Thomas E. Hill, Jr., on Self-Respect

 

The servile person:

  1. Attitude: what he values is not as important as what others value
  2.  The self-deprecator: 
    1. Does not make demands of others
    2. Aware of inadequacies and failures
    3. “Content to be the instrument of others”
  3. The deferential wife
    1. Devoted to service to her husband
    2. She loves him, but has no interests of her own, no values, no ideals

 

Note the differences between cases of servility and appropriate deference to the expertise of others.  “To defer to an expert’s udgment on matters of fact is not to be servile; to defer to his every wish and whim is.”

 

Are the attitudes of the self-deprecating “Uncle Tom” (or any other self-deprecator) and the servile wife morally objectionable?  Why?

 

  1. The “Uncle Tom” is making a moral error – even if, on utilitarian grounds, his behavior is satisfactory to others.
  2. How about the claim that the servile person deserves more than he allows himself to have?
    1. What is the character of this argument?  Hill claims it is no better than the argument of the utilitarian.  There is a distinction between saying that a person deserves respect on the basis of his merits and saying that he deserves respect as a person.
  3. How about the argument for the capacities a person has?
    1. “The Uncle Tom and the Deferential Wife … may in fact have quite limited capacities …, and, since the Self-Deprecator is already overly concerned with his own inadequacies, drawing attention to his capacities seems a poor way to increase his self-respect.  … What the servile person seems to overlook is something by virtue of which he is equal with every other person.”

 

  1. Hill’s analysis of the servile person:
    1. The “moral defect” is “a failure to understand and acknowledge one’s own moral rights.”  Basic human rights – you only have to be human to qualify for them.

                                                                                             i.         The “Uncle Tom” has the attitude that denies his moral equality with whites.

                                                                                          ii.         The self-deprecator is more complex.  He acts as though he has forfeited rights that he has not forfeited – i.e., there are some rights that do not have to be earned by anyone – such as humane and decent treatment.

                                                                                       iii.         The deferential wife SAYS that she understands her rights, but it is not clear in every case that she does.  She only forfeits her rights under certain conditions.  When consent is coerced, for example, when she has no VIABLE options in the society in which she lives, then her (supposed) CONSENT is questionable.

 

  1. There are, then, two basic types of servility – or there are two basic causes of it:
    1. Misunderstanding one’s own rights
    2. Placing a low value on one’s rights

 

In either of these cases, servility is a manifestation of lack of self-respect.

 

  1. Why is servility a moral defect?
    1. A Kantian Argument

                                                                                             i.         There are basic equal human rights.  A person can only forfeit them under very stringent conditions.  Some rights are not earned, some rights cannot be forfeited.

                                                                                          ii.         A servile person tends to deny moral rights to himself because he does not understand them or he has little concern for the status they give him.

                                                                                       iii.         “Each person ought, as far as possible, to respect the moral law.”  “The essentially Kantian idea here is that morality, as a system of equal fundamental rights and duties, is worthy of respect, and hence a completely moral person would respect it in word and manner as well as in deed.  And what a completely moral person would do, in Kant’s view, is our duty to do so far as we can.”

    1. “Even if there are no specific rights which cannot be waived, there might be at least one formal right of this sort.  This is the right to some minimum degree of respect from others.  No matter how willing a person is to submit to humiliation by others, they ought to show him some respect as a person.  By analogy with self-respect, as presented here, this respect owed by others would consist of a willingness to acknowledge fully, in word as well as action, the person’s basically equal moral status ….  To the extent that a person gives even tacit consent to humiliations incompatible with this respect, he will be acting as if he waives a right which he cannot in fact give up.  To do this, barring special explanations, would mark one as servile.”

 

Hill’s conclusion:  “Kant suggests that duties to oneself are a precondition of duties to others.  On our account of servility, there is at least one sense in which this is so.  Insofar as the servile person is ignorant of his own rights, he is not in an adequate position to appreciate the rights of others.  Misunderstanding the moral basis for his equal status with others, he is necessarily liable to underestimate the rights of those with whom he classifies himself.  On the other hand, if he plays the servile role knowingly, then, barring special explanation, he displays a lack of concern to see the principles of morality acknowledged and respected and thus the absence of one motive which can move a moral person to respect the rights of others.  In either case, the servile person’s lack of self-respect necessarily puts him in a less than ideal position to respect others.  Failure to fulfill one’s duty to oneself, then, renders a person liable to violate duties to others. This, however, is a consequence of our argument against servility, not a presupposition of it.”