Rawlsian Self-Respect and Limiting Liberties in the Background Culture

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 under-theorized.

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-respect in this way I will attempt to address several of Rawls’ critics when it comes to the issue of self-respect. My primary contention is that commentators have tended to characterize self-respect as one dimensional and as if it were an ‘all-or-nothing’ feature, these are mistakes. I aim to suggest that we should understand self-respect as multi-faceted (four facets to be specific) and as of admitting of degrees.

Once an account of self-respect is thoroughly introduced I will attempt to demonstrate the ways in which we might address issues of justice pertain to self-respect in the background culture, an area in which Rawls and many of his commentators are oddly silent. This paper will consider justifying the limitation of liberties in the background culture by appeals to self-respect and the preservation of the social bases thereof in three different examples. These examples will track the distinctions between self-respect in regards to the two moral powers as well as both a religious and secular example.

I hope to add clarity to the issue of Rawlsian self-respect and to tentatively demonstrate ways in which it might be used to address issues of justice in the background culture