Three Kinds of Self-Respect in Rawls (original) (raw)

The latest version of: Self-respect and the justification of Rawlsian principles of justice

Ethics and Social Welfare , 2021

In this article I examine the importance of self-respect in the justification of Rawls's theory of justice. First, I present two elements that are part of the contemporary debate on self-respect as a form of self-worth-namely, moral status and merit. Second, I specify the bases that support self-respect within A Theory of Justice. Finally, I discuss at length the function of self-respect in justifying the principles of justice. This inquiry implies an analysis of the relationship between self-respect and the component parts of the two principles of justice: basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle. I also explore the connection between self-respect and the sense of justice in light of the stability argument, and how the relationship between the two is important for achieving social stability.

Rawlsian Self-Respect and Limiting Liberties in the Background Culture

2016

John Rawls tells us in his landmark work, A Theory of Justice (1971), that self-respect is the “most important primary good” (TJ 386) and that “the parties in the original position would wish to avoid at almost any cost the social conditions that undermine self-respect” (TJ 440). The importance of self-respect is a theme that continues throughout the body of Rawl’s work; in Political Liberalism (1993) Rawls tells us that in considering different principles of justice parties in the original position put a great deal of emphasis on “how well principles of justice support self-respect” (PL 319). Given the stated importance and pivotal role self-respect plays in justifying important features of justice as fairness, the notion of self-respect itself is undertheorized. This paper attempts to address this issue by proposing a more substantive account of Rawlsian self-respect; it attempts to explicate what self-respect is, and the way it fits into justice as fairness. In explicating self-r...

Rawls and the Problem of Honour

Philosophia, 2011

In this paper, I consider the difficult relationship between Rawls, religion 10 and the values that religious believers might consider important in order to lead the 11 good life. Contrary to many of Rawls' defenders, I argue that at least some of the 12 values that religious citizens are likely to hold cannot be accounted for under Rawls' 13 theory or under his conception of the good life. I argue that the model of goods which 14 Rawls takes to be part of a thin theory of the good is tied to his belief that under the 15 Original Position justice can be derived from calculations of self-interest alone. To 16 perform my critique, I consider the paradigmatic case of honour in so-called tradi-17 tional societies. I argue that the way Rawls thematizes primary goods in A Theory of 18 Justice, including concepts like esteem, cannot account for the way honour manifests 19 itself inside traditional communities. I conclude the paper by considering how Rawls 20 might be able to defend his theory against my objection, by considering the relation-21 ship between Rawls' theory, and the rationalization and secularization of society. 22 23 24 In this paper, I will consider the problematic relationship between John Rawls' early 25 work and religion. 1 To put my thesis simply, I believe that in A Theory of Justice 26 Rawls takes too much for granted in his discussion of the values which he assumes 27 that all members of modern society possess. In particular, Rawls neglects to consider Philosophia

The Cardinal Role of Respect and Self-Respect for Rawls’s and Walzer’s Theories of Justice

Giovanni Giorgini/Elena Irrera (Hg.): The Roots of Respect. A Historic-Philosophical Itinerary, Berlin/Boston 2017

The cardinal role that notions of respect and self-respect play in Rawls's A Theory ofJustice has alreadybeen abundantly examined in the literature. On the other hand, however, it has hardly been noticed that these notions are also central to Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice. Respect and self-respect are not only central topics of his chapter " Recognition ", but constitute a central aim of a " complex egalitarian society " and of Walzer'st heory of justice. This paper substantiates this thesis and elucidates Walzer's criticism of Rawls according to which " we need to distinguish between " self-respect " and " self-esteem " .

Social bases of self-esteem: Rawls, Honneth and beyond

This paper discusses John Rawls’s thesis that the social basis of self-respect is one of the primary social goods. While the central element of the social basis consists in the attitudes of others (e.g. respect or esteem) the social basis may include also possession of various goods. Further, one may distinguish, following Axel Honneth, universalistic basic respect from differential esteem and from loving care. This paper focuses on esteem, and further distinguishes three important varieties thereof (anti-stigmatization; contributions to societal goods, projects of self-realization), which all differ from recognition of cultural identity. The normative implications will differ in these different contexts.

Self-respect, Self-esteem, and the Demands of Justice

The paper takes as its starting point John Rawls’s claim that the social bases of self-respect is perhaps the most important primary good the distribution of which is governed by his principles of justice. There has been some debate about this claim in the literature and this debate has included important clarifications regarding the concept(s) involved. However, I think this discussion hasn’t gone deep enough and this – relative – lack of depth has or at least might have important implications for our theory of distributive justice. To show this, I begin with Rawls’s admittedly sketchy remarks about the significance of self-respect in his theory. After this I briefly describe the debate that followed: what emerges here is a distinction between two kinds of self-respect. While I think this distinction is in good order, I also think and subsequently argue, building on the work of Robin Dillon and Anna Bortolan, that it only scratches the surface of the complex phenomenon of self-respect. In particular, as these authors show, the self-respect complex is, in fact, a multi-layered phenomenon and the distinction as used misses its fundamental level: basal self-respect (Dillon) or self-esteem (Bortolan). In the finishing part of the paper I discuss these two proposals to show that Bortolan’s version is the better one. All this then has clear relevance for the adjoining debate in political philosophy: all those who want to give an important role to self-respect in their theory of justice have potentially focused on the wrong target so far. This, I conclude, might well give rise to a new feminist critique of liberal egalitarian justice.