Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Status in Law and Morality argues that status is a moral, and not just a legal or social, idea. Status picks out the role one occupies within an asymmetrical social relation in which one of the parties suffers from vulnerabilities or dependencies. The point of status is to protect the weaker party—the employee or the tenant. It does so through social recognition of their role and through a set of prophylactic legal rights and duties. This notion of status (role-status) differs in important respects from status as the ranking of social esteem (rank-status). Role-status aims to shield the self-esteem of the weaker party and to project the value of equality into the social relation. This book aims to revive this progressive character of status, which was prominent in moral philosophy during the Enlightenment. Contrary to Maine’s thesis, law has not progressed from status to contract. Rather, it started gradually to side with the weaker instead of the stronger party to these status relations. Rather than leaving status behind, this book argues that we need more and better protected legal statuses.</jats:p>