Sveinbjorn Thordarson

Mér hefur ávallt þótt furðulegt þegar fólk segir að maður eigi að sýna skoðunum annara virðingu. Vissulega ætti maður að virða rétt fólks til þess að hafa hinar og þessar skoðanir, en hví sýna skoðununum sjálfum virðingu? Er virðing ekki eitthvað sem skoðanir þurfa að vinna sér inn? Ekki ber ég t.d. virðingu fyrir skoðunum nasista. Argumentum ad Hitlerum, Q.e.d.

Eftirfarandi snertir aðeins inn á þetta:

Simon Blackburn tells the story of being invited to dinner at a colleague‟s home and then being asked to participate in a religious observance prior to dinner. Blackburn declined, though his colleague said participating was merely a matter of showing “respect.” His host seems to have viewed this as a matter of simple "recognition" respect, but Blackburn interpreted it (perhaps rightly) as something more:

I would not be expected to respect the beliefs of flat earthers or those of the people who believed that the Hale-Bopp comet was a recycling facility for dead Californians who killed themselves in order to join it. Had my host stood up and asked me to toast the Hale-Bopp hopefuls, or to break bread or some such in token of fellowship with them, I would have been just as embarrassed and indeed angry. I lament and regret the holding of such beliefs, and I deplore the features of humanity that make them so common. I wish people were different.

Blackburn‟s reaction brings out starkly that "recognition" respect —which requires us to treat others as morality requires in virtue of some morally relevant attribute of theirs — does not entail that we view them as "appraisal" respect might require. Blackburn, himself, remarks that respect “is a tricky term” since it “seems to span a spectrum from simply not interfering, passing by on the other side, through admiration, right up to reverence and deference.” He dubs as “respect creep” the phenomenon by which “the request for minimal toleration turns into a demand for more substantial respect, such as fellow-feeling, or esteem, and finally deference and reverence,” which is what his dinner host expected, and which Blackburn declined to offer.

-- Brian Leiter, "Foundations of Religious Liberty: Toleration or Respect?" (2009)