Robin Dillon is a contemporary feminist philosopher best known for her work on self-respect, dignity, and contempt within feminist ethics and moral psychology. She has argued that traditional philosophical accounts of self-respect are insufficiently attentive to the ways gender, race, and social position shape one's capacity for self-regard. Her scholarship bridges analytic moral philosophy and feminist theory, with sustained attention to the phenomenology of moral emotions.
Developed influential feminist analyses of self-respect and its conditions
Edited the anthology 'Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect' (1995), a key reference in moral psychology
Contributed foundational work on contempt as a moral emotion and its ethical significance
Critiqued the androcentric assumptions embedded in mainstream philosophical methodology
Advanced feminist epistemological arguments about whose experience counts as evidence in moral theorizing
Heterosexual men cannot imagine how a female rape victim feels.