The Ethic of Respect, whether at the level of consistency or of consideration, involves actions taken by a person that affect another. The distinction is the taking of action as opposed to refraining from action. Any discussion of the appropriateness of action will have to distinguish among types of action as well as among relationships between and among persons.
It is clear, I think, that the types of actions I might be justified in taking with respect to, say, my wife or child will be different from those that I might be justified in taking toward a stranger. And those that I might take toward a stranger who might be standing before me will be different from those that I might take with respect to strangers at a distance.
The issue of justification also assumes different requirements depending on the relationship of the parties, I would argue. The distinction between what I have a right to do versus what I have an obligation or duty to do, will vary depending on my relationship to the person acted upon. And, again, the answer will be different in cases of action toward a friend than it will be for action toward a stranger.
In a recent post on the issue of restraint in common law an example was given of a person in a boat on a lake who witnesses a drowning child. In the case cited the law held that the person had no obligation to save the child except if he were the cause of the child’s situation. So, an obligation to correct the potentially deadly result of the man’s own action is understood. Not addressed in that case, but implied in the discussion, is the sense that the man has a right to save the child.
And, in fact, it seems unambiguous that a person witnessing another in potentially deadly danger has the right by (essentially) natural law and common morality to attempt to save the person.
[We’ll disregard all of the possible ways in which this might be affected by other unlikely conditions e.g. the individual is in the process of taking another critically wounded person to the hospital and risks the death of that person if he turns aside to help another. We’ll just assume the “absent special conditions” clause of Scanlon’s contractualism.]
The saving of a life, as an example of a condition that supports the right to act, suggests a range of lesser physical issues that might also support an essentially unquestioned right to intervene in another’s life. Those who are starving, dying of thirst or exposure to the elements, threatened by others or by animals or otherwise in clear physical distress or want, might represent a class of conditions supporting the right to act.
Those kinds of physiological threats make up the lower tiers of Abraham Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of needs. It seems to me that looking at that need hierarchy can help us to think about the kinds of actions that I might be entitled to take with regard to another, depending on my relationship to the person affected.
Maslow’s initial presentation of his needs structure had five levels, but he later published a revision that has seven levels. Those are, from bottom-up:
Biological and Physical Need, which are “basic life needs” such as food, air, drink, shelter etc.
Safety Needs, including protection, security, order, laws, limits, etc.
Belongingness and Love Needs, such as family, affection, relationships, etc.
Esteem Needs, such as achievement, status, responsibility, reputation, etc.
Cognitive Needs, such as knowledge, meaning and self-awareness,
Aesthetic Needs, such as beauty, balance, form, etc.
Self-actualization Needs, by which he means personal growth and fulfillment.
As we look at this structure of basic human needs and ask which of these can give rise to a right by one person to take action affecting another, I think it provides an interesting tool.
For example, the lower two tiers of need seem to be clearly distinguished from the upper five. That is, it might be considered that one has the right to act towards another to assist in meeting biological, physical and safety needs in a way that is quite different from that in meeting belongingness or love needs.
It might be thought that I have a right to offer assistance in meeting another’s belongingness needs only if some sort of (even tacit) agreement between us allows that. On the other hand, giving food to a starving person is probably not dependent on having reached prior agreement.
In the middle tiers of need I might find myself “authorized” to act by means of formal relationship such as marriage, parenthood, friendship, etc.
At the higher end of the scale my ability to assist another is likely quite limited. Self-actualization as Maslow has used the term almost requires that it be the result of an individual’s own actions. To the extent that satisfying higher-level needs might be helped by the actions of others, it is more likely that the effective action will result from a clear understanding of and response to the other’s desires. And that takes us to the end of the spectrum that Karl Popper called the Platinum Rule.
The Maslow model doesn’t answer the question of rights, duties, obligations, consistency or consideration, but I think it can help to structure a discussion about distinctions that we will have to make among those things as we seek answers.
©Charles R. Lightner