Abstract
Recent history clearly confirms John Rawls’ claim that peoples’ fundamental interest in self-respect makes them insist on ‘receiving from other peoples a proper respect and recognition of their equality’. Even before the US president Barack Obama promised numerous nations new relationships based ‘on mutual respect’, many foreign leaders had already begun to insist on being ‘duly respected’ by the United States and other (mostly Western) countries. What is unclear, however, is how far such moral claims actually extend, especially as far as peoples’ ‘trials during their history and … their culture with its accomplishments’ (Rawls) are concerned. When can peoples justifiably complain about ‘inadequate respect’? When does international morality, understood as practical reasoning in the Kantian tradition, command a change in foreign attitudes and behaviour? This article focuses on the range of universal norms that should regulate the allocation of esteem and attention in an increasingly integrated world. It shows that cultural diversity among peoples all but excludes substantive criteria for specifying ‘due respect’, thus leaving mostly formal criteria, such as consistency and reciprocity, for identifying uncontroversial cases of disrespect.
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Notes
As Louise Richardson (2006) points out, the experience of humiliation plays a crucial and pervasive role in terrorist motivations. See also Sen et al. (2007: 20–24) and Parekh (2008: 166).
Of course, there is no automatic moral obligation to respect other states’ legal rights. When national governments violate grossly the human rights of their citizens, disregard for a state’s sovereign rights could be compatible with respecting the moral rights of its people (Walzer 1977: Chapter 6) or might even be ‘called for’, as Rawls (1999: § 13.3) claims. Usually, however, violation of a state’s international rights also entails disrespect for its people.
That is, to use Wendt’s (2003: 511) distinction, I shall address problems of thick rather than thin recognition. See also Honneth’s (1996) parallel distinction between social esteem and equal treatment in law, and Taylor’s (1995c: 232) between the politics of difference and the politics of equal recognition.
Rawls’ focus on obligations between peoples (rather than between persons) has drawn a lot of criticism for its alleged neglect of participatory rights within ‘decent hierarchical peoples’ and its indifference to global distributional justice (Beitz 2000; Pogge 2001; Chartier 2004). Yet, it seems quite appropriate for an investigation of international duties concerning status recognition. When debating the relative accomplishments and importance of their nations, persons encounter each other (actually or virtually) as undifferentiated members of organised groups, as Mexicans and Russians, rather than as individuals with unique traits or histories; they are treated primarily as nationals, they identify with their nation (particularly when it appears to have been slighted), and they take pride in its political culture and institutions (Heins 2010). Accordingly, they expect their political representatives to protect the autonomy of their national culture (Tamir 1993) and its international standing (Honneth 2012: 30–31). And they feel more easily offended when foreign officials seem to disregard their nation rather than ‘mere’ private citizens. In short, in these encounters (and particularly in the indirect ones reported by mass media), persons feel and act as members of peoples.
Deliberate insults aim at putting someone down. Their very purpose consists in attacking an actor’s self-respect.
In the American ‘canon debate’ of the early 1990s, most proponents of ‘PC’ argued that all cultures deserve equal respect while their opponents (at least implicitly) claimed a higher status for Western arts, philosophy, and science (Berman 1992). My point here will be that the promotion of respect among peoples actually rules out any efforts to campaign for a universal view as to who deserves what degree of thick recognition. I do not take issue with the view that many peoples (and especially Western ones) should show greater interest in the achievements of other civilisations — far from it.
See the discussions in Bird (2004), Dillon (2007), Hill (1998) and Hudson (1980).
See also Dillon (2007) and Hill (1998). Compared with the prevailing conceptualisations of ‘recognition’, the semantic extension of ‘respect’, as it will be used here, is both narrower and wider: it is narrower in that it is strongly linked to one’s sense of entitlement. Hence, it covers only consideration (we feel) others must show. Recognition — as understood by Honneth (1996) and Taylor (1995c) — goes beyond that point by extending to other, wholly subjective forms of positive evaluation, such as love. It seems self-evident that we always ‘owe’ respect to other humans (Darwall 2006: Chapter 6), whereas sometimes we have greater moral discretion when it comes to recognising other people. On the other hand, the extension of ‘respect’ is broader, as it also covers non-evaluative forms of consideration, which confirm one’s sense of importance and which are so relevant for social status. By including these dimensions, the concept can also be used for explaining conflicts that arise in situations where actors feel ignored, not being taken seriously, or being taken for granted.
The pain associated with experiences of social rejection even seems to have a firm biological basis in the human brain (Eisenberger et al. 2003).
One might object that, before discussing the moral requirements of a respectful order, the international community first needs to agree on a shared concept of respect that includes an agreed list of actor attributes, which must be given adequate consideration. However, for the limited purpose of this article, it must suffice to assume (a) that both human beings and the groups they form care for status (Frank 1985: Chapters 1–2; Wright 1994: Chapter 12), (b) that they want to see it recognised by other groups, and (c) that they base their status claims (in part, at least) on their achievements, virtues, and overall importance. These assumptions do not appear very controversial. In fact, leading scholars concur that sensitivity to disrespect is among the very few emotional dispositions that are universal among humans (Haidt and Joseph 2004: 58). Thus, it is hardly surprising that a very heterogeneous expert group like the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding (Sen et al. 2007) apparently just took it for granted that human communities everywhere care for respect along such lines. Of course, as it will be pointed out below, there can be great cultural variations with regard to the specific nature of status-relevant achievements or virtues. On intercultural similarities and differences concerning respectful behaviour see Appiah (2005: 265–7) and Shwalb and Shwalb (2006).
Of course, disparaging statements about other peoples might be even more problematic to the extent they also compromise the latter’s ‘soft power’ (Nye) in the eyes of the international audience. This, in turn, could bring about an unfair drawback in contests over scarce resources. However, since it is so difficult to produce clear evidence for such disadvantages, the following discussion will not take up this point.
In fact, for my purpose here, this simplifying assumption hardly stretches reality because domestic sub-groups will mostly see their own interpretation as the ‘authentic’ interpretation of their people’s essence. Hence, Indians will feel equally offended by alleged arrogance towards India, even though they might disagree on what it means to be Indian. Similarly, Shia and Sunnis in Iraq will often feel equally insulted by foreign denigrations of ‘Islam’.
Such a contractualist strategy for identifying moral obligations is required to grant equal respect to all members of a moral community when they deliberate on the contents of universally binding norms (Scanlon 1998: Chapter 5; Darwall 2006: Chapter 2; Forst 2007: 301; Rostbøll 2009). In this vein, former Iranian president Khatami (2005: 76) has called upon UNESCO to promote the search for ‘a set of a priori and comprehensive general axioms’ to guide an equitable dialogue among civilisations. Liberal contractualism thus appears to be the most appropriate epistemic approach as it does not automatically privilege one cultural perspective over any other.
In this section, I will only address recognition for accomplishments or achievements. I shall not discuss explicitly the respect for efforts and virtues because my arguments concerning accomplishments seem to apply to these two aspects just as well.
Taylor is somewhat more ambiguous on that point. Although he seems to subscribe to the norm that we owe all cultures the presumption of equal worth, he insists that there is no right to demand ‘actual judgments of equal worth applied to the customs and creations of these different cultures’ (Taylor 1995c: 253, 308).
Similar disagreements may arise in the proper evaluation of a people’s ‘negative achievements’, such as national fiascos or crimes.
A recent opinion survey reports that three quarters of the Chinese public consider their nation’s culture superior to America’s while one half of the US population claims the exact opposite (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2013: 12).
See also (Parekh 2006: 70–72) who underscores Herder’s claim that in light of divergent needs and concepts of happiness each culture can only be understood in its own historic context and thus ought to be judged according to its own standards.
Of course, things get even more complicated once we consider the multicultural composition of many contemporary peoples. As a matter of fact, different cultural groups within a given nation may apply different standards when judging the achievements of another people. Even in this case, each spokesperson should be required to be consistent in her judgements about foreign peoples.
Unawareness of another people’s achievements could also bring about a lop-sided view. However, this error of judgement needs to be distinguished from the application of double standards, for it results from a lack of factual knowledge rather than from unjustified discrimination. This has to be distinguished from deliberate efforts to distort the record of another people. Clearly, the latter are to be considered as disrespectful behaviour.
Thus, Jacques (2009: Chapter 8) and Said (1978) claim that Chinese and Western assertions of cultural superiority are partly based on racial prejudice.
A possible example might be the former European disregard for the aesthetic qualities of Asian temples, inasmuch as this lack of appreciation was based on the notion that buildings constructed by heathens could never match Christian architecture. In a similar vein, Sen (2006: 75–79, 147–8) charges colonial Britons with diminishing Indian achievements in mathematics and public reasoning. On the other hand, complaints about Western disrespect for China’s economic accomplishments seem inappropriate (see ‘Introduction’). As Nobel Prizes are clearly meant to recognise personal scientific accomplishments rather than national economic achievements, the Swedish Academy cannot be accused of applying double standards in this case.
Western disregard for traditional Chinese medical knowledge and Arab mathematics might be a good illustration. On the one hand, lower recognition for these scientific achievements could be justified with the argument that they do not conform to (Western) standards of systematic scientific enquiry. On the other hand, many Chinese discoveries and Arab insights conform to the relevant higher-order standard, insofar as they actually improve the condition of patients or our calculation abilities. Hence, one could argue that these achievements deserve just as much credit as the equally useful Western medical insights, which were brought to light by other epistemic procedures. On Western disrespect for ‘unrigorous’ Arab mathematics see Rashid (1994: App. 1).
In this vein, Galeotti (2010) and Rostbøll (2009) have argued quite convincingly that Danish authorities can hardly be blamed for not interfering with the publication of the Muhammad cartoons, but are to be criticised for their arrogant refusal to listen to complaints from the Muslim community. For a similar view see Lægaard (2010: 115).
Of course, this is not to say that publishing the cartoons was a wise, friendly, or useful act. But that is a different story.
Libya in the 1980s, the Wilhelminian Germany, and the contemporary Venezuela may be good examples.
Sometimes, getting no attention at all and not being talked about in public is also experienced as an implicit rejection of a collective’s lifestyle and values (Raz 1994: Chapters 6). To the extent that this perception is shared by peoples, disrespect for achievements and for social importance may go hand in hand.
Even in the ‘monocultural’ regional systems of past centuries, political representatives often strongly disagreed on the relevant criteria (Luard 1976: Chapter 9; Schweller 1999: 42–48; Lebow 2008).
However, it may be influenced by criteria such as culture or religion, which sometimes can provide legitimate reasons for a special interest in a particular people.
This also follows from the obligation to respect other peoples’ needs.
Unfortunately, this moral obligation may come into conflict with other imperatives, such as the requirement for quick and effective action. Thus, it is hardly surprising that during the Asian crisis of 1997, Indonesians, Koreans, and Thais were deeply offended by the almost dictatorial manner in which small IMF teams imposed dramatic changes on long-standing national economic policies (Higgott 2000).
As Sen (2006: 146) has pointed out, ‘[t]he task of ruling a foreign country is not an easy one when its subjects are seen as equal’. Hence, disregard for a foreign culture comes close to a precondition for imposing imperial domination.
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The author would like to thank one of the reviewers for the insight that disregarding a people’s international importance is more risky than disrespecting its achievements.
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Wolf, R. Respecting foreign peoples: the limits of moral obligations. J Int Relat Dev 19, 1–25 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2014.10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2014.10