A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

An Introduction to Social Psychology
(London, Methuen, 1908), pp. 124–128. On the connection between self-esteem and what I have
called the Aristotelian Principle, I have followed White, “Ego and Reality in Psychoanalytic Theory,”
ch.7. On the relation of shame to guilt, I am indebted to Gerhart Piers and Milton Singer, 
Shame and
Guilt
(Springfield, Ill., Charles C. Thomas, 1953), though the setting of my discussion is quite
different. See also Erik Erikson, “Identity and the Life Cycle,” 
Psychological Issues,
vol. 1 (1959),
pp. 39–41, 65–70. For the intimacy of shame, see Stanley Cavell, “The Avoidance of Love,” in 
Must
We Mean What We Say?
(New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), pp. 278, 286f.
389
67. Self-Respect, Excellences, Shame

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do not render us blameworthy; yet given the tie between shame and
self-respect, the reason for being downcast by them is straightforward.
With these defects our way of life is often less fulfilling and we receive
less appreciative support from others. Thus natural shame is aroused by
blemishes in our person, or by acts and attributes indicative thereof, that
manifest the loss or lack of properties that others as well as ourselves
would find it rational for us to have. However, a qualification is necessary.
It is our plan of life that determines what we feel ashamed of, and so
feelings of shame are relative to our aspirations, to what we try to do and
with whom we wish to associate.
27
Those with no musical ability do not
strive to be musicians and feel no shame for this lack. Indeed it is no lack
at all, not at least if satisfying associations can be formed by doing other
things. Thus we should say that given our plan of life, we tend to be
ashamed of those defects in our person and failures in our actions that
indicate a loss or absence of the excellences essential to our carrying out
our more important associative aims.
Turning now to moral shame, we have only to put together the account
of the notion of a good person (in the previous section) and the remarks
above concerning the nature of shame. Thus someone is liable to moral
shame when he prizes as excellences of his person those virtues that his
plan of life requires and is framed to encourage. He regards the virtues, or
some of them anyway, as properties that his associates want in him and
that he wants in himself. To possess these excellences and to express
them in his actions are among his regulative aims and are felt to be a
condition of his being valued and esteemed by those with whom he cares
to associate. Actions and traits that manifest or betray the absence of
these attributes in his person are likely then to occasion shame, and so is
the awareness or recollection of these defects. Since shame springs from
a feeling of the diminishment of self, we must explain how moral shame
can be so regarded. First of all, the Kantian interpretation of the original
position means that the desire to do what is right and just is the main way
for persons to express their nature as free and equal rational beings. And
from the Aristotelian Principle it follows that this expression of their
nature is a fundamental element of their good. Combined with the ac-
count of moral worth, we have, then, that the virtues are excellences.
They are good from the standpoint of ourselves as well as from that of
others. The lack of them will tend to undermine both our self-esteem
27. See William James, 
The Principles of Psychology,
vol. I (New York, 1890), pp. 309f.
390
Goodness as Rationality

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and the esteem that our associates have for us. Therefore indications of
these faults will wound one’s self-respect with accompanying feelings of
shame.
It is instructive to observe the differences between the feelings of
moral shame and guilt. Although both may be occasioned by the same
action, they do not have the same explanation (§73). Imagine for example
someone who cheats or gives in to cowardice and then feels both guilty
and ashamed. He feels guilty because he has acted contrary to his sense of
right and justice. By wrongly advancing his interests he has transgressed
the rights of others, and his feelings of guilt will be more intense if he has
ties of friendship and association to the injured parties. He expects others
to be resentful and indignant at his conduct, and he fears their righteous
anger and the possibility of reprisal. Yet he also feels ashamed because
his conduct shows that he has failed to achieve the good of self-com-
mand, and he has been found unworthy of his associates upon whom he
depends to confirm his sense of his own worth. He is apprehensive lest
they reject him and find him contemptible, an object of ridicule. In his
behavior he has betrayed a lack of the moral excellences he prizes and to
which he aspires.
We see, then, that being excellences of our person which we bring to
the affairs of social life, all of the virtues may be sought and their absence
may render us liable to shame. But some virtues are joined to shame in a
special way, since they are peculiarly indicative of the failure to achieve
self-command and its attendant excellences of strength, courage, and
self-control. Wrongs manifesting the absence of these qualities are espe-
cially likely to subject us to painful feelings of shame. Thus while the
principles of right and justice are used to describe the actions disposing
us to feel both moral shame and guilt, the perspective is different in each
case. In the one we focus on the infringement of the just claims of others
and the injury we have done to them, and on their probable resentment or
indignation should they discover our deed. Whereas in the other we are
struck by the loss to our self-esteem and our inability to carry out our
aims: we sense the diminishment of self from our anxiety about the lesser
respect that others may have for us and from our disappointment with
ourselves for failing to live up to our ideals. Moral shame and guilt, it is
clear, both involve our relations to others, and each is an expression of our
acceptance of the first principles of right and justice. Nevertheless, these
emotions occur within different points of view, our circumstances being
seen in contrasting ways.
391
67. Self-Respect, Excellences, Shame

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68. SEVERAL CONTRASTS BETWEEN
THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD
68. The Right and the Good Contrasted
In order to bring out the structural features of the contract view, I shall
now mention several contrasts between the concepts of the right and the
good. Since these concepts enable us to explain moral worth, they are the
two fundamental concepts of the theory. The structure of an ethical doc-
trine depends upon how it relates these two notions and defines their
differences. The distinctive features of justice as fairness can be shown by
noting these points.
One difference is that whereas the principles of justice (and the princi-
ples of right generally) are those that would be chosen in the original
position, the principles of rational choice and the criteria of deliberative
rationality are not chosen at all. The first task in the theory of justice is to
define the initial situation so that the principles that result express the
correct conception of justice from a philosophical point of view. This
means that the typical features of this situation should represent reason-
able constraints on arguments for accepting principles and that the princi-
ples agreed to should match our considered convictions of justice in
reflective equilibrium. Now, the analogous problem for the theory of the
good does not arise. There is, to begin with, no necessity for an agree-
ment upon the principles of rational choice. Since each person is free to
plan his life as he pleases (so long as his intentions are consistent with the
principles of justice), unanimity concerning the standards of rationality is
not required. All the theory of justice assumes is that, in the thin account
of the good, the evident criteria of rational choice are sufficient to explain
the preference for the primary goods, and that such variations as exist in
conceptions of rationality do not affect the principles of justice adopted in
the original position.
Nevertheless, I have assumed that human beings do recognize certain
principles and that these standards may be taken by enumeration to re-
place the notion of rationality. We can, if we wish, allow certain vari-
ations in the list. Thus there is disagreement as to the best way to deal
with uncertainty.
28
There is no reason, though, why individuals in making
their plans should not be thought of as following their inclinations in this
case. Therefore any principle of choice under uncertainty which seems
plausible can be added to the list, so long as decisive arguments against it
28. See the discussion in R. D. Luce and Howard Raiffa,