Respect-due and respect-earned: negotiating student–teacher relationships

TLDR: In this paper, a distinction between minimal and full respect is made by separating respect-due from respect-earned, based on the assumption that children, possessing of human dignity, but without perspective and reasoning ability, are entitled to the most minimal respect.

Abstract: Respect is a cardinal virtue in schools and foundational to our common ethical beliefs, yet its meaning is muddled. For philosophers Kant, Mill, and Rawls, whose influential theories span three centuries, respect includes appreciation of universal human dignity, equality, and autonomy. In their view children, possessors of human dignity, but without perspective and reasoning ability, are entitled only to the most minimal respect. While undeserving of mutual respect they are nonetheless expected to show unilateral respect. Dewey and Piaget, scions of the same liberal tradition, grant children a larger degree of autonomy and equality thereby approximating the full respect conditions reserved for adults in the prior theories. In this article, after reviewing the premises of respect, I attempt to blend the divide – between minimal and full respect – by separating respect-due from respect-earned. While the former, premised on human dignity, should be granted unconditionally to all, the latter is contingent upo...