Your search for: self AND respect

In this stunningly original treasure of a book that reveals the single most powerful ingredient in any relationship, whether personal, professional, or in public life, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot reaches deep into human experience -- from the drama of birth to the solemn vigil before death -- to find ...

In this stunningly original treasure of a book that reveals the single most powerful ingredient in any relationship, whether personal, professional, or in public life, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot reaches deep into human experience -- from the drama of birth to the solemn vigil before death -- to find the essence of respect. In her moving vision, respect is not the passive deference offered a superior but an active force that creates symmetry even in unequal relationships. The reader becomes an eyewitness to the empowering nature of respect, both given and received -- be it between doctor and patient, teacher and student, photographer and subject, or midwife and laboring mother. A book to be savored and shared, Respect has the power to change lives.

Cultures around the world have regarded self-fulfillment as the ultimate goal of human striving and as the fundamental test of the goodness of a human life. The ideal has also been criticized, however, as egotistical or as so value-neutral that it fails to distinguish between, for example ...

Cultures around the world have regarded self-fulfillment as the ultimate goal of human striving and as the fundamental test of the goodness of a human life. The ideal has also been criticized, however, as egotistical or as so value-neutral that it fails to distinguish between, for example, self-fulfilled sinners and self-fulfilled saints. Alan Gewirth presents here a systematic and highly original study of self-fulfillment that seeks to overcome these and other arguments and to justify the high place that the ideal has been accorded. He does so by developing an ethical theory that ultimately grounds the value of self-fulfillment in the idea of the dignity of human beings.Gewirth begins by distinguishing two models of self- fulfillment--aspiration-fulfillment and capacity-fulfillment--and shows how each of these contributes to the intrinsic value of human life. He then distinguishes between three types of morality--universalist, particularist, and personalist--and shows how each contributes to the values embodied in self-fulfillment. Building on these ideas, he develops a Odialectical' conception of reason that shows how human rights are central to self-fulfillment. Gewirth also argues that self-fulfillment has a social as well as an individual dimension: that the nature of society and the obstacles that disadvantaged groups face affect strongly the character of the self-fulfillment that persons can achieve.Bold in scope and rigorous in execution, Self-Fulfillment is a powerful new contribution to moral, social, and political philosophy.