels responsible for one's state of worth, results in two forms of guilt, only the first of which is also a form of shame.^[3]

Thus a person can meaningfully feel shame but not guilt for having or lacking a quality for which he or she does not feel responsible. Someone might feel shame on realizing both that he is a racist and that his racist attitudes are the result of his upbringing. If he truly values racial openness as an R-quality and believes that he lacks this quality but through no fault of his own, then he feels shame but not guilt. Similarly, if he believes that having a certain genetic background is a necessary R-quality but that he lacks this quality, he will feel shame but not guilt for not having it. This is because he does not believe he is responsible for what he believes to be his intolerable status.

Still it is impossible in the first sense of guilt to speak of feeling guilt

[3] . The analysis here is influenced greatly by that of Gabriele Taylor, though it differs in detail. See Gabriele Taylor, Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).

without shame. For shame, in this sense, is a form of self-contempt for the kind of person one perceives oneself to be. The first form of guilt carries with it this perception plus the belief that one is responsible for being an intolerable person. The second form of guilt does not include shame, because it does not include the belief that one lacks R-qualities. Those experiencing guilt in the second sense feel responsible for an action that is characteristic of an intolerable person who lacks R-qualities but believe the action is nonetheless not indicative of their true qualities. Consequently, the guilt is experienced only as a threat to the agent's becoming an intolerable person. It is experienced as a threat to the agent's R-qualities. For this reason, those who feel guilt in the second sense also feel remorse, which includes the disposition to repudiate their intolerable actions. But they do not feel shame, for they are not disposed to repudiate their basic sense of self. Those who feel guilt in the first sense might feel remorse as well, but not necessarily. For they might believe that there is no longer anything they can do for self-redemption. This is to believe that they cannot do anything to reverse the status of being persons who lack R-qualities and become persons who have them. Thus self-repudiation is the only course available to them.

All three emotions involve self-assessment; they all function as regulative norms within a psychology; and they all illuminate relationships between self-respect and integrity and the meaning of an agent's life from his or her own point of view. Not only do they indicate that a person who experiences these emotions lacks the sense of himself or herself as intrinsically important as a distinct and separate person, but they also indicate that a person who experiences these emotions either lacks the unity of self required for integrity or that the destruction of such unity is imminent. Finally, they reveal that the agent repudiates the meaningfulness of lives thought to be the objects of such contempt. In this way, these emotions of self-assessment reveal the deeper values in terms of which an agent is able to find meaning in life and maintain the elements of integrity. What we see implicit in these emotions are the criteria of finality and self-sufficiency at work on the emotional level. All these emotions repudiate in various degrees a way of life that does not include the agent as an end worthy of respect.

Shame and guilt of the first type indicate the presence of two senses of self. One is valued as having the relevant R-qualities; the other, as predominant but as lacking these qualities. In this way, self-contempt always indicates a serious degree of alienation from oneself. This experience comes both as a loss of a sense of one's intrinsic worth as a separate and distinct

person and as involving a bifurcation and loss of unity of the self. Guilt in the second sense is not properly a form of self-contempt but the recognition that one is on the course to ruin and that something must be done about it. Undoubtedly the most intolerable form of self-contempt is the experience of guilt of the first form, plus the thought that there is nothing the agent can do for self-redemption.

Self-contempt and loss of self-respect are also related to integrity in other significant ways. They tend to destabilize the status of other goods and lead to a loss of the will to live. They involve a serious disunity of the self and often lead to a life of self-deception. Among humans, there is a causal relationship between their dispositional states regarding their self-worth and their dispositional responses to other goods. Even the goods of love are diminished in importance when we find ourselves intolerable, for then we perceive ourselves as unworthy of the love of others. In this way, the person who experiences self-contempt feels that his or her reasons for living are threatened. But, as we have seen, the person of integrity has reasons for living. The course of self-deception is a response to this threat, but it succeeds only with the bifurcation of the self and the loss of integrity, which is a direct function of the loss of meaning in one's life. For the respectful agent, the attempt to live a disrespectful life leads to loss of integrity and to agent breakdown. Thus for the respectful agent, the attempt to invest meaning in a disrespectful life is doomed to failure. Respect for self and others, then, cannot be accounted for on externalist concepts.

3.

Here it is important to say something about the relationship between the goods of respect and the other goods of the person of integrity. The good of self-respect is not only a categorical good, and fundamental in this sense; it is also fundamental in another sense. It is a good the absence of which tends to diminish the importance of other goods in an agent's reasons for living. In this sense, the other goods of a person of integrity are evaluatively dependent on the good of self-respect. But there are other ways in which the good of self-respect is evaluatively dependent on other goods, which means that self-respect is a foundational good as well as a dependent good. Here I will merely preview the evaluative dependence and foundational value of self-respect. I leave further discussion until the relevant foundational and dependent goods are discussed in later chapters.

Consider the dispositions of someone for whom simple respect and self-respect involve R-qualities that include the qualities of the person categori-

cally committed to the goods of love. This person's sense of respect is evaluatively dependent on the goods of love and the virtues of a loving person. In this sense, the goods of love are foundational goods in terms of the goods of respect. Thus if the goods of love are universal categorical goods, then the qualities of a loving person—L-qualities, let us say—are among the R-qualities of any human agent of integrity. In any event, the person with this sense of respect will find persons totally lacking in L-qualities intolerable. This is true even if the claim that L-qualities are among the R-qualities of any human agent of integrity is false. The same can be said for other possible qualities related to other possible categorical goods.

As we have already observed, however, even the goods of love tend to lose their allure for the person who has self-contempt. For such a person, the belief that he or she lacks L-qualities, and thereby R-qualities, will causally tend to impair that person's dispositional sensitivity to the goods of love. To the extent that we perceive ourselves to be intolerable in terms of the lack of R-qualities, we find being loved intolerable. For it is difficult, if not impossible, to find oneself intolerable and to be the proper object of love. In this way, self-respect is a foundational value in relationship to the goods of love. Therefore, those (of a mature age) with a categorical interest in the goods of love can have these goods only to the degree to which they have self-respect.^[4]

One final comment on evaluative dependence: From what I have said it follows that there is one R-quality that is a component in any conception of self-respect and the concept of integrity. It is the quality of being a respectful person. Similarly, we can conclude that there is one R-quality that is a component in any conception of simple respect for others and integrity. It is the quality of being a self-evaluative person, a person whose sense of self is regulated by respect as a regulative norm. To this extent the Aristotelian and the Kantian internalist can agree. This is one interpretation of Socrates' claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. But just how this dimension of self-evaluation is regulated by other concerns is a story yet to be told. Therefore, all I have shown at this point is that respect derives its place in practical reason as a good apart from which the respectful agent does not find life minimally worth living. This refutes traditional Kantianism, but it leaves internalist Kantianism intact.

[4] . I discuss what I call the pathological features of respect further in Dignity and Vulnerability: Strength and Quality of Character (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 77–78.