Books by Remy Debes
In everything from philosophical ethics to legal argument to public activism, it has become commo... more In everything from philosophical ethics to legal argument to public activism, it has become commonplace to appeal to the idea of human dignity. In such contexts, the concept of dignity typically signifies something like the fundamental moral status belonging to all humans. Remarkably, however, it is only in the last century that this meaning of the term has become standardized. Before this, dignity was instead a concept associated with social status. Unfortunately, this transformation remains something of a mystery in existing scholarship. Exactly when and why did "dignity" change its meaning? And before this change, was it truly the case that we lacked a conception of human worth akin to the one that "dignity" now represents? In this volume, leading scholars across a range of disciplines attempt to answer such questions by clarifying the presently murky history of "dignity," from classical Greek thought through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment to the present day. (The full introduction to this book is included under my papers on this website.)
Contributors include Stephen Darwall, Miriam Griffin, Bonnie Kent, Brian Copenhaver, Patrice Rankine, Bernie Boxill, Mika LaVague-Manty, Charles Mills, Christine Henderson, Mustafa Shah, yours truly, and more! Oxford Philosophical Concepts is an exciting new approach to the history of philosophy. Its goal is to investigate key concepts in the history of philosophy. Each volume brings together eminent international scholars to present historically sound accounts of a single concept.
Encyclopedia Entries by Remy Debes
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2023
What exactly is dignity? Do its different connotations hang together in any principled way? Does ... more What exactly is dignity? Do its different connotations hang together in any principled way? Does dignity understood as "universal human worth", for example, have any meaningful connection to "social rank" or "personal integrity"? Is dignity primarily a moral concept or a political and legal one? Even assuming we can make sense of its different meanings, what does dignity demand of us? What does it mean to recognize or respect it? Does it ground rights? If so, which ones? And where does the idea of dignity come from? What, in other words, is its history?
This entry takes up these questions. The goal is to provide a general guide to existing theory and debate, with a focus on philosophical approaches to human dignity, and mostly as it figures into the western tradition. (Direct Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=dignity)
International Encyclopedia of Ethics
Papers and Book Chapters by Remy Debes
Animal Dignity, 2023
The concept of human dignity typically refers to the basic worth or status that purportedly belon... more The concept of human dignity typically refers to the basic worth or status that purportedly belongs to all persons equally. In this sense of the term, which might be called its moralized connotation, dignity is often taken as the normative grounds of universal human rights; but if not rights, at least the basis of certain interpersonal duties, including respect, care, and toleration. This justificatory relation between dignity and rights, or dignity and duty, has led many to wonder whether dignity extends to non-human animals. If so, is it anything like human dignity? And if it is like human dignity, could there be an overlapping basis of human and animal rights? Do we have duties to respect or care for animals as we do humans? Can their dignity be humiliated, frustrated, or degraded, like ours? Or do animals have their own distinctive basis of dignity, perhaps something like the ‘wild dignity’ postulated by the influential animal ethicist, Lori Gruen? If so, what does their dignity entail?
Reading Hume on the Principles of Morals (Ed. Jackie Taylor)
Hume advertises his second Enquiry (EPM) as an investigation into “personal merit.” And yet, ther... more Hume advertises his second Enquiry (EPM) as an investigation into “personal merit.” And yet, there is almost no explicit scholarship to be found on Hume’s understanding of this concept. This chapter corrects this oversight. Using Hume’s critique on the virtue-talent distinction in EPM Appendix 4 as a foil, it argues for two conclusions. First, Hume’s critique is based on an account of personal merit that fundamentally excludes non-moral character evaluation. Second, this account more wholeheartedly embraces a sentimentalist metaethics than does Hume’s earlier argument in A Treatise of Human Nature. In particular, Hume’s highly celebrated claim in the Treatise that the foundation of all morality is “extensive sympathy,” as opposed to simply “sentiment,” turns out to be misleading from the view point of EPM.
Respect: Philosophical Essays (Eds. Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen), 2021
Remy Debes provides a historical background for the prominent role that respect plays in current ... more Remy Debes provides a historical background for the prominent role that respect plays in current moral discussion. But, true to the spirit of this volume as philosophical rather than encyclopedic, Debes does not just describe texts and list dates. Instead, he raises doubts about the standard story about the rising influence of the idea of respect for persons, that it comes mainly and directly from Immanuel Kant. Debes offers evidence that by the time Kant’s writings gained influence in the English-speaking world, the movement toward the importance of respect for all persons already was well underway, albeit often using terminology other than “respect.” This movement grew partly among moral and political philosophers, and political activists, but also in underappreciated literary writing, often written by women and men of color.
The introduction to my edited volume Dignity: A History (OUP, 2017)
Philosophical Perspectives, 2009
The philosophy of “human dignity” remains a young, piecemeal endeavor with only a small, dedicate... more The philosophy of “human dignity” remains a young, piecemeal endeavor with only a small, dedicated literature. And what dedicated literature exists makes for a rather slapdash mix of substantive and formal metatheory (i.e. theory about either what dignity consists in, or about the properties, distinguishing characteristics, or explanatory demands that apply generally to any contentful account of dignity’s nature). Worse, ironically we seem compelled to treat this existing theory both charitably and casually. For how can we definitively assess any of it? Existing suggestions about the general features of dignity are necessarily contentious in virtue of being more or less blissfully uncritical of themselves. Because none of the suggested features are conscientiously situated in their own right (i.e. within a metatheory), their justification is taken to rest solely on whether each is borne out by some substantive account. But absent the sort of second-order considerations that would make for a proper metatheory, what can we do with their substantive suggestions? Of course, the concept of dignity has other forums. It figures prominently into insular analyses of either Kantian or Biblical ethics, and, to various degrees, an array of subsidiary fields of practical philosophy including human rights, bioethics, law, theories of respect, race theory, Judaic studies, feminism, care ethics, war, technology, and political philosophy (typically liberalism). Each of these areas has an established literature. Each contributes interesting observations to the nature of dignity. But, again, ultimately, without a proper metatheory, it is unclear what to do with any of them. My goal is to remedy this, or at least reverse the trend. In doing so I will have in view one particular subfield, namely, the ever-pressing subject of human rights.
Human dignity is a concept with remarkably shallow historical roots. Is that why it is so present... more Human dignity is a concept with remarkably shallow historical roots. Is that why it is so presently endangered?
Trending work in social epistemology suggests that those with power actively and passively hinder... more Trending work in social epistemology suggests that those with power actively and passively hinder those without power from interpreting and communicating their experiences of suffering and persecution, thus obstructing their roll in the production of knowledge about these experiences. This kind of " epistemic oppression " raises a puzzle about the nature and possibilities of interpersonal understanding, which I call, the problem of power. Put simply, if those with power regulate what counts as " knowledge, " then can empowered people ever genuinely understand oppressed people? In this essay I attempt to answer this question, which in turn leads me to offer a new theory of what it means to understand other persons.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2012
Where exactly should we place Adam Smith in the cannon of classical liberalism? Smith’s advocacy ... more Where exactly should we place Adam Smith in the cannon of classical liberalism? Smith’s advocacy of free market economics and defense of religious liberty in The Wealth of Nations suffice for including him somewhere in that tradition. The nature and extent of Smith’s liberalism, however, remain up for debate. One recent trend has been to characterize Smith as a proponent of social liberalism. This includes those like Stephen Darwall, Samuel Fleischacker, and Charles Griswold, who have drawn attention to a kind of descriptive moral egalitarianism in Smith. Humans, Smith seems to hold, are naturally disposed to valuing one other under a conception of equality. But that is not all these scholars suggest. They have also hinted at something more contentious – the idea that, according to Smith, we value one another in a way resonant with contemporary notions of human dignity, conceived as the inherent value of persons grounding certain rights to, or restrictions on, treatment by others. In saying so, these scholars have hit upon something remarkable. However, I also think their arguments in this respect are both indirect and incomplete. Consequently, the full import of Smith’s view remains obscure. This essay aims to bring some clarity.
Most modern discussions of human dignity give historical pride of place to Immanuel Kant and his ... more Most modern discussions of human dignity give historical pride of place to Immanuel Kant and his idea that dignity was grounded in human rational agency or autonomy. This paper challenges this practice by articulating a “second story” about dignity – a story that also unfolded during the Enlightenment, but which grounded dignity in human passionate agency. Thus it is suggested that a range of thinkers including Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Smith’s French translator, Sophie De Grouchey, all seemed to have inclined in this new direction. However, above all others, this essay lauds Denis Diderot’s contribution to this second story of human dignity. Correspondingly, the essay culminates in an examination of Diderot’s wide-ranging inquiries into human nature, politics, and social theory.
British Journal for The History of Philosophy, 2007
Here is a well-known and curious puzzle of Hume's second Enquiry: After going to great lengths to... more Here is a well-known and curious puzzle of Hume's second Enquiry: After going to great lengths to develop his associationist account of sympathy in Book II of the Treatise, and then using this account to argue for extensive sympathy as the source of our moral sentiments in Book III of the same work, Hume not only seems to replace extensive sympathy with the principle of humanity as the source of our moral sentiments in the second Enquiry, but he appears to drop the Treatise account of sympathy altogether.
British Journal for The History of Philosophy, 2007
Since its introduction into English in 1909, as a translation of the German concept Einfühlung (f... more Since its introduction into English in 1909, as a translation of the German concept Einfühlung (feeling into), “empathy” has had a convoluted relationship to the concept of sympathy. This essay sorts some of this complicated conceptual history, with a focus on the primary subjects of their earliest overlap: late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century phenomenology and psychology. Out of this analysis emerges a surprising discovery. Within turn-of-the-century phenomenological conceptions of Einfühlung and empathy, on the one hand, and early American social psychological conceptions of sympathy, on the other, is a common concern to connect both concepts (respectively) to a claim about the recognition of other persons. Specifically, there is an attempt to use these concepts to explain our ability to experience other persons as just that—as “other.” Accordingly, the philosophical import and conceptual ramifications of this discovery are explored.
Ethical Sentimentalism, 2017
At the outset of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith famously observed that we routinely m... more At the outset of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith famously observed that we routinely make judgments about the propriety of emotions on the basis of empathy, or what he and his contemporaries called ‘sympathy’. In this paper, I take for granted that Smith was correct. My question is, are these judgments legitimate? That is, do we understand what we mean when we make them? And can we justify them? I stake out answers to both questions as follows. (1) After clarifying what empathic judgments are, and the sense of ‘approval’ in question, I argue that empathic judgments involve a “gray” area of approbation between proscription and prohibition, or what I call the space of permission. (2) Although the content of empathic judgments and the permissive force they carry turns out to be very weak, I argue that the form of this judgment reveals itself to be grounded on the fundamental status or “dignity” we ascribe to ourselves as moral agents – albeit, not in the usual sense of agency. Empathic judgment isn’t premised on the dignity we assume for ourselves as rational agents (i.e. our “autonomy”). Instead, it is the dignity we assume for ourselves as affective agents. It is thus not rational dignity that grounds empathic judgments, but affective dignity. Defending this claim, and thereby delivering the normative grounds for (at least some) sentimentalist judgments, is the ultimate goal of this paper.
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Books by Remy Debes
Contributors include Stephen Darwall, Miriam Griffin, Bonnie Kent, Brian Copenhaver, Patrice Rankine, Bernie Boxill, Mika LaVague-Manty, Charles Mills, Christine Henderson, Mustafa Shah, yours truly, and more! Oxford Philosophical Concepts is an exciting new approach to the history of philosophy. Its goal is to investigate key concepts in the history of philosophy. Each volume brings together eminent international scholars to present historically sound accounts of a single concept.
Encyclopedia Entries by Remy Debes
This entry takes up these questions. The goal is to provide a general guide to existing theory and debate, with a focus on philosophical approaches to human dignity, and mostly as it figures into the western tradition. (Direct Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=dignity)
Papers and Book Chapters by Remy Debes
Contributors include Stephen Darwall, Miriam Griffin, Bonnie Kent, Brian Copenhaver, Patrice Rankine, Bernie Boxill, Mika LaVague-Manty, Charles Mills, Christine Henderson, Mustafa Shah, yours truly, and more! Oxford Philosophical Concepts is an exciting new approach to the history of philosophy. Its goal is to investigate key concepts in the history of philosophy. Each volume brings together eminent international scholars to present historically sound accounts of a single concept.
This entry takes up these questions. The goal is to provide a general guide to existing theory and debate, with a focus on philosophical approaches to human dignity, and mostly as it figures into the western tradition. (Direct Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=dignity)