Australian Social Work

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Respect for persons

Mel Gray & J. A. Stofberg

To cite this article: Mel Gray & J. A. Stofberg (2000) Respect for persons, Australian Social Work,
53:3, 55-61, DOI: 10.1080/03124070008414316

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Published online: 01 Feb 2008.

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 Respect for persons
MEL GRAY* AND J. A. STOFBERG**

The notion of respect for persons is a key notion in moral philosophy as well as in social
work ethics. The Kantian notion of a person has, together with individualism, liberalism and
positivism, given rise to a strange ideological mixture which guided social work theory and
practice for some time. Gaitas concept of respect for human beings, examined in this paper,
contrasts with the poverty of this ideological mixture. Concepts such as goodness, remorse
and sensibility explain why Gaita sees the ethical as something that is both sui generis and
of the utmost practical importance. They clarify the irreplaceability of human beings, empha-
sise the need for moral agents to have historical integrity, and in general show that a moral
agent is much more substantial than a res cogituns. This paper attempts to indicate the rele-
vance of these considerations for social work.
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Key words historical overview of the concept of respect for

respect, values, ethics, goodness, remorse, persons as it features in social work literature and
sensibility outlines Gaitas philosophy of respect for persons.
Thereafter its implications for social work are
INTRODUCTION examined. Finally, it is shown that respect for
persons (and ethics in general), social work and
T HE paper puts forward an argument that
Raimond Gaitas approach to ethics, as outlined
in his book Good and evil: An absolute conception
politics are intrinsically related.

(1991), contains a notion of respect for persons
which is particularly relevant for social work today.
When compared with the way in which this concept
has traditionally been used in social work, shaped as
it was by Kantian and positivistic influences,
Gaitas notion of respect for persons is much richer.
Among other things, it implies a holistic view of
human beings that includes seeing their activities
within a political context. The paper begins with an
* Me1 Gray is Professor and Chair of Social Work at the
University of Newcastle (NSW). Prior to September
1999, she was Professor and Chair of Social Work at the
University of Natal in Durban, South Africa where she
taught for nineteen years. She is currently leading an
intervention research project on crime prevention in
schools.
(hrrp:/hww. und.ac.zdun~cadds/crimegrev-schoolsgroj.lr)
melgray @mail.newcastle.edu.au
** Professor Stofberg is Professor Emeritus of the
School of Philosophy at the University of Natal in
Durban, South Africa. He supervised Professor Grays
PhD thesis on the relationship between social work,
ethics and politics. They have taught joint courses on
values and ethics for social work students since 1989.
Professor Gray and Professor Stofberg are currently
conducting research into the moral education of
children.
stofbergi@mweb.co.za
RESPECT FOR PERSONS IN THE SOCIAL
WORK LITERATURE
For many writers, Immanuel Kants (1724-1804)
ethical theory (as set out in The Metaphysics of
Morals: Part 11) provides the philosophical foun-
dation for social works value of respect for persons.
According to Kant, freedom and rationality charac-
tense a person as a moral being. This accounts for
the dignity and autonomy of people and requires
that they be treated fairly, with respect, as ends in
themselves and not merely as means (Grassian
1981). Many social work writers see respect for per-
sons in this sense and select it as the supreme value
of social work, the fundamental, indispensable
moral principle from which all social work values
flow (Biestek & Gehrig 1978; Clark & Asquith
1985; Rhodes 1986; Spicker 1990; Timms 1983).
Early social workers tended to take an individ-
ualistic view of the person: individual moral free-
dom was seen in isolation from the environment in
which people lived. They focused on personal
factors contributing to peoples problems and
placed responsibility for solutions firmly in the
hands of individuals or families. They attempted to
distinguish between those who were moral and
therefore deserving of help and those who were not
(Franklin 1986; Woodroofe 1962). More recent crit-
icism of this emphasis on individual self control has
drawn attention to environmental constraints which

Australian Social Work September, 2000, Vol. 53, No. 3 55

 inhibit individual freedom and autonomy, and co-
determine the persons individuality.
The notion of individual moral freedom was rein-
forced by liberalisms emphasis on the individuals
right to freedom from interference by others. This
view saw individuals and families as primarily
responsible for their own welfare and posited a
policy of minimal government interference in
peoples lives. This, along with positivism, exerted
a strong influence on the development of social
work theory and practice (Franklin 1986, 1990;
Goldstein 1973).
Although positivism is not intrinsically indiv-
idualistic, but rather generalistic in that it sees indi-
vidual cases as instances of general laws, it was
used in social work within an individualistic frame-
work. Positivistic methods were applied to indiv-
idual cases as attempts were made to reduce people
and/or their behaviour to measurable and pre-
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dictable components. The reduction of individuals
to quantifiable entities, and the gradual adoption of
a deterministic view of human nature, predictable in
terms of antecedents and consequences, clashed
with the value of respect for human beings and
raised questions as to the extent of individual free-
dom. What real choice did individuals have if the
identification of behavioural antecedents and their
consequences could help social workers manipulate
variables and produce desired behavioural out-
comes? Ethical concerns about the desirability of
manipulating antecedents and consequences were
largely ignored in the rush of scientific excitement.
The scientific method had considerable appeal for
social workers who were eager to systematise their
theory and practice in their quest for professional
status in society (Goldstein 1973, 1990; Hamilton
1976).
Despite their cognisance of the social context,
social workers tended to make the individual their
point of focus since this was the way of the
established professions. They believed that case-
work (with its focus primarily on individuals and
families) would enhance their professional status.
By focusing on individual problems rather than on
social issues, social work was firmly entrenching
itself in the srurus quo and adopting a role which
supported the established social order. Professional
status was achieved by adopting a conservative
stance focused on helping individuals adjust to
society rather than on changing the social system
which gave rise to and maintained their problems.
Needless to say, this individualistic approach, by
ignoring the social and political context which
belong essentially to what a person is, could not do
justice to the notion of respect for persons.
Over concern with professionalism and the
empirical approach led to calls from within the pro-
fession for social work to return to its humanistic
value base (Wilkes 1981) and to its concern with
56 Australian Social Work SeDtemher. 200. Vol. 53. No.3
Focial reform (Biklen 1983). Humanism called for a
more humane approach to people and focused on
the potential of individuals to achieve control over
their own lives. However, it shared liberalisms
individualistic view of persons and the unresolved
tension between this and social works concern for
social reform remained.
The ideology of socialism questioned individual-
ism and ameliorative intervention, favouring tactics
of radical social change. Social works political role
was highlighted and questions relating to the com-
patibility between the value of respect for persons
and collective interests arose (Bailey & Brake 1975;
Conigan & Leonard 1978; Galper 1980).
It is clear that people remained the central con-
cern of social work despite criticism of its individ-
ualistic focus, its resultant failure to appreciate
broader social interests and to promote social
justice. The traditional philosophical approach tried
to establish reasons why people ought to be respect-
ed, and the brief historical overview shows the way
in which this value has been affected by changing
ideological influences. It is argued, however, that
Raimond Gaita (1991) has a more comprehensive
and richer notion of respect for persons which
makes it easy to see the implications of this notion
for social and political issues.
GAITAS APPROACH TO RESPECT FOR
PERSONS
Gaitas conception of respect for persons, and of
ethics in general, is very appropriate to social work
practice, especially since he views morality as not
simply a functional phenomenon; it is not merely a
tool used to serve independently describable human
needs. Morality has another side which does more
justice to the concept of respect for persons than
simply seeing it in terms of serving the needs of
other people, however important this might be. A
few key aspects of Gaitas conception of morality
are highlighted in order to provide a context for
understanding his concept of respect for persons.
According to Gaita, the most important concept
in morality is that of goodnesswhich he interprets,
like Plato, as something indestructible, absolute and
separate from this world. The Good is not so much
an object of pursuit, but that in the light of which we
and our pursuits are judged. As far as virtues are
concerned, also the virtues specific to social work
practice, we may say that they partake in that good-
ness as it is revealed in action. Gaita quotes
Murdoch (1970) saying that the background to
morals is, properly, some sort of mysticism, if by
this is meant an undogmatic, essentially unformu-
lated faith in the reality of the Good occasionally
connected with experience (p. 213-214). Pure love,
and the humility linked to it, strike us not as
achievements, but rather as gifts. Gaita speaks of
 wondering at what we take to be instances of pure
love (p. 204). Refemng to Mother Theresa, he says,
What I wonder at is a compassion that is without a
trace of condescension even though it is often for
people in the most appalling and ineradicable afflic-
tion. Her love reveals what it is to be a human
being, because of the light that her love throws on
the afflicted (p. 206). The wonder is not a wonder
at her, but a wonder that human life could be as her
love reveals it... There is a sense in which she dis-
appears from consideration (p. 206). Thus
Goodness is beyond virtue since to be treated justly
is not merely to receive certain benefits or goods,
but also to receive just treatment as a distinct and
irreducible object of gratitude (p. 78).
Just as goodness is beyond virtue, so evil is
beyond vice in the sense that, for example, murder-
ing somebody is more than merely depriving him or
her of an independently describable natural human
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good such as life. The victim suffers the evil of
death and the evil of having been murdered: The
victim of injustice suffers not merely a determinate
form of natural harm ... but, also, the injustice of it,
which is a separate and irreducible cause of their
torment (p. 78). The victims of injustice are, more-
over, not only those who are directly targeted by
murderers (for example), but also those for the sake
of whom those murders are committed. They are,
therefore, not seen as human beings who can suffer
the moral harm of being implicated in the evil being
done for their sakes(p. 72).
According to Gaita, one of the most important
concepts for understanding what morality is about,
is the concept of remorse. In remorse, as the
sufferingrecognition and acknowledgmentof ones
guilt (p. 49), we discover the radically singular I
who cannot find consolation in the we of fellow-
ship, or in the knowledge that the best of peopie
have also done what we have done, that others are
also guilty. The focus of remorse is not on charac-
ter, virtues, vices, on what is humanly possible, but
on what we have become only because we have
become evil-doers (p. 50). In remorse, the guilty
find no relief in a humbling acknowledgment of
their humanity (p. 50). These thoughts might
prompt one to speak of the ethical as something sui
generis, as something irreducible to a humanist
understanding of it - an understanding in terms of
the notions of character, virtues, vices, and what is
humanly possible (pp. 49-50, 91).
Time alone cannot heal guilty suffering. What
may heal it is as strange as the suffering: repent-
ance, atonement, forgiveness, punishment (p. 5 1).
Remorse is the awakened sense of the reality, indi-
viduality, irreplaceability, uniqueness and pre-
ciousness of the other (pp. 50-51, 156-159). It is,
amongst other things, a disciplined remembrance
of the moral significance of what we did - disci-
plined, because it must avoid self-deceiving
Australian Social Work
redescriptions and the corruptions peculiar to
remorse itself, self-abasement, morbidity, and many
others (p. 58). It is therefore clear that remorse is
not a mere feeling, or a mere attitude. Remorse
requires lucidity, and is linked to responsibility in
the sense of striving for a lucid response (p. 44)to
the significance of what one did. Understanding this
includes grasping the individuality of the other, as
well as being haunted by that individual other as a
fellow human being. This requires that the other be
seen as one who could be someones friend, or
husband, or wife, or lover; as an intelligible object
of ones remorse or of certain kinds of sympathies.
It requires taking others seriously and seeing their
desires and projects as those of irreplaceable
individuals (pp. 100-101, 153, 155).
It is clear that moral understanding requires a
kind of integrity, a moral subject who is more sub-
stantial than merely a rational agent (p. 57). When
evildoers say in remorse My God, what have I
done! (p. 5 ) , they do not mean to say that they have
been traitors to reason or that they have violated
rational nature in another or that they have violated
a universally prescribed principle (p. 33, 150,
236). Gaita emphasises the inter-dependence of
understanding and response, an interdependence
which is sometimes conveyed by the word sensi-
bility (p. 35, 277). His plea for a richer conception
of a moral subject is also a plea for a richer con-
ception of critical thinking and of the relation
between thought and feeling than is presently avail-
able in the mainstream philosophical tradition
(P. 40).
The integration of reason and a proper response
to anothers call to seriousness, presupposes a sub-
ject whose thinking is especially called forth in
practice (p. 108) as opposed to merely being about
practice - as happens in an impersonal kind of
practical thinking. The subject must be more sub-
stantial than a merely rational agent (p. 59), whose
impersonal moral deliberation underlies the (over)
emphasis on the universalisability thesis (p. 108).
Thus instead of speaking of moral knowledge, it is
more natural to speak of a depth of moral under-
standing or of wisdom, and it is not accidental to
these that their achievement takes time (p. 270).
What is required is an historically achieved indiv-
iduality. Our lives must have a certain kind of unity
which involves a truthful responsibility for and to
our past (p. 271). What is needed is integrity as a
kind of integration in time, truthfulness over time, a
fidelity to what is past, and a degree of lucidity
about its meaning (p. 272, cf. also 130). Only then
can we have something to say on moral matters,
can we be present in what we say to others
(p. 273). It is clear why Gaita says history is acci-
dental to a res cogituns and why he rejects Kants
approach: Wisdom, and our fitness to offer moral
advice, depend upon a kind of energy, a vital
Seotember. 2000. Vol. 53. No. 3 57
 responsiveness, quite different from Kants rational
will (p. 277).
In light of this outline of aspects of Gaitas
approach to morality, it should be clear that his
notion of respect for persons has many sides to it,
and is richer than Kants concept of respect for
people as (rational) ends in themselves. First of all,
Gaita holds that we owe people unconditional
respect -even the Nazi is owed respect. Respect is
owed for what a person IS, not for what he or she
does. All persons are unique, irreplaceable individ-
uals, the lovers or husbands, or wives, or friends of
others. As such, all persons are intelligible objects
of remorse, or love. This includes evildoers but
unconditional respect does not mean that evildoers
like Hitler, for example, should not have been
stopped, perhaps even killed. However, even then
this should not be done in the spirit of ridding the
world of vermin (p. 95). There is, says Gaita, no
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deed or life so evil that it is beyond the reach of a
sober remorse (p. 8). Unconditional respect means,
among other things, that we owe ALL people
justice. This is supported by Gaitas interpretation
of the injunction that we should not treat other
people merely as means to our ends but as ends in
themselves. It is a reminder that persons are (or
should be) an absolute limit to our wills of a kind
unlike anything else in nature (p. 31). Just as no
person is to be treated, on any occasion, only as a
means to an end, so no person is to be treated, on
any occasion, only as someone who is replaceable.
They must be treated on every occasion in ways
which reflect that their individuality conditions the
way they limit our will (p. 154).
It is clear why Gaita argues that abstract, tech-
nical explanations regarding treating people as ends
in themselves, or treating them justly, cannot
express moralitys peculiar kind of seriousness (p.
32). However, it is important to add that the more
complex the situation, the more technical our
analyses become. Our ways of making sense of
things can move, on the continuum of understand-
ing, from very technical and abstract to very con-
crete and rich. However, the important point is that,
wherever we find ourselves on that continuum and
whatever we do on the basis of our efforts to make
sense of something, we should always act within the
context of moralitys peculiar kind of seriousness.
Above all, we should be aware of the ways our will
is limited by the individuality and irreplaceability of
others. Unconditional respect and technical deliber-
ations need not conflict with one another.
Gaita compares the relationship between morali-
ty and moral virtues with that between craftsmen
and the furniture made by them. They care for the
wood in ways which are not reducible to its func-
tional properties, although it cannot be entirely
independent of functional considerations either
(p. 87). Craftsmen and all those who understand
58 Australian Social Work September, 2000, Vol. 53,No. 3
themselves in terms of having a vocation, are
engaged in a limitless process of self-exploration
through an exploration of what they do (p. 87).
What they are and what they do come together in
the concept of what it is to be a craftsman or a
teacher or a nurse, or a social worker. Caring for the
wood, or for the other, is not reducible to a purely
functional relationship to them, which is relatively
transparent. Morality has a dimension of resistant
opacity: the caring exploration of self and other is
limitless. It is something that has a value, a quality
that is irreducible to merely serving the needs of
others. It is something that can be appreciated for its
own sake. In the same way, wisdom must be distin-
guished from expertise. Of necessity, morality does
serve our human needs and we do need the virtues
in our response to human needs. However, virtues
must be seen in terms of both their functional,
serving aspect and their irreducible quality which
discloses the unique and irreplaceable othernessof
the other. Serving the needs of others must take
place within the context of respecting and exploring
the othernessof others.
Gaitas notion of respect for the other is also pre-
sent in his preference for a dialogical metaphor,
rather than a metaphor of vision: We live in a world
bathed in speech ... Rather than saying that we see
a (moral) situation I would prefer to say that we let
it speak to us and are claimed in response (p. 141).
This requires the willingness to listen to the other
and to respond appropriately. In a world bathed in
speech, words may occasion wisdom (p. 226) but
they could also occasion misunderstanding, disre-
spect and untruth. While we must listen to others,
our respect for them must also be critical, keeping
in mind that we have no transcendental vantage
point from where to assess all opinion (p. 142).
Unconditional respect therefore includes humility
(also because there can be no manual of morals,
p. 105) and excludes uncritical admiration.
IMPLICATIONS OF GAIIAS THEORY FOR
SOCIAL WORK
It may be useful to summarise key elements of
Gaitas concept of respect for persons as it has
emerged in this overview of important aspects of his
ethics. The relevance of these elements for social
work is also indicated.
1. Gaita says of the concept of goodness, which
is fundamental to his ethics that it is not so
much an object of pursuit than that in the light
of which we and our pursuits are judged. In
other words, we do not respect people for
being perfect examples of goodness, or even
for striving towards goodness, but simply
because of what it is to be a human being.
2. What it is to be a human being includes being
a friend, a husband, a wife, a lover, someones
 child, a precious and irreplaceable individual
who has a unique place or role within a com-
plex network of relationships and projects.
The social workers respect for clients neces-
sarily requires, holistically, knowledge of such
networks and of the changing cultural and
environmental contexts by which they are
conditioned. Respect cannot be shown for
solipsistic or abstract individuals because they
do not exist.
3. Respect for people is not simply either an
emotional issue, or a rational issue; it requires
the integration of thought and feeling. It
involves knowledge of the contextual net-
works within which individuals exist; a striv-
ing for lucidity, for the right words, which
may occasion wisdom (p. 226); and a funda-
mental sympathy, a compassion for the other,
a wanting to help and understand the other
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within the complexity of his or her life-
situation and history. Being professional does
not imply the absence of compassion in the
social worker; it does not imply that the social
worker should be present to the other only as a
res cogitans.
4. Respect for the other excludes seeing him or
her as a human being with lesser status; it
requires that the other be seen as an intelligible
object of ones remorse and of certain kinds of
sympathies. A slave-owner cannot respect a
slave, or a criminal his or her victim, or a
social worker a client when the client is seen
as a being who is reduced to being poor, or
ignorant, or an alcoholic, or an abuser of
children, or a criminal. This disrespectful
reduction of human beings ignores the ways in
which they should be, as Gaita puts it, limits to
our will.
5 . Respect for people implies our authentic
response to anothers call to seriousness. It
reveals our being present in what we say and
do. However, this kind of presence to others
requires that the social worker has an histori-
cally achieved individuality: integrity as a
kind of integration in time, a truthful accept-
ance of his or her past and a degree of lucidity
about its meaning (p. 272). Knowing oneself
requires this kind of integrity and exploration
of oneself, which is essential for being
authentically present to the client as the unique
and irreplaceable other.
6. Respect for people excludes doing evil for
their sake, so as not to implicate them in this
evil. The social worker implicates a client in
evil when the interests of the client are sup-
ported by treating other people involved in the
situation unjustly and uncaringly.
7. Unconditional respect, and technical delibera-
tions, need not conflict with each other. Situa-
Australian Social Work
tions could be very complicated, where careful
analysis is needed, where different principles
could be in conflict with one another, where
peoples interests clash and where they have to
be weighed against each other in order to find
the ovemding one(s). In situations such as
these, the social workers moral and other
deliberations often cannot avoid being compli-
cated and technical. However, such delibera-
tions and the decisions based on them, must
happen within the context of unconditional
respect for everybody involved, in awareness
of, as Gaita says, the ways our will is limited
by the individuality and irreplaceability of
others. Even when the social worker has to
take decisions experienced by the other as
undermining his or her own interests, this must
always be done in a respectful way, with
sympathy for the suffering of the other, even if
the suffering is seen as something they have
brought upon themselves. Having brought suf-
fering upon oneself does not lessen it; it would
rather increase it, especially if accompanied
by some kind of remorse.
8. In respecting others we should not merely see
them as objects, or subjects with needs which
have to be serviced. The virtues appropriate
to social work practice (such as honesty, fair-
ness and acceptance) are not simply functional
tools used to service client needs. Such an
approach would be analogous to that of people
thinking of themselves as res cogitans, practis-
ing an idealised and abstract form of thinking.
A social worker practises such a form of think-
ing when he or she reduces himherself to a
social tool, driven by a functional conception
of the virtues proper to social work practice,
aimed at effectively servicing the needs of
people reduced to clients in the sense of ser-
viceable objects. Morality (including the
virtues) has, as we have seen, a dimension of
resistant opacity: the limitless caring
exploration of self and other. Without this
dimension, serving the needs of others comes
close to treating them merely as means to our
own ends, determining for them what their
needs are and how they should be serviced. It
becomes a one-directional power game,
instead of an occasion for mutual exploration,
respect and assistance.
9.Respect for others does not imply being
uncritical. Healthy and respectful criticism is
part of meaningful communication and part of
the caring exploration of self and other. In this
nobody has a transcendental vantage point,
nobody has a manual with prescribed solutions
to problems which might present themselves.
Humility, and the awareness that we are all
searching for ways to improve the quality of
September, 2000, Vol. 53, No. 3 59
 our lives, and that we all make mistakes, are
part of what it is to respect each other.
Criticism which is destructive of the others
humanity is disrespectful but criticism which
is based on a careful analysis of the others
problem situation and which, at the same time,
is open to correction, is an extension of respect
for the other.
RESPECT FOR PERSONS, SOCIAL WORK
AND POLITICS
Politics, in the wide sense, has to do with
policies: the policies of the state, of religious
groups, of the private sector, of cultural movements,
of sporting bodies, of social institutions, and the
like. Justice, in general, is concerned with the way
in which these policies affect individuals and
groups, and the interrelated networks of social
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relationships. In an unjust state, for example, the
policies of the state will create asymmetrical power
relations, not allowing other kinds of policies to
contribute in a just and democratic way to the well-
being of society as a whole.
Respect for persons must be holistic in that it
must include, in the caring exploration of the other,
involvement with the interrelated networks of
relationships which contextualise individuals. It
must be political in the sense that it is concerned
with all the policies determining these networks of
relationships. It is concerned with the justice or
injustice of these policies because, in respecting
people and in caring for them, we owe them justice.
Policies express values or rules for social behaviour.
Among the most basic of such policies, are moral
rules or guidelines. As Strawson (1974) has pointed
out, people can only co-exist in a group if certain
minimum moral rules (such as non-maleficence,
beneficence, justice and non-deception) are, at least
to a certain extent, obeyed by the members of the
group at least some of the time. Such rules are
necessary (although not sufficient) conditions for
social co-existence. To this extent, politics and
morality are one and the same (Gray 1993, 1995).
At least some policies express moral values. If
policies express asymmetrical power relations, they
also express a lack of respect for human beings.
Policies can force people to show a certain mini-
mum of legalistic respect to each other, for
example, by prohibiting them from interfering in
each others legitimate private projects, or by forc-
ing them to provide services to each other when
they are entitled to those services. However, the
notion of respect for persons goes far beyond this
legalistic sense, as Gaita has shown. The deep,
moral sense of respect which he emphasised, is not
something which can be enforced by policies.
Human existence is more than what can be covered
or guaranteed by policies and by the power built
60 Australian Social Work September, 2000, Vol. 53, No. 3
into them. However, the least that policies should do
is allow space for the respectful and creative mutual
exploration of self and other within the context of
social networks.
Gaitas notion of respect for people can be recon-
ciled fully with Foucaults ethics and his views on
power. Bemauer and Mahon (1994) are correct
when they state that Foucaults ethics is an invita-
tion to a practice of liberty, to struggle and trans-
gression, which seeks to open possibilities for new
relations to self and events in the world (p. 154) and
that Foucaults thought moved toward an ever-
expanding embrace of otherness, the condition for
any community of moral action (p. 155). The free-
dom he has in mind involves an engagement with
the numberless potential transgressions of those
forces that war against our self-creation. They also
quote Foucault as saying that we should struggle not
only against the fascism of the historical variety,
but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in
our everyday behaviour, the fascism that causes us
to love power, to desire the very thing that domi-
nates and exploits us (pp. 154-155). Such a strug-
gle against the fascism in us all, and against asym-
metrical power relations, is far removed from an
individualistic conception of the human being.
Ethics is concerned with what is good and bad
for people, for animals, and for the environment.
Because the human being is intrinsically a con-
textual being, political justice, for example, has
implications for justice in social work relationships,
in medicine, in business, in animal and environ-
mental issues. The complexity of these interrelated
networks, and its implications for ethics, can never
be analysed exhaustively because of the dynamic
and changing nature of such networks of relation-
ships. However, it is one of the tasks of ethics and
disciplines such as social work to analyse the inter-
relatedness of these networks as far as possible
within a specific cultural and environmental and
historical context. The implications of such
analyses for the notion of respect for people will be
relatively different as we go from one context to the
next and will have to be spelt out in each case. This
is even more important in multicultural societies.
CONCLUSION
Gaita provides a rich understanding of what it
means to respect people as unique and irreplace-
able. Their humanity makes them worthy of respect
and their capacity for remorse makes every person
an intelligible object for social work concern.
Gaitas conception of respect includes an under-
standing of the kind of society needed for people to
lead fulfilling lives. It also makes us acutely aware
that we need social workers who look to see where
injustice is structurally contained and who are com-
mitted to intervening to change social structures. Of
 necessity, this involves moral and political aware-
ness and an understanding of the complexities of
social and cultural systems. All of this is essential
for social workers who want to base their social
services on a deep and rich conception of the notion
of respect for persons.
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Article accepted for publication Ju/y 2000.

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