  In sum, this elementary form shows that recognition is not only needed for the creation and preservation of a subject’s identity, but that it also denotes a basic normative attitude. Brandom emphasizes that—besides constituting self-consciousness as an “essentially, and not just accidentally, […] social achievement […]—recognition is a normative attitude. To recognize someone is to take her to be the subject of normative statuses, that is, of commitments and entitlements, as capable of undertaking responsibilities and exercising authority” (Brandom 2007, 136, emphasis in original). Whereas Brandom concentrates on rather basic normative ascriptions, all phenomena of recognition can be described as inherently normative. In particular, there is one specific form of recognition in modernity that seems to flow quite naturally from our basic capacity of recognizing each other in the elementary form sketched so far, namely equal respect.