Call Your Dog!: Recognizing the right to make demands

In an earlier post, I mentioned Stephen Darwall�s definition of respect and how it�s related to recognizing other people as a legitimate source of authority.  One area that this kind of respect for authority is lacking is at the dog park (or anywhere dogs are allowed to meet each other at close range). There are lots of good reasons why you ought to call your dog if someone asks you to:

• Because the other dog might be dangerous;
• Because the other dog might be contagious;
• Because your dog might inadvertently scare the other dog;
• Because your dog might not behave like you expect him to;
• Because I told you to.  

Of all of these, only the last one really matters. You might not always understand why someone is asking you to call your dog, but you ought to do it anyway.  

Last week, I was walking my dog in a park, in an area where many people let their dogs run free.  A lady with a stately Golden Retriever, off-leash, wandered into our range.  I noticed that the dog was getting quite close to my reactive dog Edie, who was on a long line. I called over, �Hey, could you call your dog?�.  The lady replied, �Oh, my dog doesn�t care about little dogs like that�, and she did not call her dog.  I said, �Well, mine�s in training and can be aggressive, so could you call your dog?�, but again the lady just smiled and repeated herself. 

Then, of course, the elderly Golden did notice Edie and began to wander towards her (there�s always a first time, right?).  Thankfully, we were able to exit the scene before Edie started to panic, so no harm was done, but this interaction is typical of the failure to recognize other humans as a legitimate source of demands when it comes to dogs. 

It shouldn�t have mattered whether the lady believed her dog wouldn�t �bother� my dog, she should have recognized that I was within my rights to demand that she call her dog.  The reason for this is that she should have realized that I was a morally legitimate source of demands in this situation.  

The legitimacy of moral demands is not conditional on the other person agreeing with or even understanding them, they rest on the recognition that the person doing the demanding has the authority to make such demands. Darwall uses the example of someone standing on your foot on the train.  You ask him to get off your foot, not whether he thinks it�s a good idea to be standing there.  That doesn�t matter.  You don�t explain that he�s hurting you, or that you need to move your foot to get off the train.  That doesn�t matter either.  What matters is that we all have a personal space that we can demand others not interfere with, without needing to supply an external reason.  Our bodies, possessions and the dependents in our families - including our dogs - are all within this space.

Moral authority is mutual; I recgonize you as a person who can make certain demands, and you recognize the same authority in me.  Darwall calls this �the second-person standpoint�; the understanding that you and I are equally able to claim our rights from each other.  Therefore, I shouldn�t refuse demands from you that I would resent you refusing from myself.

When I ask you to call your dog, I�m asking you to recognize me as able to make the demand that you respect my sphere of authority, to enter into a mutual relationship based on reciprocal respect.  Refusing to do so doesn�t just put our dogs in danger, it�s disrespectful on a more fundamental level.  So please, call your dog.   Even if you think I�m overreacting.