As will be discussed more below, Raz believes that facts about the way people view themselves make respect for persons especially stringent. But respect for people is also different in that it is a response to a very specific sort of value, as described
previously. It is a response to the value of valuers, and because of this, what it involves will be different from what is involved in other sorts of respect. Although Raz does not
29
Ibid, p. 167.
30
This connection between reasons of respect and behaving with respect is not explicitly stated by Raz, but the general direction of his discussion suggests it. It seems that his use of the phrase “reasons of respect” is intended to distinguish between the reasons that facts about value give us, and the actions that we think these reasons demand of us (actions that we typically call respectful ones).
explicitly discuss this here, one could argue that since what respect involves in the case of valuers is preserving the capacity to value, and seeing this value in the appropriate ways, this can be understood as Kant understands it, as responding appropriately to their value as valuers. Their value involves a specific kind of capacity – it is the value of engaging, and being able to engage with, value. The Kantian idea that we must preserve and respect autonomy in rational beings, then, could be understood on this model – appropriate acknowledgement and preservation of the value of valuers involves acknowledging and preserving their capacity to value, and to engage with value. This could involve a lot of the standard Kantian ideas of what respecting a rational being involves. It could also help to explain why respecting rational beings seems important in a unique way. If the realization of value depends on valuers being able to engage with value, it is not only important for the objects they value to be preserved (as Raz
discusses), but it is also especially important for the capacity to value to be appropriately acknowledged and preserved.
However, it is important to note that Raz does not make this connection, and is careful to point out that respecting people is merely a species of a more general way to respond to value. In keeping with this analysis, Raz thinks that any sort of value gives us categorical reasons (of respect) to act in certain ways, no matter what those ways might be. These reasons are categorical in that their strength as reasons does not depend at all on our tastes and inclinations. Says Raz,
Reasons for respect are categorical reasons, in the sense that their weight or stringency does not depend on our goals, tastes, or desires…most other things that we have reason to do or be, and which give content to our lives, are all activities, relationships, attitudes, etc., which there are reasons to have, but the weight or stringency of these reasons depends on our
our inclinations, tastes, goals, or desires. It does not follow that they are weightier, or more stringent than other reasons…Yet, in being categorical reasons of respect are also reasons the flouting of which, when they predominate (that is when they defeat other reasons), is wrong.31
According to Raz, then, respect is a moral notion because reasons of respect are categorical. That is, having reason to preserve objects of value, etc., does not depend on what we like, or want, etc. Rather, these are reasons that hold for all who engage with value, and when these reasons predominate (as they often do in the case of respect for persons), disregarding them is wrong. Another way to think of this claim is that reasons of respect give us determinations of right and wrong action because whether or not we should have these reasons does not depend on anything we want (the “should” is moral, not prudential). Reasons of respect can be stronger or weaker reasons, depending on the value that is being respected, but our having these reasons, and paying attention to them, is something that is given categorically and not hypothetically – these reasons are reasons for us not because we do in fact value the object in question, but rather because it can be valued (and thus is valuable). And when these reasons are predominate, ignoring them is wrong.
What respect requires of us, though, differs according to its objects. According to Raz, its stringency also differs according to its object. Says Raz,
Its [respect’s] two aspects: acknowledging the value in word and deed, and preserving it, are products of nothing more than that the valuable is
valuable. But what the acknowledgement consists in depends naturally on the content of the value, as do the actions required to preserve it.
Similarly, the stringency of the reasons to acknowledge and preserve depends on the importance of the value. Not, let me remind you, its importance to any one valuer, but its importance as something which can be valued, value which can be realized…If respect for people differs from respect for works of art this is partly because the value of people differs from the value of works of art. It is also because people, unlike works of
31Ibid
art...have a sense of their own identity, a sense that they are of value, and therefore are hurt by disrespect, a fact which lends special stringency to duties of respect for people.32
Respect for people, then, can be distinguished as more stringent merely by the fact that it is respect for a particular kind of value. It is respect for something that is conscious of its own value (and thus can be hurt or harmed by disrespect), and which (presumably) is an important kind of value.