Sentiment, care, and respect

Michael Slote proposes a rethinking of moral education from the perspective of a normative ethics of care combined with his distinctive sentimentalist metaethics. I raise questions concerning the role of empathy in Slote’s picture and argue that empathy is related to respect and sentiments through which we hold ourselves and one another accountable. Care in the sense of benevolent concern is a fundamentally different attitude from (recognition) respect: whereas the former is focused on its object’s well-being, the latter responds to a person’s dignity and authority to make claims and demands of us.