The Absence Of Self-Esteem

Negative feelings about oneself, like positive self-esteem, have nothing to do with a person's value as a human and an individual thinker and moral being.  People could lose their self-esteem or never have had it to begin with, and nothing else about reality hinges on this.  Not only does someone feeling like they are an incredible person despite being a hypocrite, an emotionalistic, or a general irrationalist, but someone feeling like they deserve to be treated abusively has nothing to do with logical truths and whether morality exists or what their rights are.  Whatever human rights might exist do not fade when someone thinks they are unworthy of that which should never be violated.

If something is immoral, it does not matter how much a person is emotionally attracted to it.  They should not do it simply because it is what should not be done.  For the same reason, it would be irrational and unjust to want one's own self to be treated in a way that is immoral in the sense of mistreatment.  Feeling like one deserves something irrational or evil is one thing.  Actively believing this or wanting it in the sense of encouraging it is irrational.

On the Biblical worldview specifically, things like sexual abuse (Deuteronomy 22:25-27, 25:11-12) are unjust, like murder (Exodus 21:12-14) and kidnapping (Exodus 22:16) and many other things such as discrimination based on gender or race (Genesis 1:26-27).  Nothing a person does makes them deserve to be treated in these ways, though murder is at times only the unjust version of the obligatory, good execution of people who deserve to have their life ended prematurely.  Whatever a person has believed or done, and however they feel about themselves, it would be an egregious sin to mistreat them.

The repentant thief crucified beside Jesus, for example, was guilty of this terrible error when he believed/said that he deserved Roman crucifixion in Luke 23:41.  Of all the deeds in the historical record, few or none are as utterly evil according to true Biblical morality as crucifixion of the kind used by the Romans.  Everything from combining lashes with execution to intentionally degrading people by the pain, duration, and spectacle of the punishment (Deuteronomy 25:1-3 separates lashes from execution and says to never inflict more than 40 blows to avoid degrading the recipient) to reserving crucifixion for foreigners (Leviticus 24:22) contradicts Yahweh's just nature.  Many evangelicals, however, talk as if they do not understand any of this.

Particular examples of people struggling with this irrationality aside, self-esteem and its absence can be so powerful that even rationalistic people might see the emotional allure of wanting to be treated erroneously.  At least for a time, some might feel as if they could not be punished rightly without oppression, irrationality, and degradation in how they are treated.  Not all sins deserve punishment by other people as it is, not on the Biblical worldview (not all sins are crimes in Mosaic Law), and it of course does not logically follow either way that how someone feels determines what they deserve from God or fellow humans.