RE: Can too much respect be bad?
December 11, 2019 at 10:37 am
(This post was last modified: December 11, 2019 at 10:41 am by The Grand Nudger.)
You're comparing troughs and peaks on a two axis graph of moral desert, between action and respect. If the ideas that you're expressing can be formalized into a moral geometry - then they probably aren't separate spheres of work.
When we say that a person deserves respect for x we have already laid into a moral claim. When we assess whether or not they got less, exactly, or more than they deserved for that x, we are making an elaborate moral claim. When we assign modifiers to that x that would, acts being equal, change a persons position on the desert axis, we are making an even more elaborate moral claim.
You work harder for people you respect. You're more conscious of how you use their time. You're more earnest. If it's a mutual respect - you feel that a sort of mutual defense pact is warranted. You think that a soldier deserves respect, but maybe not as much respect as some of them get. All of these things are explicitly contextualized in your comments as issues of moral desert. What's interesting, is how profoundly you can alter those moral calculations by altering their implicit premises. All things being equal, is it best to get exactly what you deserve, better than what you deserve, or less (for any given x)? The answer to that determines where the peaks and valleys on your desert graph will fall - the places where there's a disparity between what a person got and what they deserved to get. We use different metrics for different circumstances.
When we say that a person deserves respect for x we have already laid into a moral claim. When we assess whether or not they got less, exactly, or more than they deserved for that x, we are making an elaborate moral claim. When we assign modifiers to that x that would, acts being equal, change a persons position on the desert axis, we are making an even more elaborate moral claim.
You work harder for people you respect. You're more conscious of how you use their time. You're more earnest. If it's a mutual respect - you feel that a sort of mutual defense pact is warranted. You think that a soldier deserves respect, but maybe not as much respect as some of them get. All of these things are explicitly contextualized in your comments as issues of moral desert. What's interesting, is how profoundly you can alter those moral calculations by altering their implicit premises. All things being equal, is it best to get exactly what you deserve, better than what you deserve, or less (for any given x)? The answer to that determines where the peaks and valleys on your desert graph will fall - the places where there's a disparity between what a person got and what they deserved to get. We use different metrics for different circumstances.
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