Some fun distinctions

Isn’t it funny how very similar gestures can signal respect and disrespect? Under ordinary circumstances, crossing to the other side of the street to avoid near someone is a form of disrespect. But in a pandemic it signals a respectful desire not to make the other nervous. Though I suppose even apart from a pandemic, one would have moved out of the way of dignitaries.

We have another neat little thing here. There is a difference between going out of one’s way to ensure that one isn’t in another’s personal space and going out of one’s way to ensure that the other isn’t in one’s personal space, even though in an egalitarian society, x is in y’s space if and only if y is in x’s space.

And notice how hard it is to formulate that point without reifying “personal space”, just by using distance. I can hear a difference between avoiding my being within a certain distance of another and avoiding the other being within a certain distance of me, but I can’t tell which is which! Maybe, though, we can distinguish (a) avoiding imposing on another the bad-for-them of us being within a certain distance and (b) avoiding imposing on me the bad-for-me of us being within that distance. In other words, the reasons for the two actions are grounded in the same state of affairs but considered as bad for different individuals.

I suppose similar things can happen entirely in third person contexts. I can work for a friendship between x and y considered as a good for x, considered as a good for y, or considered as a good for both. And these are all three different actions.