The Protection of Respect and Human Rights: Freedom of Choice and World Public Order

Abstract

In the fundamental sense with which we are here concerned, respect is defined as an interrelation among individual human beings in which they reciprocally recognize and honor each others' freedom of choice about participation in the value processes of the world community or any of its component parts. Respect includes not only the perspectives or perceptions of worth by which the individual is characterized by himself and others, but also the translation of these perspectives into the operative facts of social process. The relevant perspectives and operations extend to all the different values sought in social process and to the many distinctive institutional facilitations and deprivations by which freedom of choice is affected. In more precise specification, respect may be said to entail four particular outcomes: 1) a fundamental freedom of choice for all individuals regarding participation in all value processes; 2) an equality of opportunity for all individuals to have experiences that enable them to enjoy the widest range of effective choice in their interactions with others and to participate in all value processes in accordance with capability, that is, without discrimination for reasons irrelevant to capability; 3) additional rewards in deference to individuals who make preeminent contribution to common interests; and 4) an aggregate pattern of social interactions in which all individuals are protected in the utmost freedom of choice and subjected to the least possible governmental and private coercion.