Re-activating dignity
for the decent society:
on civic duties to combat
corrosive disrespect
Paul van den Berg
University of Amsterdam Law School
The Hague University of Applied Sciences
[email protected] [email protected]
ToC
• Lawful corrosive disrespect (LCD) in Margalit 1996
• 2016 examples, my analysis
• Typology of disrespect
• Conceptions of dignity relevant to legal citizenship
• Ways to combat LCD
• Expanding Margalit’s civility to civic civility
• Conclusion
M’s 1996 prophecy on
The Netherlands 2016?
“..the abstract attitude of the society’s institutions
might be a decent one, and all legitimate forms of
life would be tolerated, but in the practical behavior
of the representatives of these institutions
tolerance would be liable to disappear.” (1996,179)
“A decent society, but a suspect one”
> Lawful Corrosive Disrespect (LCD)
M’s 1996 position on LCD:
a topic for the civilized society,
but not for the decent society
Q: “Whether it is right to impose constraints on means of
expression in order to prevent humiliation”
A:“Other things being equal, restrictions on institutions are
more justified than restrictions on individuals.”
My thesis: concept of a Decent Liberal Society
must encompass concept of a Decent Citizenry
Common characteristics of LCD
• Shared context: liberal-democratic jurisdiction
• Shared office: full legal citizenship
• Target of disrespect is ‘un-addressed’ co-citizen
Act creates a rift between audience and target
• Effect: general diminution of citizenship-status
LCD= offensive neglect of citizenship
a non-recognition of equal legal status
Example 1:
‘Dou you want
more or less
Moroccans?’
• 6400 complaints filed
• Charges of insult, inciting hatred, discrimination
• Decision is now pending on pre-trial review
Example 2:
‘Get lost /
Fuck off!’
(‘Pleur op!’)
Example 3:
mobile caller
with obnoxious opinions
tele-cocooning (Haddon 2000): an
innocent civil inattention to
strangers? (Goffman 1963)
No, the new ‘shields of privacy’
facilitate offensive neglect
of equal status in public space
Which type of disrespect? 1996:
Offensive
neglect
Insult
Humiliation
Self-respect
Ungradable
type of injury to victim
Social honor
gradable
Which type of disrespect? 2016:
Offensive
neglect
Insult
Humiliation
Self-respect
Ungradable
type of injury to victim
Social honor
gradable
Which type of disrespect? 2016:
Technologically
mediated disrespect
Offensive
neglect
Insult
Humiliation
Co-present disrespect
Self-respect
Ungradable
type of injury to victim
Social honor
gradable
Which conception of dignity
relates best to legal membership?
Cicero:
Scanlon:
McRudden:
Waldron 2012:
•
•
honorable authority
a buck-passing
dignity ofaccount for other values
a placeholder
for the absence of
bystanders
agreement within the HR discourse
a status concept (not a value-concept):
“idea of a certain status that ought to be accredited to all persons
and taken seriously in the way they are ruled”
“Legal systems count on self-application, i.e. people’s capacities
for practical understanding, for self-control, for self-monitoring and
modulation of their own behaviour in relation to norms that they
can grasp and understand.”
Which conception of dignity? M 1996:
Negative justification of respect for humans,
contrasted withdignity
positiveof(trait)justifications
but also with skeptical
(attitudinal) justifications
bystanders
Passive
dignity
Vulnerability of
human belonging
Gattungswürde
Active
dignity
Self-respect
Persönliche Würde
Which conception of dignity
relates best to legal membership?
Active role-expectations of
the lib.dem. legal context
Dignity of all
as citizens
Active
dignity
Passive
dignity
Vulnerability of
human belonging
Type of dignity of victim
Self-guidance,
Self-application
Ways to combat offensive neglect
Add juridical measures:
• Toughen-up anti-discrimination laws
• Introduce Samaritan laws
Take non-juridical duties of civility seriously
• in legal theory;
• in moral theorizing on the Decent Society
Embracing civility in legal theory:
• Conventionalist legal theory: think of laws primarily as
patterns of social expectations (Den Hartogh)
• Conventionalist moral theory: see attitudes of respect also
as reactive responses to perceived disrespect (Strawson)
• Civility-ethics in support of formal legality: if social
expectations of dignity are already part of the concept of
law (Fuller, Waldron) then a well-ordered legal system gives
citizens reasons to publically uphold these expectations:
mutual recognition of legal status is a collective good.
Embracing civility in moral theory
Margalit 1996: duty of evasive civility
Attitude
Decency,
non-humiliation
Purpose
Prevention of cruelty
Protects self-regard in
terms of group-belonging;
special vulnerability of the
human animal
Berlin/ Shklar
‘Liberalism of fear’
Sources
evasive civility is not enough: Darwall (2006)
Attitude
Decency
Accountability
Type of Asymmetric:
duty
Duty of care
Symmetric:
Duty to hold the
other to account
Ground Passive dignity Active dignity
2nd personal authority
of
(human
Is raised in every
Respect vulnerability
and belonging) communicative address
Sources:
Kant2/ Fichte
‘liberalism of
recognition’
Problem for D.:
offensive neglect
denies 2nd p.Auth.
civic civility: 3 attitudes of respect
Attitude
Decency
Accountability Courtesy
‘Hoedend’
‘Herinnerend’
Purpose Prevent cruelty Affirm civic status
guard groupbelongings
Sources (Berlin/ Shklar)
Margalit
‘Hoffelijk’
public affirmation of
equal legal standing
Offer definition
of the situation
create sharable
understandings
(Kant2/ Fichte)
Darwall
(Goffman)
Sennett/ Walzer
Conclusion: re-activate dignity!
Variety of dignity-conceptions is
needed to ground duties of civility
civil
Attitude
Decency
Accountability Courtesy
Type of
duty
Universal,
asymmetric
Special,
Symmetric
Special,
Asymmetric
possible
ground
Passive dignity
Active dignity
Human
vulnerability
Authority ascribed
by jurisdictional
public space
Anticipated
active dignity
‘Openness’
in ambiguous
public spaces