Self-Respect

Self-respect is a sense of one's worth. Theorists disagree, however, about what kind of worth it is a sense of. According to various accounts, people with selfrespect believe that they have full moral status, try to live up to certain ideals, and have a morally good character. Most agree that self-respect differs from self-esteem, though these concepts are related and are sometimes used interchangeably. Self-esteem and self-respect both involve evaluations of the self, but the latter is a specifically moral evaluation. The concept of self-respect has played a larger role in debates in moral and political philosophy than in debates in business ethics. When self-respect is appealed to in discussions of business ethics, it is usually in the service of an argument for workers' rights, ...