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The Self-Respect of Democratic People Han Van Wietmarschen1

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The Self-Respect of Democratic People Han Van Wietmarschen1 The Self-Respect of Democratic People Han van Wietmarschen1 Abstract: according to Matthew Kramer’s aspirational perfectionism, the state is permitted to provide funding for the arts, sciences, and culture with the aim of securing the warranted self-respect of all citizens. This paper argues that although Kramer is right to think that the state has an important role to play in the economy of recognition, his conception of this role is mistaken. I argue, first, that Kramer’s exclusive focus on warrant for self-respect obscures the importance of social phenomena such as stigma, marginalization, and discrimination. Second, I argue that Kramer is mistaken in his reliance on vicarious pride to explain how the various excellences of our fellow citizens provide us with warrant for self-respect. I conclude with a brief sketch an alternative account, according to which the self-respect of citizens of democratic societies is supported by their collective creation and maintenance of just political institutions. 1. Introduction This paper is concerned with Matthew Kramer’s defense of aspirational perfectionism, in the fourth and final part of his book Liberalism with Excellence.2 According to this view, the state is permitted and sometimes required to pursue a variety of perfectionist policies. The legitimate aim of such policies, however, is not to develop and refine the artistic, cultural, or moral sensibilities of individual citizens, but to develop the kinds of 1 Lecturer in philosophy, University College London. Email: [email protected]. Thanks to Luke Devereux, Amanda Greene, Tena Nevidal, Nikhil Venkatesh, and audience members at Oxford University for helpful comments on this paper. 2 Matthew Kramer, Liberalism with Excellence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). References to the book are given parenthetically in the body of the text. !1 excellences in society that provide all citizens3 with warrant for self-respect. Since warranted self-respect is a primary good, the state is under a duty of justice to promote the warranted self-respect of all citizens. Consequently, the aspirational perfectionist society might subsidize the arts, the sciences, and culture generally, all in the name of justice. I share Kramer’s interest in the proper role of a political society in what we may call the economy of recognition—the ways in which the members of a political society, justifiably or not, respect and esteem themselves and one another. I do not, however, share Kramer’s conception of this role. First, I will argue that Kramer’s focus on the cultivation of societal excellence as a means to provide warrant for self-respect obscures the state’s role in protecting citizens against social processes, such as stigmatization, discrimination, and marginalization, which can undermine the justification of citizens’ self-respect. Second, I will argue that Kramer does not provide an acceptable account of why the presence of various excellences in a political society provides all citizens of that society with warrant for self-respect. Finally, I will propose an alternative picture of the relationship between societal excellence and individual self-respect: citizens are provided with warrant for self-respect insofar as societal excellences are the result of the democratic exercise of political power by the citizens as a collective body. Unlike Kramer’s aspirational perfectionist view, this alternative picture reaffirms the demands of public reason. 2. The Aspirational Perfectionist Argument 3 The relationship between citizenship and membership in a political society is fraught with difficulties. For the purposes of this paper, I will proceed under the pretense that “citizen” can be used to refer to all members of a political society. !2 In simplified form, Kramer’s aspirational perfectionist argument for state funding of the arts, sciences, and culture is this: (1) Warranted self-respect is a natural primary good. (2) Self-respect includes both recognition self-respect and appraisal self-respect. (3) From (2) (and supporting considerations): the excellence of one’s fellow citizens provides warrant for self-respect. (4) From (2) (and supporting considerations): the excellence of one’s fellow citizens is necessary for the full warrantedness of one’s self-respect. (5) State funding for the arts, sciences, and culture can promote excellence in individual members of a society. (6) From (1), (3), (4), and (5): a just society is permitted, and sometimes required, to exercise political power to fund the arts, sciences, and culture as a means to promote the warranted self-respect of all citizens. In this section, I will say a few things about the central notion of self-respect, and about the significance of this argument for the distinctiveness of aspirational perfectionism, compared to edificatory perfectionism and political liberalism. Kramer’s discussion of the nature of self-respect takes John Rawls’s conception of self-respect or self-esteem as its starting point: “We may define self-respect (or self-esteem) as having two aspects. First of all […], it includes a person’s sense of his own value, his secure conviction that his conception of the good, his plan of life, is worth carrying out. And second, self- respect implies a confidence in one’s ability, so far as it is within one’s power, to fulfill one’s intentions” (1999, 386). !3 In light of the distinction drawn by David Sachs between self-respect and self-esteem,4 and by Stephen Darwall between recognition respect and appraisal respect,5 Rawls’s conception may seem to be a jumble of quite disparate ideas. Having recognition respect for oneself as a person consists in giving the authority or standing to oneself that one is due simply in virtue of being a person.6 As a brief aside, note that Darwall thinks that we can have recognition self-respect not only as persons, but also in various contingent capacities or roles.7 I might have recognition respect for myself as a philosopher, say, or as a Dutch citizen, by giving those facts appropriate standing or authority in my deliberation and conduct. This point is not taken on by Kramer, who writes of recognition respect entirely in moral terms. Appraisal self-respect, by contrast, consists in a positive evaluation of oneself based on character-related excellences.8 Kramer uses the phrase in a more capacious sense to refer to a favorable attitude towards oneself based on any good-making feature, character-related or not, and to a favorable attitude towards one’s projects, ambitions, achievements, and abilities themselves (302). Does Rawls have recognition self-respect, appraisal self-respect, or some combination of both in mind? Since his conception includes being convinced of the value or worth of one’s plan of life or conception of the good, it is naturally understood to include an element of appraisal self-respect. It also includes a person’s sense of his own value, which may be read as referring to a form of recognition self-respect—a 4 David Sachs, “How to Distinguish Self-Respect from Self-Esteem,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981), no. 4, 346-122. 5 Stephen Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” Ethics 88 (1977), no. 1, 36-49, and The Second-Person Standpoint (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006). 6 Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” 38; The Second-Person Standpoint, 123. 7 Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” 38. 8 Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” 41. !4 person’s sense of his own standing simply as a person. The third element, confidence in our abilities, is a bit harder to place. It seems to capture a sense of oneself as an efficacious agent, which doesn’t neatly fit into either category. In response to this complexity, Elizabeth Brake argues that Rawls’s overall view is best construed as being concerned with recognition self-respect rather than with appraisal self-respect,9 and Gerald Doppelt argues that Rawls should have been exclusively concerned with recognition self-respect.10 Against these views, Kramer argues, first, that Rawls’s conception of self-respect is best interpreted to include appraisal self-respect, and, second, that Rawls is correct in thinking that a just political society has a significant role to play in supporting citizens’ appraisal self-respect. I agree with both of Kramer’s claims. I don’t agree, however, with one of his main reasons for parting ways with Rawls’s critics at this point. Kramer argues that appraisal self-respect includes recognition self-respect. The relevant relationship is described in numerous ways: appraisal self-respect encompasses (303), comprehends (303), always involves (304), is partly constituted by (305), or cannot exist in the absence of (306) recognition self-respect. Kramer’s argument for this is that a person with some level of appraisal self-respect positively values, or cares about, at least some of her projects. To value or care about one’s projects entails that when others wrongfully and thoroughly prevent one from pursuing those projects one responds with at least some degree of indignation or resentment. To be disposed to respond with indignation or resentment to being wronged by others is constitutive of recognition self-respect (Kramer 2017, 303). The problem with this argument is that indignation and resentment are specific reactive attitudes. Consequently, valuing or caring about things does not 9 Brake, Elizabeth, “Rereading Rawls on Self-Respect: Feminism, Family Law, and the Social Bases of Self-Respect,” in Ruth Abbey (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, (Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2013), 57-74. 10 Doppelt, Gerald, “The Place of Self-Respect in a Theory of Justice,” Inquiry 52 (2009), no. 2, 127-154. !5 presuppose that one responds to interference with indignation or resentment. When confronted with the wrongful and thorough interference with my aims and plans, I could respond in many ways—I could get angry, for example, or be afraid, sad, hopeful, despondent, and so on.
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