Compiled by
Eddie Yeghiayan
"Securing Self-Respect." PhD Dissertation, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1993.
Abstract: "Few would deny that
self-respect is a moral good of tremendous value. Arguments for the moral
worth of self-respect, whether it is viewed in Kantian terms as a duty one
has to oneself or in Rawlsian terms as a social good to which all are
entitled, generally rely, it turns out, upon a conception of the person
that incorporates the ideal of self-respect. At the basis of these
arguments is the idea that persons have a special moral status which
either demands of them or entitles them to their own respect. Upon
examination, however, we find that this notion often rests upon the
assumption that persons conceive of themselves as having this special
status. But this is just to say that persons, in an important sense,
respect themselves. For Kant, persons necessarily regard themselves as
having a special worth. Hence the duty of self-respect, on his view, is
not a duty to acquire and sustain a sense of one's own worth, but rather
to preserve or refrain from disavowing the worth that one, on full
reflection, knows oneself to have. For Rawls, persons view themselves as
having a special worth by stipulation. Self-respect is a normative
dimension of persons conceived as such. When charged with the task of
constructing a society, such persons, he maintains, would choose social
institutions that foster self-respect. Hence the reasoning for claim that
citizens are entitled to self-respect as a matter of justice presumes the
moral worth of self-respect. The forgoing considerations reveal that the
value of self-respect, understood as a conviction in one's special moral
status, is assumed rather than supported by philosophical argument.
Nonetheless, an argument for the value of self-respect can be constructed,
within a Rawlsian social contract framework, if we revise the conception
of self-respect that we take to be in need of support. This revision is
motivated by the recognition that an alternative variety of self-respect,
namely a conviction in the worth of one's particular identity, is more
fundamental than the standard variety of self-respect, and so should be at
the center of our inquiry concerning matters of self-worth."
"Decision Procedures, Standards of Rightness and Impartiality." Nous (December 1997), 31(4):478-495.
"Is Pornography an Action? The Causal vs. the Conceptual View of Pornography's Harm." Social Theory and Practice (Summer 1997), 23(2):277-306.
"The Rationality of Valuing Onself: A Critique of Kant on Self-Respect." Journal of the History of Philosophy (January 1997), 35(1):65-82.
"The Words We Love to Hate." Law and Philosophy
(February 1997),
16(1):107-114.
Review essay of Kent Greenawalt's
Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech.
"Pornography, Verbal Acts, and Viewpoint Discrimination." Public Affairs Quarterly (1998), 12(4):429-445.
Review of Donald Alexander Downs' More Than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society and the Law. Ethics (July 1998), 108(4):842.
"Hypothetical Consent and Justification." Journal of Philosophy (June 2000), 97(6):313-334.
"An Unapologetic Defense of Kant's Ethics." Ratio (1998), 11(2):186-192.
"Fundamental Rights and the Right to Bear Arms." Criminal Justice Ethics (Winter-Spring 2001), 20(1):25-27.
Review of Robin May Schott, ed. Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (Winter 2001), 40(1):188-191.
[UCI Department of Philosophy| UCI Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science]