Discuss:Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy:Respect - Utility and Consequences
From da Vinci Concept
Respect - Utility and Consequences
macrocosm - Sat Dec 18 20:41:01 2004
I have three questions to put forth:
1. What is respect?
2. What is its utility?
3. What are its consequences?
4. From the answers to the above Qs under what conditions is it applicable? Under what conditions is it reasonable/favorable/benefitial to apply, and under what conditions is it inappropriate/unfavorable/harmful?
--macrocosm Sat Dec 18 20:41:01 2004
henrik - Sun Dec 19 7:54:54 2004
1. What is respect?
I would define respect as being an attitude of not disrupting the goals, interests and pursuits of others so long as their goals do not conflict with the general welfare of society.
For example, I have almost no interest whatsoever in car racing. And I see no reason why the pursuit of car racing is harmful to the welfare of society. And thus, I show respect to those who are interested in car racing by simply not interfering with their pursuits.
Now suppose there is a group that believes that redheads are evil and thus must be erradicated. I do not share their interest in eliminating redheads. However, their goals are in conflict with the welfare of society. And thus, respect is not applicable in this situation. In fact, disrupting their activities seems to be necessary for ethical reasons.
2. What is its utility?
The utility of respect is that everybody gets to pursue their own interests within certain boundaries of ethical constraints.
3. What are its consequences?
A community where respect is prevalent is a community where people have the opportunity to make themselves happy by pursuing their own interests.
4. Under what conditions is it reasonable/favorable/benefitial to apply, and under what conditions is it inappropriate/unfavorable/harmful?
Given the way in which I chose to define respect, the answer to this question seems rather trivial. There is no situation under which applying respect would be harmful. Respect is benefitial to apply under all circumstances, places and times!
Of course, the difficulty of the definition I provided is determining whether the pusuits of others are in some way unethical and in conflict with the general welfare of society. The two examples I gave are rather clear cut, but there are plenty of situations in which it is not so clear whether the pursuit of certain goals are or are not in conflict with the welfare of society.
An example I like is that of smoking in public areas. I am not a smoker and I really dislike other people smoking around me. If I am at open air concert I would much prefer that nobody would be allowed to smoke so that I can enjoy the concert. Other people, might find it very relaxing and extremely pleasant to smoke while they are enjoying the open-air concert. Now assuming the smoking and non-smoking communities at the concert are comparable in size, whose interests are in conflict with the welfare of the concert -goers?
In this example, it is not too hard to come up with a solution such as splitting up the place into a smoking and a non-smoking areas. But is it always possible to devise such a solution?
Another example, which is very relevant here in the Netherlands is that of respecting the traditions of the large muslim community living here. If girls are being forced into marriage at an early age against their will, should Dutch society intervene? Clearly, in general you want to be respectful of muslim traditions. However, it seems that forcing girls into marriage is a violation of respect toward those girls and thus Dutch society needs to interfere to prevent this from happening, even though interfering is likely to anger a lot people in the muslim community and interfering might be interpreted by some as being disrespectful of muslim traditions.
In this last example, I have clearly chosen to side with interfering because I believe that the pursuit of marrying girls at an early age is in conflict with the general welfare of society. However, I would not be surprised to encounter a reasonable, rational person who might consider that allowing the muslim community to practice their tradition of marrying off girls at a young age is not only not in conflict with the welfare of society but is actually in the best interest of society.
[For more comments related to this topic of tolerance toward muslim communities in the Netherlands, please read my weblog entry of November 2nd, 2004 at http://homepage.mac.com/henriknordmark/iblog/ ]
--henrik Sun Dec 19 7:54:54 2004
macrocosm - Sun Dec 19 18:22:37 2004
"I would define respect as being an attitude of not disrupting the goals, interests and pursuits of others so long as their goals do not conflict with the general welfare of society."
Amazing. This definition is profoundly divergent from any notion of respect I have typically come across. My attempt here is to firstly glean a common understanding of what respect is, its utility, consequences, and applicability. So I shall therefore retain my own conception of respect until this thread has been populated sufficiently with multiple conceptions of respect.
I would like to ask Henrik, however, whether his notion of respect in application would produce the following:
In a situation in which person A expects others to perceive him/her as a superior and is interacting with person B, does respect in this situation call for B to respect A's expectations by being subservient or likewise to A? Say perhaps that A's expectations are embodied in or primarily based upon his/her traditions (whether they be religious or otherwise)--- what weight does this carry in respect to B (and the B-A relationship in general)?
--macrocosm Sun Dec 19 18:22:37 2004
henrik - Tue Dec 21 6:07:13 2004
| In a situation in which person A expects others to perceive him/her as a superior and is interacting with person B, does respect in this situation call for B to respect A's expectations by being subservient or likewise to A? |
| -- macrocosm |
Before I actually answer the question, let me make a comment about my own psychology regarding hierarchical structures, in which it is possible to define someone to be "superior" to someone else.
My gut reaction is to try to eliminate as many hierarchical as possible. In Sweden, they decided one day to simply eliminate the use of their formal "you" and have everybody use the informal "you" instead. If I remember correctly, I read an article describing how the company Pixar has very little structure and it has been very successful and efficient in that way. Just thinking about these things makes me feel happy. In some sense I enjoy the idea of making everybody as equal as possible.
At the same time, I also enjoy certain highly ritualistic traditions. In particular, I have a fascination with the archetype of initiation. I find the idea of an uninitiated individual being brought into a community of initiates by some sort of teacher figure to be very intriguing. Obviously, this sort teacher/student relationship can be understood as a hierarchical structure. Yet, in this situation I do not feel compelled to disrupt the mentor/mentee relationship at all.
Now, let us go back to the question.
The word "subservient" has a bit of a negative connotation. But in this context, I simply take it to mean: being willing to comply with the authority figure, i.e. the person who is "superior".
The question is: Should B be willing to comply with A if A expects B to be compliant?
It depends...
If A and B are striving to reach certain goals, and these goals require B to be willing to comply to A, then it seems appropriate for B to follow A's expectations.
For example, my thesis advisor Benedikt and I are both interested in the goal of seeing me graduate. Moreover, Benedikt is in this case the expert who has more experience. Benedikt probably expects me to be willing to comply with his requests so that we can achieve this goal. I find it perfectly reasonable for me to be willing to comply with his instructions and requests. Unless there are reasons for me to seriously doubt Benedikt's motivations, I see no reason to be non-compliant.
I remember this scene from the original Karate Kid movie in which it seems that Mr. Miyaki is requesting his student to wash his car over and over again, as well as a whole bunch of other chores that seem completely unrelated to Karate training. And it is only much later that both the public and the student realize that those chores are in fact very relevant for the karate training. The reason it' s funny is that we seriously question the motivations of Mr. Miyaki and we then discover that his motivations were indeed aligned with the common goal of Karate training.
I believe there are many situations in which it is appropriate and necessary to have someone play the role of leader and someone else play the role of follower. Another example would be the chain of command in the military, or the need for forum moderators on discussion boards.
However, it is also true that there are plenty of situations in which such a structure does not seem appropriate and it seems artificially created perhaps by someone who likes feeling superior or by someone who likes feeling inferior, submissive and helpless.
To illustrate my point, consider voting rights in a democratic society.
It does not seem natural to create a hierarchy of citizens in which only men have the right to vote. There is no reason women should be inferior citizens to men. In other words, it does not seem appropriate that women should be necessarily willing to comply with whatever the men decide.
However, it does seem natural to create a hierarchy of citizens in which 2 year old babies are inferior in the sense of not being allowed to vote. 2 year olds do not seem to have the cognitive abilities to partake in the social practice of voting in a way that would be beneficial to democratic decision-making. And thus, it seems appropriate that 2 year olds comply with whatever the voting citizens of the community decide.
| Say perhaps that A's expectations are embodied in or primarily based upon his/her traditions (whether they be religious or otherwise)--- what weight does this carry in respect to B (and the B-A relationship in general)? |
| -- macrocosm |
First of all, nearly all our expectations are embedded and based on a world of social practices, traditions etc... (Although I suppose there might be some expectations that are hard-wired genetically at the physiological level).
These expectations can be beneficial and they can be disruptive depending on the situation.
If a professor expects me to do my homework, it will probably be beneficial for me assuming that my goal is to learn. And hence our relationship will work well in that respect.
If parents expect their daughter to get married to whomever they choose and whenever they choose and these goals do not coincide with the goals of the daughter, this is bound to create problems in maintaining a good relationship at some point or another.
--henrik Tue Dec 21 6:07:13 2004
henrik - Tue Dec 21 7:23:44 2004
Here are some thoughts about respect that came to me while I was contributing to the Arrogance thread...
Imagine a situation in which D really knows what is best for E, but E is not aware of this and actually thinks that D is wrong.
Now two possible cases arise. In the first case, D realizes that E''s actions will be detrimental to the welfare of society and to E, and thus takes measures to stop E. But consider the second case in which the welfare of society as a whole is not really at stake and it is only E who will suffer from his own actions then according to my definitions D should not interfere and let E harm himself.
For example, if D knows that if E eats the apple on the table which contains some additives which will make E suffer a tummy ache if he eats it. D might be interested in the welfare of E and tell him the knowledge he has about the apple. However, if E is unwilling to believe D and D considers that the welfare of society is not at stake by E having a tummy ache, then D needs to back off and let E eat the apple and give himself a tummy ache.
I like how the definition of respect I chose seems to justify the idea that we need to let other people learn from their own mistakes (within certain constraints).
--henrik Tue Dec 21 7:23:44 2004
macrocosm - Tue Dec 21 7:45:16 2004
Hillarious example (of D and E) and I agree entirely with the notion of letting one make one's own mistakes within particular boundaries.
The fuzzy involves defining what those boundaries are. For example, perhaps the stomach ache will make E unable to clean the house before the guests come over, and then the guests arrive to witness a messy house. The extent of damage done by E eating the apple may have a greater reach than initially expected/anticipated.
--macrocosm Tue Dec 21 7:45:16 2004
macrocosm - Tue Dec 21 9:26:34 2004
"If a professor expects me to do my homework, it will probably be beneficial for me assuming that my goal is to learn. And hence our relationship will work well in that respect."
What if it is in question whether this homework is actually beneficial to your learning? Are you to assume blindly that it _is_ merely due to the fact that your teacher is an expert in what you are trying to learn? Have you a right to question the usefulness of the homework or is this merely disrespectful to the teacher? Disrespectful perhaps, in the sense that such questioning may disrupt the teacher's ability to teach you and others.
--macrocosm Tue Dec 21 9:26:34 2004
henrik - Tue Dec 21 10:52:57 2004
| Have you a right to question the usefulness of the homework or is this merely disrespectful to the teacher? Disrespectful perhaps, in the sense that such questioning may disrupt the teacher's ability to teach you and others. |
| -- macrocosm |
If there is no reason to believe that asking why this homework is useful will be a disruption to the teaching process, then I see no harm in doing so and it might aid the student to understand why what he is doing is important.
From my own experience, part of the problem is that the teacher's explanation of why something is important to learn is not always within the grasp of the student to understand. In order to fully appreciate why X is important to learn you have to already understand X to begin with!
So if the student doesn't fully understand why something is important there has to be some amount of faith that the teacher knows what he is doing. The problem is where do you draw the line between blind faith in the teacher and having enough faith to allow the teaching to go smoothly.
The same holds true if there are reasons to believe that questioning the teaching process will be disruptive of the teaching process. There has to be a judgement call between blind faith in the teaching process and critical appraisal of the teaching process. And where do we draw the line is a very difficult question without further information about specific situations.
--henrik Tue Dec 21 10:52:57 2004
macrocosm - Tue Dec 21 11:31:50 2004
Also, I would add that if it turns out that the teacher is making the student do homework which is useless to the goal of learning (some said topic X as defined by the scope of the class etc.) then it would seem that, via your definition, the teacher is disrespecting the students (more specifically, disrespecting their pursuit of knowledge of topic X).
While on the one hand the students may have a certain level of "faith" in the teacher -- faith being something you have illuminated to be useful (I agree) -- the students may also seek to prevent their pursuits of particular knowledge from being disrupted and will hence question the usefulness of the work which has been issued them (work which may serve to waste their time and not advance them in any meaningful manner toward their goals). Having only faith and no clear understanding of the utility of the homework, the students actions do not seem to be disrespectful, as long as their questioning processes do not extend beyond utility.
Additionally, in addressing Mr. Miyaki, what if despite efforts the kid found himself incapable of washing the car? Should Miyaki adapt his teaching techniques to this, or is all blame on the kid? If Miyaki is incapable of adapting, should he not admit such to the kid (and himself)?
What if Miyaki had made him do ballet, and the kid was too embarrassed/unconfortable to do it correctly, should Miyaki be empathetic or hard-nose? What would be an empathetic response in this situation?
--macrocosm Tue Dec 21 11:31:50 2004
henrik - Fri Dec 24 18:20:29 2004
I think Mr. Miyaki is at some level a bad teacher because it does not seem to be very disruptive to the learning process to realize that washing the car is not a pointless activity. However, I get the sense that in the case of Mr. Miyaki and other mrtial arts sensei like figures, there is some sort of desire to test the level of commitment of the student by seeing how much blind faith the student is willing to put into the teaching process offered by the sensei. Nevertheless, it is not really clear to me that testing the level of commitment of the student is that important for the teaching process. It seems more like a way of guaranteeing that he is not wasting his time on a student who is not really serious about learning.
--henrik Fri Dec 24 18:20:29 2004
macrocosm - Sat Dec 25 5:52:54 2004
This is part of it too I think, yes. But in my experience it is also often that the teacher wants to feel superior to the student and wants to insure that he/she is in control.
In this sense, the teacher may have a disruptive notion of student commitment as it entails a certain level of blind obedience only partially tied into the learning process. Often a teacher will expect the student to "submit himself" to the teacher.
--macrocosm Sat Dec 25 5:52:54 2004
sunny - Sat Dec 25 19:09:13 2004
I will address these questions individually from my own philosophical perspective, independent of what others have written and then address the answers given by my peers in another post.
What is respect?
Simple Denotation:
(verb) to show regard or consideration for.
(noun) a sense of worth or excellence for a person, quality, or ability.
Conceptual Relationships:
Respect requires an act of judgement. Without which one would hold insufficient knowledge to hold or show consideration for another's views, choices, and person. Respect without an act of judgement, or respect that claims itself unconditional above judgement is not respect, but a set of behaviors coupled to epistemological indifference that has been improperly labeled as respect.
Respect is conditional. A certain amount of a priori respect is granted, such as the respect we show to the basic rights of others, or the basic respect in courtesy that we show an anonymous individual. A change in views or choices of a person can alter our judgement of them and our judgement of whether they deserve our respect. Respect is thus a fluid quantity. We may respect a person for some qualities, but despise them for others and at varying degrees. Often such contradictory judgements are related to a lack of information regarding the person. Our ability to properly guage the respect an individual deserves is based on what we know about them and their life's context. Given sufficient information we can make informed decisions about whether our respect is justified or misplaced and about how likely it is for the individual to gain or lose our respect in the near future.
Respecting the basic human rights of others is also conditional. A murderer or thief deserves no a priori respect in regards to the quality of their respective relationships with others. They should be judged appropriately and thus lose those rights that they violated. They did not respect the rights of other individuals, and their victims must not be held captive to undeserved respect.
An animal does not show or exhibit respect. Respect is an act of concious volition. We choose based on what we know whether to and how much respect to show another human being. An animal may appear to show respect, but this is a conditioned response, and the animal has no ability to go against its instinctual response. If a human automatizes respect, in a way, they have devalued it.
Tradition automatizes respect. I would hold that respect borne out of tradition holds less value than respect borne out of experience. However, traditions and traditional forms of respect are based on experiential observations, and thus are often relevant and appropriate.
----
2. What is its utility?
Connotative Explanations
The basic respect that I show another is a withholding of any prejudice that I might have that is based upon subjective or superfluous information. When I meet someone on the street, I display respect in the form of greeting and countenance, unless I have some knowledge that would preclude even a basic respect for their person. If I show another person disrespect in the form of prejudice, I am tarnishing others' respect for them, and if the prejudice is undeserved and unwarranted, I am tarnishing the respect that others hold for myself.
Respect often means 'to confer trust' (within one or many areas of human knowledge or interaction). We respect our colleagues and our peers. We trust that the knowledge that they have is correct and used in an appropriate manner.
Respect is a tool for the respected. It enables one to confer an approval on healthy relationships between people and assists in communication and understanding. It is a complex web of trust relationships that provide meaningful fabric for relationships. This same type of thinking is the basis for new technologies such as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) (These are encryption, authenticity, and validity technologies), allowing for the creation of a 'web of trust' that confers trust, and implies a certain level of respect. In order to brandish respect as a tool an individual must have respect for themselves. I must know, value, and trust myself in order that my respect for others mean anything of value to my life.
----
3. What are its consequences?
Consequences and Application
The consequences of respect are highly contextual. The consequences will be primarily beneficial where respect is borne of a volitional process and is not undermined by traditional forms of respect that are followed blindly or no longer apply. Conditional volitional forms of respect are always applicable. They are dynamic and responsive to changes and disruptions in the social fabric. Volitional respect (as the basis for traditional forms of respect) is the basis for most of the social lubricant of human cultures and results in healthy societies.
Traditional forms of respect, being much less dynamic often create a revolutionary attitude in the form of non-traditionalists. Traditional forms of respect can be made very robust when they are representative of the actual values of the individuals composing a society, but are easily prone to failure when uninitiated individuals become part of the mix (such as in the dynamic and heterogeneous cultures composing most industrialized nations.)
----
Respect is useful and applicable in every situation, but only if we consistently evaluate our conscious measures of respect. Traditional forms, although useful as a potential foreshortening mechanism, will always be prone to error and if used must be carefully assessed and consistently augmented through a conscious volitional process.
(Edited in-process by Truc-Ha)
--sunny Sat Dec 25 19:09:13 2004
