Respect and the Second-Person Standpoint

Abstract

I'd like to rethink with you the nature of for persons. We'll begin with a video clip that features an underappreciated Michigan ethicist (from Detroit and now Bloomfield Hills): Aretha Franklin. Among the many songs for which Aretha is justly famous, of course, is her 1960s Respect, which advances the give me my propers view that illustrates the sort of thing I had in mind by recognition respect when I first thought about this topic back in the 1970s.2 The clip illustrates what I now think is necessary for an improved understanding of respect, namely, the centrality of a second-person standpoint. I will attempt to follow Aretha's lead (yet again) and develop such an account. The clip is from the Blues Brothers (set here in Chicago). Jake and Ellwood have just come into a soul food diner on the Southside looking for their former guitar man, Matt Guitar Murphy, to get him to go back on the road with the band and the following ensues. [Play your tape or DVD of the Blues Brothers here. ]