Key Arguments

• Ricoeur explicitly posits a structural correspondence between the ethical and moral levels of reflexivity: "It results from this that self- respect, which on the moral plane answers to self-esteem on the ethical plane, will reach its full meaning only at the end of the third stage."
• He specifies the condition for this 'full meaning': it is when "respect for the norm will have blossomed into respect for others and for 'oneself as another,' and when respect will be extended to anyone who has the right to expect his or her just share in an equitable distribution," thus tying self-respect intrinsically to respect for others and to distributive justice.
• He insists on a structural homology: "Self-respect has the same complex structure as self-esteem.", reiterating that the threefold articulation of the ethical aim is mirrored on the moral plane.
• He then offers a concise formula capturing their relation: "Self-respect is self-esteem under the reign of", indicating that moral self-relation is ethical self-esteem transformed and governed by the authority of the norm (the missing completion 'the norm' is clearly implied by the immediately preceding clauses about the 'reign' of the norm).

Source Quotes

In the course of the third stage we shall continue our investigation into the sense of justice, at the moment when the latter becomes the rule of justice, under the aegis of moral formalism extended from interpersonal relations to social relations and to the institutions that underlie them. It results from this that self- respect, which on the moral plane answers to self-esteem on the ethical plane, will reach its full meaning only at the end of the third stage, when respect for the norm will have blossomed into respect for others and for "oneself as another," and when respect will be extended to anyone who has the right to expect his or her just share in an equitable distribution. Self-respect has the same complex structure as self-esteem.

It results from this that self- respect, which on the moral plane answers to self-esteem on the ethical plane, will reach its full meaning only at the end of the third stage, when respect for the norm will have blossomed into respect for others and for "oneself as another," and when respect will be extended to anyone who has the right to expect his or her just share in an equitable distribution. Self-respect has the same complex structure as self-esteem. Self-respect is self-esteem under the reign of

Self-respect has the same complex structure as self-esteem. Self-respect is self-esteem under the reign of

Key Concepts

• It results from this that self- respect, which on the moral plane answers to self-esteem on the ethical plane, will reach its full meaning only at the end of the third stage, when respect for the norm will have blossomed into respect for others and for "oneself as another," and when respect will be extended to anyone who has the right to expect his or her just share in an equitable distribution.
• Self-respect has the same complex structure as self-esteem.
• Self-respect is self-esteem under the reign of

Context

Concluding sentences of the passage, where Ricoeur draws the reflexive consequences of his three-stage moral analysis by relating self-respect to self-esteem and by linking it to respect for others, 'oneself as another', and distributive justice.