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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 425 "Fire!" in a crowded theater just for fun, nor to allow children to act or be treated in any manner whatsoever. But in all such cases, basic liberties can be restricted only for the sake of greater liberty for everyone (TJ 244). Similarly, an example of violating the lexical priority of the Fair Opportunity Principle over the Difference Principle would be any tradeoff that benefited the least advantaged economically by restricting or canceling their right to apply for public roles or offices. An hereditary but benevolent aristocracy, primogeniture, or laws benefiting needy groups or individuals with tax credits or bonuses or welfare payments in return for prohibiting them from running for election to public office would all violate the lexical priority of the Fair Opportunity Principle over the Difference Principle, by reducing the life prospects of those disadvantaged individuals (TJ 299-301). Finally, an example of violating the lexical priority of the Millian Principle over the Difference Principle would be laws or customs permitting the sale of oneself into slavery, or abdication of the right to vote, if it improved one's economic well-being to do either. Rawls thus contrasts what he calls his special conception of justice with a general conception that would permit the unequal distribution of any and all social and economic resources if so doing were to improve the situation of the least advantaged. 3.2.2. Primary Goods Rawls's conception of the social and economic resources distributed by the principles of justice the parties in the original position decide upon is equally distinctive. Rawls defines primary social goods as those instrumental resources which are directly under the control of principles of distribution, such that one necessarily wants to maximize them in order to achieve whatever else one's goals may be (TJ 62, 92-93). They comprise, first, the rights and liberties distributed by the Millian Principle: the freedom to vote, freedom of speech and assembly, of conscience and thought, of one's person, to hold private property, and finally freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure. Rawls argues that these are each necessary and jointly sufficient for a further primary good, that of self-respect. This he defines as a person's sense of her own value, the conviction that her goals are worth pursuing, and a realistic confidence in her ability to carry out her intentions (TJ Pars. 29 and 67). The basic idea of self-respect as a primary social good is that a society that gives explicit priority to the freedom of its citizens from undue constraints, that explicitly values the pursuit of individual goals and interests as such, conveys to its citizens a sense that their goals and interests are worth pursuing. Such a society endorses and undergirds its citizens' aspirations to autonomous self-realization. The explicit juridical valuation of an individual's goals and interests as such will then confer on that individual a sense of value, or self-respect. Self-respect is thus a backward-looking consequence of a © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
