Self-Respect and Justice

What is self-respect? And how can it bear the normative weight that liberal egalitarians often place on it within their theories of justice? This paper aims to answer these questions. I argue that appraisal self-respect does not entail sufficient recognition self-respect from the viewpoint of justice. Then, after noting that recognition self-respect is often appealed to by activists and theorists participating in real-world egalitarian movements, I argue that it is the value of recognition self-respect—as opposed to appraisal self-respect—that supports an egalitarian picture of political morality. I argue that Rawlsian recognition self-respect can play this role and that its social bases constitute a social primary good. I conclude by replying to the objections that the social bases of self-respect are not distribuenda, that considering these social bases to be a social primary good constitutes unacceptable double-counting, that the social bases of self-respect cannot explain the content of justice, and that individuals are fully responsible for developing their self-respect.