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.