Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Possibility of Respect: Human Dignity and the Ethics of Difference

The Possibility of Respect: Human Dignity and the Ethics of Difference

Debes, Remy

Hardcover

PhilosophyGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesWomen's Studies

ISBN10: 0197829716
ISBN13: 9780197829714
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Dec 16 2025
Pages: 352
Weight: 1.15
Height: 1.20 Width: 5.50 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
The ideal that all humans deserve respect is almost universally accepted today. But how well do we live up to this ideal? Even in Western nations, where this moral ideal has become sacrosanct, we suffer daily reminders of our failures to live up to it. Sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, antisemitism: as soon as we declare progress in overcoming such attitudes, they regenerate with renewed vigor. What explains this moral inertia?

Drawing from a wide range of historically underrepresented voices, and real-life reflections, Remy Debes argues that we are missing something important when it comes to respect- and that our existing ideas are part of the problem. We are introduced to the concept of respect in childhood and quickly learn that respecting persons requires us to focus on the undifferentiated aspects of people. Each of us, we are told, is a rational agent, with autonomy and rights, and it is in this sense of personhood that we all deserve respect. The problem with this mindset, Debes argues, is that sometimes respecting persons - in the basic moral sense - requires deemphasizing what all persons have in common, in favor of what is different and unique about them. Sometimes, we are not calling out to be respected as a person in general, but as the specific person we are.

The Possibility of Respect addresses the what and how of practicing respect on an individual basis, compares it to other kinds of demonstrations of respect, and explains how practicing this alternative, individual-focused way of thinking about respect might improve the outcomes of the multiple moral challenges facing us today.

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