Ethics of Respect and Human Dignity. A Responsive Reading

Abstract

One of the key concepts in recent moral debates is respect. The paper establishes the thesis that respect must first be understood as a responsive deontic demand. This occurs if beyond a universalisation of the practical law it keeps open the connection to the various pronominal versions and is shaped as response to a call which does not follow classical schemes of mere reciprocity but which takes into account the asymmetry of the other. For this reason main accounts of respect in contexts of human dignity (Immanuel Kant, Axel Honneth, Rainer Forst and others) are questioned in the horizon of the philosophy of Bernhard Waldenfels.