¹ All parenthetical references are to Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

² See Rawls, part I, chapter 3.

³ “It is not our aims that primarily reveal our nature,” Rawls writes, “but rather the principles that we would acknowledge to govern the background conditions under which these aims are to be formed and the manner in which they are pursued” (p. 560).

⁴ Rawls appreciates the contrast sufficiently to defer, for the sake of “simplicity,” his discussion of self-respect to the section on the Aristotelian principle and the full theory of the good (Part III). In the sections where primary goods are treated as facilitators of interest in the original position, self-respect is prudently and completely ignored (see p. 92).

⁵ For other kinds of critical discussion of the maximin rule see Arrow, Kenneth J., “Some Ordinalist-Utilitarian Notes on Rawls' Theory of Justice,” The Journal of Philosophy, 70 (05 10, 1973)Google Scholar; and Lyons, David, “Rawls versus Utilitarianism,” The Journal of Philosophy, 69 (10 5, 1972), 535–544CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rawls, appears to back away slightly from his views on risk aversion in his “Reply to Lyons and Teitelman,” The Journal of Philosophy, 69 (10 5, 1972), 556–557CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Rawls agrees with Santayana that “we must settle the relative worth of pleasure and pain” (p. 557), but does not raise the issue in the context of primary goods and leaves its resolution to the discretion of “subjective individuals.”

⁷ See, for example, Lukes, Steven, “An Archimedean point,” The Observer, 4 06 1972Google Scholar.

⁸ “The theory of justice assumes a definite limit on the strength of social and altruistic motivation. It supposes that individuals and groups put forward competing claims, and while they are willing to act justly, they are not prepared to abandon their interests” (p. 281). Also see the final section in this article.

⁹ Rawls concedes that the precedence of liberty comes into play only after “a certain level of wealth has been attained” (p. 542), and that below this threshold, liberty may not only have to be weighted against but perhaps subordinated to the other primary goods in whose absence freedom has no meaning. Depending on where the threshold is established, even Marx might be comfortable with such a viewpoint!

¹⁰ By passing over power, Rawls evades the critical problems of definition and measurement that have attended its conceptualization among sociologists and political scientists. See, for example, Dahl, Robert R., Who Governs (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S., “The Two Faces of Power,” The American Political Science Review, 56 (12, 1962), 947–952CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Champlin, John R., ed., Power (New York: Atherton Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

¹¹ There seems to be some doubt about this as well: see Gordon, Scott, “John Rawls' Difference Principle, Utilitarianism, and the Optimum degree of inequality,” The Journal of Philosophy, 70 (05 10, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Macpherson, C. B., “Revisionist Liberalism,” in his Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 87–94Google Scholar.

¹² Gordon, p. 279.

¹³ As would any projection based on a theory of structural change or revolution; the credibility of the Marxist-Leninist model is obviously not at issue.

¹⁴ Because the Aristotelian principle suggests a qualitative ranking of our activities and life plans corresponding to their complexity and the degree to which they fulfill our capacities, it gives to self-respect a moral depth it lacks as an instrumental primary good (see ϕ 65).

¹⁵ Other perhaps than as a practical “rule of thumb” in making clear-cut ethical decisions in completely unambiguous circumstances; see Caws, Peter, “Changing Our Habits,” The New Republic, 13 05 1972, p. 24Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Robert Dahl has argued, for example, that asymmetrical patterns among minorities and majorities where the latter employ the majoritarian principle to lazily and indifferently obstruct the will of the former can lead to the radical destabilization of the precarious democratic balance; see A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1956), pp. 90–123Google Scholar. Also see Kendall, Willmoore and Carey, George W., “The ‘Intensity’ Problem and Democratic Theory,” The American Political Science Review, 62 (03, 1968), 5–24Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See Adorno, Theodoreet al, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950)Google Scholar; Lipset, S. M., Political Man (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1960)Google Scholar, especially chapter 4; and Stouffer, S. A., Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1955)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Rawls remarks in passing that “some socialists have objected to all market institutions as inherently degrading” (p. 280), but apparently dismisses socialism as too dependent “on the strength of social and altruistic motivation” (p. 281). Altruism is an issue that comes back to haunt him, however, as becomes evident in the discussion below.

¹⁹ Hampshire, Stuart, “A New Philosophy of the Just Society,” The New York Review of Books, 24 02 1972, p. 39Google Scholar.

²⁰ Barry, Brian argues that Rawls's theory is not convincingly “ideal-regarding” at all, in his “Liberalism and Want Satisfaction,” Political Theory, 1 (05, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Barry's general position, the most sweeping critique of Rawls to date, can be found in his The Liberal Theory of Justice: A Critical Examination of the Principal Doctrines in A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

²¹ In his “Reply to Lyons and Teitelman,” p. 557. Also see A Theory of Justice, p. 584.