Reconsidering the Role of Self-Respect in Rawls’sA Theory of Justice

Abstract

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls describes self-respect as “perhaps the most important” social primary good, and self-respect figures prominently in §82, the critical section where he distills his justification for the most controversial aspect of his conception of justice, the lexical priority of liberty. As such, his account of self-respect has drawn considerable attention, especially from critics, who argue that self-respect is not a sufficiently compelling interest to justify the precedence of liberty. Yet, while much of the existing research has focused on the justificatory function of self-respect, it has mostly neglected the fact that Rawls invokes self-respect for another purpose in §82: his argument for stability, in which he claims that his conception of justice will instill in individuals a desire to act from a sense of justice. Thus, even if Rawls’s account of self-respect is insufficient to justify his conception of justice, it nonetheless plays a crucial role in Theory insofar as it addres...