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Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 1 Self-consciousness and intersubjectivity 1 Kristina Musholt Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Email: K.Musholt@lse.ac.uk Abstract This paper distinguishes between implicit self-related information and explicit selfrepresentation and argues that the latter is required for self-consciousness. It is further argued that self-consciousness requires an awareness of other minds and that this awareness develops over the course of an increasingly complex perspectival differentiation, during which information about self and other that is implicit in early forms of social interaction becomes redescribed into an explicit format. 1. Self-consciousness What is self-consciousness? Well, it seems to be the case that we have an unmediated, direct access to (at least some) of our mental and bodily states. At this particular moment in time, I know that I am sitting at my desk, looking at the monitor in front of me, thinking about what to write. I am aware of my slight feeling of thirst and of the slight pain in my back. And I seem to be aware of all of this in a very direct, immediate way. In fact, it seems that I know these things in a special way, from the first-person perspective or "from the inside", so to speak. To be sure, someone else could know these things about myself as well, but they would have to rely on me telling them, or on observing my behavior. They could observe my 1 Versions of this paper were presented at the ECAP7 conference in 2011 in Milan and at the first PLM conference in 2011 in Stockholm. I am grateful to members of the audience at these occasions for helpful comments and discussion. I would also like to thank Patrick Wilken and an anonymous referee for this journal for helpful comments. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 2 getting up, walking to the kitchen and fetching a glass of water, and conclude that I must have been thirsty, for example. But I do not need to rely on observation to know about my feeling of thirst, or about the pain in my back. I just know. It is this immediate awareness of one's mental and bodily states that we are ultimately after when we speak of self-consciousness.2 Of course, there are many other things that I can know about myself, but that I don't have access to in this immediate way. For instance, I know that I was born in January, because my parents told me so, and I can know that I am wearing a blue sweater because I just looked in the mirror. Similarly, I know what my face looks like from looking in the mirror or from looking at pictures of myself. The way I come to know about these things is not different from the way someone else can come to know them. All these facts about myself can also be learned by someone else, in much the same way that I learn about them, namely from the third person perspective. In fact, I can even come to know facts about myself from the third person perspective without realizing that they are about myself. For instance, someone might tell me "KM was born in January" and I could fail to understand that this is a piece of information about myself because I am suffering from amnesia and have forgotten my name. Or I might, in passing, glance at a mirror and – without realizing that I am looking into a mirror – think "That person really needs a haircut!" while failing to notice that the person is me. This is not possible when I feel a pain in my back and on the basis of this sensation come to think "I have a pain in my back", or when I am feeling thirsty and on the basis of this feeling think or say "I am thirsty". I know these things immediately and there can be no doubt as to who it is that is thirsty or has a hurting back when I form the corresponding judgment. I may have forgotten my name and I may know nothing else about me, but I can still refer to myself with the first-person pronoun in order to self-ascribe a state of thirst or a feeling of pain. As I just indicated, the canonical expression of self-ascriptions of this latter kind involves the first-person pronoun. Moreover, these self-ascriptions are such that they do not rely on any inference or identification and that there can be no doubt as to who is their subject. In other words, they are "immune to error through misidentification relative to the first person pronoun" (Shoemaker, 1968).3 That is to say that when making these types of self-ascriptions, 2 Note that throughout this paper I will follow the common convention of using the terms self-awareness and self-consciousness interchangeably. 3 Notice that not all judgments that involve the first person pronoun are immune to error through misidentification. Rather, it is only those judgments that, as Wittgenstein puts it, use the "I" as subject (as opposed to those where the "I" is used as object). These, in turn, are those that rely on a specific evidence base characteristic of the first person perspective. However, as first-person judgments that are immune to error through misidentification provide the basis for those first-person judgments that do not (see Bermúdez 1998; this volume), we can neglect this distinction for the present purposes. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 3 the subject might be mistaken with regard to the predicate she is ascribing to herself, but she cannot be mistaken with regard to the subject of her self-ascriptions.4 As I discuss elsewhere in more detail (Musholt, forthcoming), this immunity can be traced back to the information upon which these judgments are based. This information must be such that in obtaining it the subject necessarily ipso facto obtains information that relates to herself.5 No selfidentification or inference is required in order to form an "I"-thought based on this kind of information, and hence no misidentification (relative to the first person pronoun) is possible. Thus, we can define self-consciousness as the ability to think 'I'-thoughts, that is, the ability to think thoughts that are about oneself, that are known to be about oneself by the subject entertaining them, and that are immune to error through misidentification.6 2. Implicit self-related information vs. explicit self-representation How is this ability to think 'I'-thoughts to be explained? As indicated above, 'I'-thoughts rely on a specific kind of evidence base, namely on information about the subject that is immediately accessible to the subject as such. Obvious candidates for these types of information include information about occurrent mental and bodily states.7 Take perception and proprioception, both of which have been much discussed as providing the subject with nonconceptual8 first-personal content (e.g. Bermúdez 1998). Perception, it is argued, provides the perceiver not just with information about the environment, but – necessarily – also with information about the perceiving subject. For instance, according to Gibson's (1979) ecological theory of vision, the visual field contains self-specifying structural invariants such as the boundedness of the visual field and the occlusion of parts of the visual field by various parts of the body. Moreover, the patterns of flow in the optic array and the relations between the variant and invariant features provide the perceiver with information about her movement in the world, and the perception of affordances, that is, properties of objects in the environment that relate to the abilities of the perceiver, provides the subject with information about the possibilities for action that these objects afford. (Cf. Bermúdez 4 Consequently, these judgments have immediate implications for action. (See Perry 2000.) 5 Also see Evans (1982) and Bermúdez (1998; this volume). 6 As we will see in what follows, self-consciousness is a gradual phenomenon. As I will argue below, the ability to think 'I'-thoughts in the sense just specified requires explicit self-representations. However, we can distinguish between different levels of explicitness, and hence between different degrees to which one can possess this ability. 7 Bermúdez, this volume, also discusses autobiographical memory as a further source of this type of information. 8 Nonconceptual content is standardly defined as representational content that can be ascribed to a creature even if that creature lacks the concepts required to specify the content in question (cf. Bermúdez 1998). Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 4 1998.) Proprioception, on the other hand, provides the organism with information regarding the state of the body, such as its position in space, or its balance.9 Thus, it is argued, the content of perception and proprioception provides the organism with information that is about itself. Moreover, this information is thought to be immune to error through misidentification. This is because ecological perception delivers information that is necessarily about one's own spatio-temporal position relative to other objects in the environment and about one's own possibilities for interaction with these objects. Likewise, somatic proprioception delivers information that it necessarily about one's own body. If I perceive the apple in front of me to be within reaching distance, no question can arise as to who it is that can reach the apple. Likewise, if I proprioceive my legs to be crossed, there is no question as to whose legs are crossed – perception and proprioception do not require any selfidentification. Hence, it is claimed, perception and proprioception qualify as basic, nonconceptual, forms of self-consciousness, or 'I'-thoughts (Bermúdez 1998). However, on my view, what perception and proprioception provide the organism with is implicit self-related information, and this ought to be distinguished from explicit selfrepresentation (Musholt, forthcoming). Only the latter can provide the subject with thoughts that are known by the subject to be about itself.10 Hence, only the latter qualifies as selfconsciousness in the sense defined above. Following Dienes and Perner (1999), I take it that a "fact is explicitly represented if there is an expression (mental or otherwise) whose meaning is just that fact; in other words, there is an internal state whose function is to indicate that fact" (Dienes and Perner 1999, 736). That is to say that a fact or state of affairs is represented explicitly when the mental state in question contains a component that directly refers to this fact or states of affairs. In contrast, a fact or state of affairs is implicit in a mental representation when the mental state in question does not contain a component that directly refers to this fact, but when this fact or state of affairs is conveyed as part of the contextual function of the mental state. Now, any given conscious experience contains several different aspects (or "facts"), each of which can be either implicitly or explicitly represented. For instance, according to the standard analysis of propositional attitudes, we can distinguish between the content or 9 Crucially, the body is never presented to the subject in the way other objects in the environment are, but rather as a "system of possible movements" (Dokic 2003) that are subject to the will. 10 Moreover, as I argue elsewhere (Musholt, forthcoming), only the latter can be said to be immune to error through misidentification. Roughly speaking, this is because immunity requires the possibility of representing the subject of a self-ascription independently from the property and this in turn requires that the representation in question contains an explicitly self-referring component (as well as a component referring to the property). Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 5 proposition (standardly expressed by means of a "that"-clause), the propositional attitude (e.g. knowledge vs. belief vs. desire, etc.), and the holder of that attitude. Accordingly, as Dienes and Perner (1999) point out, there are three main types of explicit representation, depending on which of the three constituents of the propositional attitude is represented explicitly. We can distinguish between: (1) explicit content but implicit attitude and implicit holder of the attitude; (2) explicit content and attitude but implicit holder of attitude; (3) explicit content, attitude and holder of attitude.11 Their idea is that in the first instance it is the proposition that is represented, whereas the attitude results from the functional role of that representation. For example, a desire has a different functional role in my cognitive architecture than a belief, a fear or a wish. But the propositional attitude itself can also be explicitly represented as in when I am aware of the fact that I am currently entertaining a belief as opposed to a wish, imagination or worry. The attitude can then also be explicitly ascribed to myself (or, as it were, to another subject), thus making the holder of the attitude explicit.12 So say I am at this moment seeing a red lamp on my desk. In order to consciously access the content of this visual experience (so that I can report on the lamp, for instance), I must explicitly represent the red lamp. But I need not explicitly represent the fact that this is a visual perception, or that it is me who has this experience. However, in order for me to be aware of the fact that I am entertaining a visual representation, the information that was previously implicit in the functional role that my representation played must be represented explicitly. And the same holds for the fact that it is me (rather than someone else) who is seeing the lamp. This fact is implicit in the fact that I do indeed have the experience, but it must be made explicit for me to consciously access it (such that I can then form an 'I'thought). Now, on my view, proponents of theories of nonconceptual content are correct in pointing out the fact that perception is always perception from a specific egocentric perspective and hence necessarily self-related.13 They are also correct in pointing out that proprioception delivers the 11 Moreover, propositional contents contain different components, such as individuals, properties, predication relations between the former and the latter, as well as temporal context and factuality vs. fiction, each of which can also be either implicitly or explicitly represented. 12 Note that, as we are concerned here with nonconceptual as well as conceptual representations, in the following, I will sometimes choose the more neutral term "intentional attitude", rather than "propositional attitude". In contrast to the former, the latter suggests that the content of the representation in question is propositional, and it is not obvious that this is the case for nonconceptual representations. 13 Note that this is consistent with my claim above that my knowledge that I wear a blue sweater (which I gain by looking in the mirror) is not different in kind from the knowledge that 'she is wearing a blue sweater' gained by another person who is looking at me. In both cases, an identification component is involved (hence the possibility of misidentification is provided for). Although my perception necessarily contains self-specifying information, this information is not about the blue sweater being mine – rather it is information regarding my Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 6 subject with information regarding its bodily states and properties. However, this does not imply that the information is also explicitly represented as being about the subject. Rather, because perception always occurs from a unique perspective, and because proprioception always delivers information about a unique body, there is no need for the self to be explicitly represented. In other words, there is no need for the organism to keep track of the subject of its perceptual and proprioceptive states. Rather, as I argue elsewhere (Musholt, forthcoming), the self should be understood as an 'unarticulated constituent' (Perry, 2000) of perception and proprioception. The information that is provided by perception and proprioception is implicitly self-related because it is part of the function of perception and proprioception to provide information that is related to the subject such that the information can be used for the guidance of intentional action. But this ought to be distinguished from explicit selfrepresentation where the information is explicitly represented as being about the organism. In other words, it is one thing to be in a perceptual or bodily state, but it is another thing to explicitly ascribe this state to oneself. And to put it differently again: it is one thing to be conscious and another thing to be self-conscious. 14 While perception per se does not require explicit self-representation, the explicit representation of the subject of my perception – myself – comes into play when I am about to contrast my perception (and hence my egocentric perspective) with that of another subject. For instance, it might be the case that I can see a book on the table, but you cannot, because your visual access to the book is blocked by some other object that is located between you and the book on the table. Now once I realize that this is the case, I might come to the explicit judgment that I can see the book (while you cannot). This at once provides me with an understanding of a certain mental state being mine (rather than anybody else's) and with the realization that the world as I perceive it is not necessarily the world as you perceive it (while I perceive the book to be on the table, you do not). So explicit self-representation, and hence self-consciousness, comes into play when the organism is aware of the fact that there are other individuals with mental and bodily states similar to it's own, and when it begins to contrast them with its own.15 As long as I am merely possibilities for interaction with the environment. 14 Also see Baker, this volume, who argues that "the subject with only simple consciousness (only a rudimentary first-person perspective) is the origin of his perceptual field. He does not represent himself in his perceptual field; he is its source. He does not need to make any first-person reference; the question of a first-person pronoun does not arise.", and Kapitan, who argues that the fact that "direct proprioceptive awareness and other forms of inner awareness are exclusively of a unique center of reception and reaction [...] obviates the need for any separate first-person representation". (2006, 32) 15 The reason that this relation between selfand other-ascriptions holds for both mental and bodily states Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 7 engaged in interactions with the environment, I do not need to explicitly represent my perspective or my bodily states as such. (And the same holds, of course, for other mental states, such as emotions, intentions or desires.) It makes only sense for me to explicitly represent and refer to myself insofar as I am aware that the property or state I am ascribing to myself could, in principle, be ascribed to someone else, and insofar as I intend to draw a contrast between myself and others. To put it briefly: I am self-conscious only insofar as I can distinguish myself from other subjects. That is to say that explicit self-representation requires the ability to contrast one's own perceptions, emotions, proprioceptive feelings and other mental and bodily states with those of others. So on the view proposed here, selfconsciousness emerges in concert with the ability to represent other subjects via a process of an increasingly complex "perspectival differentiation" (cf. Pauen 1999). Accordingly, we should find that self-awareness and the awareness of other minds develop in parallel, and, as we will see in the following sections, this is indeed the case. Although this is not the place to explore these relations further, it is noteworthy that the view that self-consciousness and intersubjectivity are intimately related has predecessors in the phenomenological tradition, as well as in German Idealism.16 Fichte, and later Hegel, for instance, held that self-consciousness becomes reflective and intentional only through intersubjective encounters (which are characterized by a mutual "summoning").17 Similarly, in Sartre's phenomenology, (reflective) self-consciousness is the result of intersubjectivity, which, for him, is characterized by a constant mutual objectification and, consequently, selfalienation (as famously explicated in his description of the other's gaze in his "Being and nothingness"). In other words, according to Sartre, I acquire reflective self-awareness in considering how I am being perceived by the other. However, according to other thinkers in the phenomenological tradition, most notably Merleau-Ponty (1945), my encounter with another can only motivate self-reflection if I am already aware of my visibility to the other (Gallagher & Zahavi 2010). This awareness, in turn, is based on the pre-reflective, proprioceptive-kinaesthetic sense of my body and a common "corporeal schema" between self and other, which enables my recognition of the similarity between my own and the consists in the fact that we never experience our bodies as objects among others objects, but rather, as I indicated above, as a "system of possible movements" (Dokic 2003) that are subject to the will. Hence, the relevant contrast space consists of other such "systems" (that is to say of the bodily states of other subjects), not of inanimate objects. 16 Note that I take the notion of intersubjectivity to mean the encounter between two subjects who (in some sense) recognize each other as such. That is to say that not every social interaction qualifies as an instance of intersubjectivity (also see section 3.1). 17 For a detailed discussion see (Wood 2006). Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 8 other's body; an insight that, according to Gallagher and Zahavi (2010), goes back to Husserl. Thus, Merleau-Ponty seeks to locate the relation between self-consciousness and intersubjectivity already at the pre-reflexive, bodily level, rather than at the more abstract level of mutual recognition, perspective taking and summoning. Other thinkers, such as Mead or Habermas, in turn emphasize the linguistically mediated encounters between individuals as being constitutive for self-consciousness.18 As we will see in the following, the awareness of self and others is indeed a multi-facetted phenomenon, which includes bodily and nonconceptual as well as conceptual and linguistic aspects. It will be the task of the following section to spell out the different levels of this multi-facetted phenomenon systematically and in more detail. 3. Levels of selfand other-representation In the following, I will argue that there is a gradual transition from implicit to explicit selfand other representation. Accordingly, we ought to distinguish different levels of selfand other representation, with different degrees of explicitness. As well as on Dienes' and Perner's (1999) theory of implicit and explicit knowledge, my account builds on Barresi's and Moore's (1996) multi-level account of social understanding and on Karmiloff-Smith's (1996) model of "representational redescription", according to which implicit information is turned into explicit representation through a reiterative process by which "information already present in the organism's independently functioning, specialpurpose representations, is made progressively available, via redescriptive processes, to other parts of the cognitive system" (Karmiloff-Smith, 1996, p.18). Her model posits at least four levels of representation, ranging from implicit information that is encoded in procedural form to explicit information that is coded linguistically. At the first level (I), information is encoded in procedural form and the information embedded in the procedures remains implicit and is not available to other operations in the cognitive system. At the second level (E1), representations are available as data to the system, although not necessarily to conscious access and verbal report. (Karmiloff-Smith speaks of "theories-in-action" at this level.) At the third level (E2), representations become available to conscious access, but not to verbal 18 Note that some phenomenologists claim that every conscious experience entails a minimal, pre-reflective selfconsciousness (e.g. Zahavi 2006). In contrast, I think that we should distinguish consciousness from selfconsciousness, for the reasons mentioned above. Moreover, it is not obvious to me how the notion of prereflective self-consciousness is to be understood or what explanatory work it is supposed to do, and I don't think that it is phenomenologically obvious either that every conscious experience is also self-conscious. (For a more detailed discussion of these reasons see Musholt, forthcoming. Also see Schear 2009 for a critical discussion of the notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness.) Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 9 report. And finally, at the fourth level (E3), information is recoded into a cross-system code that allows for the translation into a linguistic format (cf. Karmiloff-Smith, 1996, chapter 1).19 It is important to note that on this account, implicit representations are not simply replaced by explicit representations, although they might in some cases be subsumed under them. While explicit representations require a representational redescription of the original implicit representations, this does not mean that the implicit representations are abolished during this process of redescription. For example, while a tennis player who wants to become a trainer or write a book on how to play tennis needs to find a way to access the information that is implicit in his skillful play, such that it can be described verbally, this does not mean that he thereby loses his ability to play. Both the implicit representations that guide his fluid and automatic play as well as the explicit representations that enable him to write books and teach others remain present, albeit in very different formats. Similarly, as we will see in what follows, we have various ways of representing others (and ourselves) at different levels of explicitness. On my view, although some of these occur earlier in development than others, all of them are retained so as to help us navigate the social world in different contexts and situations. 3.1 Primary intersubjectivity or self-other matching In order to recognize that other beings have bodily and mental states like oneself, and to contrast these with one's own, a being needs to be in a position to recognize the similarity between itself and others. This requires that the being is able to match the information it receives about others, from the third person perspective, with the information it receives about itself, from the first person perspective (Barresi & Moore 1996)20. That this is by no means trivial should have become obvious from my discussion of the difference between the firstand the third-person perspective in the first section. A first requirement for this recognition is that conspecifics must be recognized as such. Empirical results show that in humans, there are a number of -presumably innate – mechanisms that ensure that infants recognize members of their own species. For instance, 19 Note that empirically, it is not always possible to distinguish between levels E2 and E3, which is why they are generally taken together as E2/E3. In effect then, the model Karmiloff-Smith proposes has three levels. Notice that I will defend a model with four levels – this is consistent, because I am going to introduce an additional level, which is even more basic than level (I) in Karmiloff-Smith's model. 20 One might argue that insofar as we are dealing with information about other subjects (rather than objects), it would be more appropriate to talk about the second person perspective here. Indeed, there is a nascent debate within philosophy as to whether there is a specific epistemic perspective (i.e. a second person perspective) associated with intersubjectivity. While this is arguably the case, for the sake of simplicity I will ignore this rather complex debate here and only refer to the distinction between first and third person perspective. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 10 neonates preferentially attend to stimuli with face-like arrangements of elements (Johnson & Morton 1991). Moreover, already at birth, infants attend preferentially to human speech over other auditory input, and by 4 days they distinguish properties of their mother tongue from those of other languages (Mehler et al. 1988). Also, young infants can distinguish animate from inanimate movement and young children use potential movements as the basis for discriminating between photos of animates and inanimates (Massey & Gelman 1988). This suggests that humans possess innate attentional biases that cause them to treat conspecifics as subjects rather than as (inanimate) objects. However, the preferential treatment of social stimuli in comparison to stimuli from objects in the environment does not yet imply an understanding that these social stimuli originate in beings that are similar to oneself. For this understanding to be possible, there needs to be some kind of matching mechanism that enables subjects to match input from self and other, or first and third person information and to integrate the information in such a way that the resulting representation can be applied to both self and other. Otherwise, first and third person information would always be treated separately, and no common representational (and, ultimately, conceptual and linguistic) scheme could develop (cf. Barresi and Moore 1996). It has been suggested that the neural basis for this matching mechanism lies in the mirror neuron system. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire both when an action (such as grasping for an object) is perceived, and when that same action is executed (Gallese 2001; Gallese et al. 2004), thus bridging the gap between agent and perceiver. They were first detected in the premotor area F5 of monkeys (Rizzolatti et al. 1996). Although it has (for methodological reasons) not been established that humans possess single neurons that fire both during action execution and observation, there is evidence from functional imaging studies for a similar system in the human brain (Iacoboni et al. 1999; Keysers & Gazzola 2009). Empirical evidence suggests that in humans some such matching mechanism is in place from very early onwards, and might even be innate, such that "infants, even newborns, are capable of apprehending the equivalence between body transformations they see and the ones they feel themselves perform" (Meltzoff 1990, p.160). For instance, as Meltzoff and Moore (1977) have demonstrated, newborns seem to be able to imitate the facial gestures of adults, such as tongue protrusion and mouth opening shortly after birth. This seems to suggest that they are able to match visual information about the facial expression of others with the proprioceptive information they receive about their own faces. Accordingly, it has been argued that the ability to match first person and third person inputs is innate. However, according to Anisfeld, infants were shown to reliably match only one gesture, namely tongue protrusion, and this Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 11 effect was transitory (Anisfeld 1991).21 So the innateness of this matching mechanism is controversial.22 But whatever the case may be, it is uncontroversial that some such mechanism exists, explaining humans' general abilities for imitation and the possibility of the development of a common conceptual scheme for self and other. However, this is not to say that at very early stages of social interaction, infants already have an explicit representation of a self-other matching (or a self-other difference, for that matter). The content of the multi-modal representations at these stages is nonconceptual and implicit, and does neither require the explicit distinction between self and other, nor the explicit representation of an intentional relation.23 In fact, it seems plausible that at the very early stages of self-other matching indicated by neonate imitation, there is no differentiation between self and other whatsoever. Cases of early infant imitation are thus comparable to the phenomenon of emotional contagion (which will be further discussed in section 3.3), where the perception of an emotional expression by another subject causes the experience of that same emotion in oneself, so that there is no differentiation between the other's emotion and one's own. Because there is no self-other differentiation at this level (and hence no awareness of other subjects as such), we cannot yet speak of self-awareness or intersubjectivity in a philosophical sense (despite the fact that the phenomena in question are discussed under the label of "primary intersubjectivity" in the developmental literature). 3.2 Secondary intersubjectivity Social interactions and the representations associated with them reach a new quality from about the age of 9 to 12 months. At this age, infants enter into contexts of shared attention and intentionality. Within the developmental literature, these are also called forms of "secondary intersubjectivity", in contrast to the so-called forms of "primary intersubjectivity" described in the previous section (Trevarthen 1979). At this stage, infants begin to coordinate their object-directed behavior with their person-directed behavior, that is, they move from purely dyadic forms of interaction to triadic forms of interaction. In other words, they begin to engage in shared intentional relations. For instance, they will follow the gaze or the pointing gesture of another person to an object of mutual interest, thus exhibiting "shared attention" towards that object (Tomasello et al. 2005). This suggests an implicit understanding of others 21 Similar results were recently found in newborn monkeys (Ferrari et al. 2006). 22 See Heyes (2009) for an account that suggests that mirror neurons develop on the basis of sensorimotor learning processes, rather than constituting a specialized and innate module for imitation and/or action recognition. 23 According to Barresi and Moore (1996), an intentional relation is a relation involving an agent, a directed activity and an object. Examples include intentional actions as well as perceptions, beliefs, desires and emotions. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 12 as perceivers, and the existence of a mechanism that integrates the first person information about one's own perceptual situation with the third person information received about another's perceptual understanding. Moreover, infants at this age will begin to develop social referencing, which is to say that they use emotional information from their caregivers to regulate their own behavior in situations that are perceived as threatening (e.g., Feinman 1982). One example for such social referencing is the visual cliff paradigm used by Klinnert et al. (1983). A visual cliff is a table made of glass and visually divided into two halves. On one half, a pattern is placed immediately below the glass plate so that this half appears opaque, while on the other half a similar pattern is placed at a distance from the glass plate, so that there appears to be a sudden drop-off. When children reach the drop-off point, they will stop and look to their mothers. If the mother looks happy, the child will continue its crawl, but if the mother looks worried, it will refuse to move forward. This suggests a matching between first and third person emotional intentional relations (in addition to the perceptual and action-related intentional relations described above), such that children adopt the emotion they perceive their mothers to be expressing. Children at this age will also begin to display communicative gestures, such as protoimperative and proto-declarative pointing gestures (Bates 1979). Proto-imperatives function as a form of nonverbal request to a partner, for instance in order to obtain an object that is out of reach. In contrast, proto-declaratives are more akin to nonverbal comments on a situation, for instance when the pointing-gesture is used to inform another about the location of an object. While the former is an attempt at influencing what another person does, and is thus directed at action-related intentional relations, the latter is trying to affect the other's attention or thoughts, and is thus directed at epistemic intentional relations. So while the former seems to suggest an implicit grasp of others as agents, the latter seems to suggest an implicit understanding of others as perceivers and/or believers. Interestingly, while non-human (human-raised) primates have been found to use proto-imperatives to some degree, they do not seem to use proto-declaratives (Tomasello 2008). This suggests that while chimpanzees have an implicit understanding of others as perceivers and agents and can use this understanding instrumentally to their advantage, they either have no understanding or no interest (or both) to influence the mental states of others outside of instrumental contexts. That is, in contrast to humans, they do not seem to engage in the sharing of information or cooperation outside of instrumental contexts.24 24 In fact, Tomasello argues that it is precisely the ability and desire for cooperation (enabling the development of Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 13 However, neither shared attention, nor social referencing, nor the ability to use protoimperatives and declaratives imply the explicit attribution of mental states to others, for they do not require the distinction between propositional attitudes and propositional contents. That is to say that children at this age do not understand mental representations as such, so they are not able to understand, for instance, that mental states can misrepresent. Rather, the representations of others as agents, perceivers, and bearers of emotions that are involved in these contexts of secondary intersubjectivity are implicit in the procedures for different types of social interaction. Nor do these abilities require an explicit differentiation between self and other. During episodes of shared attention, there is a matching of first and third person information in the sense that infants perceive the gaze orientation of the other while simultaneously seeing the object of shared attention and sensing the position of their own head or eyes. Likewise, in the case of social referencing, the infant sees another's emotional expression and adopts a corresponding emotional attitude. So shared intentionality enables the matching of third person information about another's behavior with first person information about being in an intentional relation. Nonetheless, infants understand the intentional relations associated with these types of social interaction only to the extend that they actually engage in episodes of shared intentionality, and this engagement does not require an explicit differentiation between first and third personal sources of information, nor does it involve the explicit attribution of an intentional relation to an intentional agent (cf. Barresi and Moore 1996). Thus, the understanding of others (and thus of oneself) as intentional agents still seems to be located at the implicit level. This analysis is further supported by the fact that these representations seem to be domain-specific, for, according to Karmiloff-Smith (1996), in order for information that is implicit in specific behavioral procedures to become available to other parts of the cognitive system, it needs to be redescribed into a more explicit format. "At ten months of age, when infants are in the process of developing understanding of communicative actions such as pointing, and of states of social attention such as mutual gaze, these developments are not closely related: a child may master one of these domains while making little progress in the other [...]. Moreover, ten-month-old infants reliably follow a person's gaze to the object at which she is looking and look at an object to which she is reaching, but they fail to connect these two abilities so as to predict that a person will reach for the object to which she looks." (Spelke 2009; also see Phillips et al. 2002) "we-intentions (Tuomela & Miller 1988)) that distinguishes humans from other primates, and that accounts for language learning and other cultural achievements (e.g., Tomasello 2009). Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 14 This suggests that infants at this age fail to integrate their implicit understanding of others as agents with their implicit understanding of others as perceivers who share their own experiences of the world (cf. Spelke 2009). The representations that are implicit in different social interactions must first be transformed into more general, explicit representations before the infant can develop an integrated understanding of others – and consequently of themselves – as agents, perceivers and bearers of emotions. 3.3. Mirror self recognition and self-conscious emotions In order for a subject to realize that other subjects are distinct beings with their own mental states, and as such are similar to herself, she needs to be in a position to not only match third person information from others with first person information from her own experience in current episodes of shared intentionality, but she also needs to understand that others possess first person information about their mental states which might differ from her own. Moreover, she needs to understand that others have third person information about herself (just like she has third person information about them). In other words, she needs to understand that others can perceive and observe her (just like she can perceive and observe others), and that others ascribe intentional relations to herself on the basis of these perceptions. That is to say that she must understand the other's mental state about her own mental states. One indicator that the child is aware of third person information about the self is its ability for mirror-self-recognition (Barresi and Moore 1996). This ability is standardly tested with the help of the rouge test, in which the subject is marked with a red spot on its face and then put in front of a mirror (Amsterdam 1972; Gallup Jr 1979). If the subject attempts to remove the spot on her face, this is taken to demonstrate that she recognizes herself in the mirror. This ability typically emerges in children at about the age of 18 to 24 months. Self-recognition indicates that the child recognizes herself as a subject among other subjects, and thus as a subject that can be perceived by others. Interestingly, mirror self-recognition is accompanied by the development of so-called secondary or self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment and coyness (Lewis et al. 1989).25 This suggests that the child's emotional attitudes are affected by her imagination of what she might look like to others, and thus indicate an integration of her first person experience with the third person information others have about herself (and that she can henceforth also have about herself by gaining information about herself in the ways others do, namely, for instance, by observing herself in a mirror). 25 Notice that this affective component of intersubjectivity and self-consciousness was already emphasized by Sartre. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 15 Thus, to use Rochat's terminology, from this point onwards, the child has "others in mind" (Rochat 2009). The child now begins to understand that she is a subject that can be observed by others, just like she can observe the behavior of others, and she can begin to consider others' perspectives on herself. It is at this point that the child begins to fully appreciate herself as a subject among other subjects, and thus that we can speak of genuine (if rudimentary) forms of self-awareness and intersubjectivity. Signs for a clear understanding of the emotional intentional relations of others as being different from one's own also begin to emerge during the second half of the second year. One example is the development of empathy (Hobson 2002). Younger children will typically get distressed themselves and seek comfort when they perceive expressions of distress by others, thus exhibiting signs of emotional contagion. In contrast, children during the second half of the second year – while still showing some signs of distress themselves, indicating that there is some first personal experience of the relevant emotional state -will try to do something to console the other, thus demonstrating an understanding that the emotion belongs to the other (Barresi and Moore, 1996). Much later, once children develop an explicit theory of mind, they will even be able to show sympathy, which is the ability to understand and be sensitive towards the mental states of others without experiencing them from the first person perspective. Moreover, at around this age, children begin to display a general understanding of the fact that someone else's perspective towards an object can differ from their own. For instance, 24months olds are capable of level 1 perspective taking, which is to say that they can understand that what another person sees is different from what they see (for instance that they can see an object that another person cannot see)26, and vice versa (Moll & Tomasello 2006). Thus, it is at this level that the child begins to explicitly differentiate between self and other and to attribute intentional relations differentially to self and other. Prior to this level, the child has de facto access to the mental states of others, but she need not explicitly represent these states as belonging to the other, for she is always engaged in an episode of shared intentionality during which she herself also experiences the intentional relations that she shares with her partner. In order for this shared intentionality to occur, it is sufficient that intentional relations are in fact shared; the child does not have to explicitly represent her own mental states as being distinct from those of others. In contrast, in the case of empathy, although the child will share some of the emotion of the other (as evidenced by her display of behavioral signs of distress), the comforting behavior that she directs towards the other does 26 In contrast, according to Flavell, level 2 perspective taking requires the understanding that the same object can be seen from different perspectives. The ability for level-2 perspective taking emerges later; see below. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 16 show that she explicitly represents the emotion as belonging to the other. Likewise, as the ability to for level-1 perspective taking indicates, she learns to represent perceptual states as belonging either to herself or to others. Thus, during the second half of the second year the child begins to understand that others have mental states (first person experiences) like herself, and that they may have different perspectives on the same world. That is to say that she now explicitly represents intentional subjects as well as intentional relations. However, these representations do not yet have to be in a conceptual or linguistic format. Rather, following Karmiloff-Smith's terminology, they might be said to constitute something like a theory-of-mind-in-action (at level E1 of explicitness), without that theory being conceptualized or consciously accessible, for instance in terms of folk psychological beliefdesire explanations. 3.4. Explicit mentalizing and theory of mind Although mirror self recognition and empathy indicate an emerging understanding of being a subject among others subjects, none of the abilities described above does yet imply the existence of an explicit theory of mind. To truly appreciate the nature of mental states, a subject must be able to distinguish propositional attitudes from propositional content, and she must understand that mental states can misrepresent. This ability is demonstrated when children pass so-called false belief tasks, which is usually the case at around 4 years of age. It is only at this stage that they reach the ability to explicitly represent belief states as states that can be held by others and thus differ from one's own beliefs, and as states that can misrepresent, and thus differ from reality. In the classical falsebelief task designed by Wimmer and Perner (1983), the child watches a scene involving a boy called Maxi and an experimenter. The experimenter hides a piece of chocolate in a box. When Maxi temporarily leaves the room, the chocolate is transferred into a different container. The child who is watching the scene is asked where the chocolate really is, and where Maxi will look for it upon his return. That is to say that the child has to distinguish between what she herself knows about the reality and Maxi's (false) belief about the location of the chocolate. So she has to differentiate her own belief from Maxi's belief, and she has to distinguish between propositional attitude ('Maxi believes that ...') and propositional content ('the chocolate is...'). Thus, in order to pass the false-belief task, the child has to have an explicit representation of propositional content, propositional attitude, and holder of the attitude. The child also has to know that Maxi's behavior will be determined by his mental state, rather than by reality. This implies that she now has to be able to integrate her knowledge about Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 17 Maxi as an agent with her knowledge about him as a perceiver and believer (for his belief state will be determined by where he saw the chocolate being hidden earlier and this in turn will determine how he behaves). As we saw in section 3.2, this kind of integrated representation is lacking at the level of implicit representations of intentional relations. At the implicit level, representations of others as perceiver, agents and bearers of emotions are domain specific and cannot be transferred to or integrated with information from other domains. But once the information has been recoded into an explicit format, it can be generalized and applied across domains, thus leading to a more complete notion of other persons – and of oneself. Crucially for the thesis of this paper, there is also direct evidence that the ability to ascribe (false) beliefs to others develops in parallel with the ability to ascribe (false) beliefs to oneself. Although the relevant empirical evidence to date must be regarded as preliminary due to the fact that the majority of research on ToM has focused on 'reading other minds' rather than self-attribution of mental states, several recent studies confirm such a parallel development (see Happé 2003 for a review). Most impressively, a recent meta-analysis of ToM studies (involving 178 separate studies) comes to the conclusion that children do not pass self-belief tasks earlier than other-belief tasks: "The essential age trajectory for tasks requiring judgments of someone else's false belief is paralleled by an identical age trajectory for children's judgments of their own false beliefs. Young children, for example, are just as incorrect at attributing a false belief to themselves as they are at attributing it to others." (Wellman et al., 2001, p.665). This confirms that there is a parallel development for the explicit representation of one's own mental states and those of others. At around the same time of passing false-belief tasks, children also begin to display a number of related cognitive abilities (see Rakoczy 2008 for an overview). For instance, they begin to be able to solve unexpected content tasks (Perner et al. 1987)27. Moreover, they begin to distinguish appearance from reality (J. H. Flavell et al. 1983). That is, they begin to distinguish what an object seems to be (for instance a sponge that looks like a stone) from what it really is (i.e. a sponge). They also begin to participate in second-level perspective taking; for instance, they are able to tell whether a drawing looks upside-down to an observer that is sitting opposite from them (J. H. Flavell et al. 1981). Finally, they master tasks 27 In this task, children are being presented with a box (e.g. a smarties box) and asked what they think is inside. They are then being shown the real content of the box, for example a pen. Afterwards, they are being asked a) what another child will think is in the box, and b) what they previously thought was in the box. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 18 involving intentional deception, for example by deceiving a "nasty" puppet, with whom they (or a "friendly" puppet) are competing for a reward, either through deceptive pointing or by telling a lie (Sodian 1991; Sodian 1994). What these tasks have in common is that they imply an understanding of epistemic perspectives as being different from reality, and of the fact that it is the content of subjective mental states provided by the respective perspective that is guiding the actions of individuals. In other words, the child learns to ascribe propositional attitudes to others and to use these as premises in predicting and explaining the behavior of others (Perner 1991; Rakoczy 2008). Thus, at this level, children possess a theory of mind that is explicitly represented in E2/3 format. This is further supported by the strong connection between linguistic abilities and the understanding of beliefs and folk psychology (see P. A. de Villiers 2005; Zlatev 2008 for an overview). For example, deaf children who are not exposed to sign language from very early on show a delayed understanding of the (false) beliefs of others compared to children with signing parents and hearing children (Peterson & Siegal 1995). Moreover, longitudinal studies indicate that language development predicts theory of mind performance, but not vice versa (Astington & Jenkins 1999; J. de Villiers & Pyers 1997). Also, exposure to discourse involving different perspectives enhances false belief understanding (Lohmann & Tomasello 2003).28 Once the child has acquired the relevant linguistic skills that enable explicit theory-of-mind reasoning, it can also begin to engage in inner speech. There is evidence that inner speech in particular plays an important role for explicit self-consciousness, in the sense of explicit selfreflection. Portions of the left prefrontal lobe are associated both with inner speech and selfreflective activities, and studies using various measures of self-talk and self-reflection indicate a strong correlation between these two mental activities (Morin, 2005). According to Morin, inner speech turns the initially socially generated practice of talking and reflection upon oneself into an inner experience. As Morin points out, this idea was already expressed by Mead (1912/1964), who argued that inner speech in early childhood serves to make young speakers aware of themselves and their separate existence through an internalization of others' perspectives on oneself. So inner speech would reproduce social feedback and perspective taking, thereby internalizing it. Moreover, inner speech is thought to facilitate the conceptualization and labeling of self-related aspects, thereby rendering these aspects more salient and more differentiated (Morin 2005). 28 The relation between language acquisition and the development of self-concept is also emphasized by Baker, this volume. Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 19 As we can see, a number of social cognitive skills and forms of intersubjectivity are undoubtedly in place before the onset of linguistic abilities, and are arguably necessary requirements for the development of language. Nonetheless, linguistic abilities seem to be necessary to develop a full-fledged theory of mind. This might explain why chimpanzees and other great apes do not seem to be able to ascribe (false) beliefs or other mental states to others (with the probably exception of visual perceptual states), although they do seem to be able to engage in shared attention and selective imitation, and display mirror-self-recognition (Call & Tomasello, 2008). Notice that I am not arguing that pre-linguistic forms of social cognition, which rely on an implicit understanding of others, are being replaced or abolished by later, linguistically mediated and explicit forms of mentalizing. Rather, the model I propose assumes that the more basic forms of social cognition are retained, such that social cognitive skills become gradually enriched and more complex as implicit information is redescribed into a more explicit format. In other words, we have various ways of understanding and interacting with others, some of which are based on implicit information about the mental states of others, others based on explicit representation. 4. Conclusion I have argued that explicit self-representation requires the awareness of other subjects and of their similarity to oneself, such that one can contrast one's own bodily and mental states with those of others. This awareness develops over the course of an increasingly complex perspectival differentiation, during which information about self and other that is implicit in early forms of social interaction becomes redescribed into an explicit format. So my account suggests a gradual transition from implicit to explicit forms of selfand other-representation that leads to an increasingly complex array of social cognitive abilities and, in turn, to the development of a self-concept. The account is summarized in table 1 below. We can now see how we get from the self-related information that is implicit in perception and bodily forms of self-awareness to an explicit representation of oneself as a subject among other subjects. The crucial element is intersubjectivity, which requires a mechanism that allows for the matching of first and third person information in concert with a process of representational redescription such as to enable a differentiation between self and other. My account also suggests that we have multiple ways of understanding and engaging with others, which might require multiple explanatory strategies. Some of these are likely to Forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien 84 (2012), p. 75-101 20 involve simulation processes and rely on bodily and implicit self-other matching, others require explicit mentalizing and linguistic abilities. Once the level of conceptual and linguistic self-other representation is reached, communicative actions, including personal and cultural narratives can begin to shape an individual's self-notion and influence its self-reflection and subsequently self-conceptualization as belonging to particular groups or cultures. It is not the place to argue for this claim here, but note that the account I have proposed suggests that it might be possible to conceptualize the different theories of mind which are currently debated, namely the theory-theory, the simulation theory, the interaction theory and the narrative practice hypothesis as complementary rather than as competing theories.29 Level Age Social cognitive abilities Representational format 1 Birth onwards Detection of multi-modal contingencies, neonatal imitation Automatic cross-modal matching, no self-other differentiation 2 9 months onwards Shared attention, selective imitation, social referencing, protoimperatives and proto-declaratives Implicit representation of self-other and of intentional relations, domain specific 3 18 months onwards Mirror-self-recognition, selfconscious emotions, empathy, level-1 perspective taking Explicit self-other differentiation and representation of intentional relations (E1) 4 4 years onwards Mastery of false-belief and unexpected content tasks, level-2 perspective taking, appearancereality distinction, intentional deception Explicit representations of mental states, distinction between propositional attitudes and propositional contents, E2/3 representations, conceptual & linguistic Table 1: Levels of self-and other-representation30 29 In this respect I take my account to be broadly compatible with the view expressed in Newen & Schlicht (2009). Although Newen & Schlicht see their "Person Model Theory" as an alternative to other theories of mind (and thus would object to the claim that they might be seen as compatible), they also argue that we have both nonconceptual and conceptual ways of representing and understanding other persons. Of course, whether we can see the different theories of mind as compatible rather than as competing will depend on how they are spelled out in detail – after all, for instance, both theory-theory and simulation theory come in rather 'different flavours'. 30 Notice that the first level in my model is even more basic than level (I) in Karmiloff-Smith's model. Accordingly, my account posits at least four different levels, while Karmiloff-Smith's account posits three levels (if E2/3 representations are taken together as one level). 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HASTINGS CENTER REPORT September-October 2014 A Troublesome Inheritance, by Nicholas Wade, should be read by anyone interested in race and recent human evolution. Wade deserves credit for challenging the popular dogma that biological differences between groups either don't exist or cannot explain the relative success of different groups at different tasks. Wade's work should be read alongside another recent book, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. Together these books represent a major turning point in the public debate about the speed with which relatively isolated groups can evolve: both books suggest that small genetic differences between members of different groups can have large impacts on their abilities and propensities, which in turn affect the outcomes of the societies in which they live. Ever since the 1950s, Wade argues, many academics have denied the biological reality of race, and some have suggested that merely believing in racial differences constitutes a kind of racism. But the rejection of race as a useful concept is often more of a political pose than a serious scientific claim, and it became especially popular among academics after the Second World War, during which Nazi pseudoscientists used claims of racial superiority to justify mass murder. As it turns out, Ashkenazi Jews-generally, those Jews with roots in Russia, Poland, and Germany, the group nearly exterminated in the Holocaust-have been consistently found by intelligence researchers to have the highest average IQ in the world. The 10,000 Year Explosion and A Troublesome Inheritance each spend an entire chapter detailing the remarkable achievements of Ashkenazi Jews and hold them up as exhibit A in the argument that human evolution has been, in Wade's words, recent, copious, and regional. The example of Ashkenazi evolution is supposed to show the absurdity of the view, held by authors like Jared Diamond and Stephen Jay Gould, that human evolution either stopped one hundred thousand years ago or that natural selection has somehow continued to sculpt the bodies but not the brains of different groups of people. Wade uses "race" to refer to groups of people who have been separated long enough to have developed clusters of functionally significant genetic differences, and "ethnicity" to apply to groups within races who have small but significant genetic differences from other groups within a race. The concept of an ethnicity is made especially clear if we understand the coevolution of genes and culture. If within a culturally diverse but racially distinctive region like the Arabian Peninsula, nomadic Bedouins tend to marry Bedouins, while city dwellers marry each other, then Bedouins and city dwellers may begin to diverge into biologically and culturally different ethnicities as they face different selective pressures. For example, because Bedouins were nomads who increasingly depended on their camels for transportation and milk, those who produced the lactase enzyme (which facilitates milk digestion) into adulthood had a reproductive advantage over those who lacked this enzyme. As the allele for lactose tolerance spread through the population, reliance on camels became even more entrenched in Bedouin culture, and selective pressure increased for lactose tolerance. Despite being both Arab and Muslim, Bedouins have enough genetic and cultural differences to constitute a distinctive ethnic group throughout the Middle East. The important point is that cultural pressures can directly impact natural selection, and preexisting traits create propensities that shape culture. Wade ultimately invokes gene-culture coevolution to explain, among other things, how Tibetans evolved a greater capacity to tolerate life in the mountains than Indians, how Europeans who have depended on agriculture for thousands of years can consume more carbohydrates without succumbing to diabetes than Native Americans, and how Ashkenazi Jews could have evolved higher intelligence than Sephardic Jews in as little as one thousand years. Wade uses terms like "race" and "ethnicity" in a deliberately vague way, as shorthand for saying that there are relatively large or small genetic differences between groups of people-differences that are path dependent and arise from breeding within a discrete population. He also concedes that racial groups are separated by fuzzy borders rather than sharp lines. This is because of genetic exchange between groups and because most alleles are merely distributed with different frequencies in different populations (not all Bedouins, for example, are lactose tolerant). If scientists can uncover the genetic basis of group differences, shouldn't we worry that the study of race will promote racism? Wade takes this question up in the first and last chapters of the book, although his answers are only partially convincing. First, he says, racial differences are not all that big: "People review Genes, Race, and the Ethics of Belief by jonathan Anomaly A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. By Nicholas Wade. Penguin, 2014. 288 pages. Hardcover. $27.95. September-October 2014 HASTINGS CENTER REPORT 51 being so similar, no one has the right or reason to assert superiority over a person of a different race" (p. 9). While it is true that most genetic differences between groups are not large, this is less convincing than the analogous argument from individual differences. Wade should have said, "Individual people being so different, no one has the right or reason to assert superiority over a person of a different race." This is because there is tremendous genetic variation between individuals within a particular race, sometimes more than the average variation across races. Even if the average Asian has an IQ of 105 and the average African has an IQ of 90, two individual Asians may have an IQ of 120 and 80, respectively (it is important to separate genetic and environmental contributions to IQ and to note that IQ does not capture every aspect of intelligence, but assume for the moment that we are speaking only about the genetic component of IQ). The problem with saying that "Asians are smarter than Africans" or that "Africans are faster than Asians" is not simply that differences between groups are not very large. It's rather that, in any given case, there is a good chance that the assertion is factually incorrect, because of the bell-shaped distribution of traits like memory or muscle mass within a population. By contrast, the problem with saying that "Africans are superior to Asians" is that there is no widely agreed upon set of characteristics that composes "superiority." Computational skills and running speed are only some of the many things people care about. Compassion and kindness, creativity, aesthetic beauty, and a sense of humor are among the many other qualities people prize. Although a truly exceptional individual may possess more of these traits than another individual, no race or ethnicity possesses all or even most of them more than other races. And in a market society characterized by specialization and exchange, everyone benefits from the different talents of everyone else. Wade's second argument, more convincing than the first, is that claims about racial superiority are normative claims that cannot be undermined by appeals to group differences. Wade doesn't spend much time on this, but he does say that "the notion that any race has the right to dominate others or is superior in any absolute sense can be firmly rejected as a matter of principle and, being rooted in principle, is unassailable by science" (p. 8). This is not to say that Wade's book is unproblematic. Some of his more provocative hypotheses have the potential to comfort racists who wish to explain the relative success of different groups via biology alone rather than institutions. Wade is surely right that biological differences can create the preconditions for some institutions to succeed or fail, but he often pushes the argument well beyond what the evidence can support. For example, he ignores the role of fossil fuels in providing the cheap energy that facilitated English economic growth in the nineteenth century and concentrates instead on the role of the eugenic effects of the English social structure that preceded the Industrial Revolution. In discussing how differences in gene-culture coevolution can explain the trajectory of different groups, Wade argues that as hunter-gatherers moved into settled communities, changes occurred in certain genetically mediated traits, including a capacity to trust more people and a greater willingness to defer to impersonal social norms and punish norm-violators. This seems plausible enough, and it may explain why it took so long for humans to move from small and mobile hunter-gatherer societies to large and settled agricultural societies. But it has a troubling implication. Wade thinks that some groups of people, including modern hunter-gatherers and their recent descendants, will have a hard time living in modern nation states-not merely because they are accustomed to a different way of life, but because they are genetically ill-suited to live under alternative institutions. It is hard to know what to make of claims like this, especially without more knowledge of how genes mediate social behaviors. Although Wade cites studies that suggest that some groups have greater frequencies of alleles associated with violence and that hunter-gatherers who are more successful at violent warfare are often rewarded with more offspring, he warns his readers that he is going well beyond what the available evidence demonstrates and offering conjectures about why some groups have prospered under modern social and political institutions, while others have not. These claims raise compelling questions about the ethics of belief, as well as the justification of belief. For example, if some stereotypes turn out to have a biological basis, will this reduce our ability to treat each other fairly? It is not always unfair to use information about biological differences to make generalizations (for example, that men are more prone to violence than women or that West Africans are more prone to sickle cell anemia than East Africans), but sometimes information-even if it is accurate-can be used by some people to unfairly dominate others. Wade's speculation would be innocuous if it weren't likely to be read by people who will misinterpret it or use it to justify racist attitudes or policies. Assuming it is likely to be misunderstood or misused by some people, the question is whether such speculation should be part of a public discussion. As academics, we should follow the arguments wherever they lead us and pursue the truth even when it challenges our most cherished beliefs. As citizens, we should worry that arguments like Wade's will be used by demagogues to prey on people who are prone to fantasies about racial purity. The trick for thoughtful readers is to separate science from speculation and to highlight the difficulty of deriving normative conclusions from empirical claims. DOI: 10.1002/hast.

Rawlsian Self-Respect1 cynthia a. stark Self-respect is a good whose value seems undeniable. As a consequence, it presents itself as a notion capable of justifying the value of other goods. Indeed it has been employed in this way by a number of philosophers (Boxill 1976; Held 1973; Postow 1979; Miller 1982; Mohr 1988). The most prominent of these is John Rawls. Rawls appeals to the good of self-respect to justify many features of "justice as fairness"-the highly influential account of distributive justice presented in A Theory of Justice. Most who have considered the role of self-respect in Rawls's theory, throughout the four decades since the publication of A Theory of Justice, have agreed that Rawls's argument rests upon an irreparable equivocation between two different ideals of self-respect (Doppelt 2009; Eyal 2009; Moriarty 2009; Thomas 1978a, 1978b).2 In the face of this critical consensus, I attempt to resurrect Rawls's approach. I show first that Rawls relies upon an unambiguous notion of self-respect, though he sometimes is unclear as to whether this notion has merely instrumental or also intrinsic value. I show second that Rawls's main objective in arguing that justice as fairness supports citizens' self-respect is not, as many have thought, to show that his principles support citizens' self-respect generally, but to show that his principles counter the effects of the market on lower class citizens' sense of worth. This discussion 1 I owe thanks to Jeffrey Moriarty and the participants in the Second Annual Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics, especially Ernesto Garcia, Thomas Hurka, and Elijah Millgram, for their feedback on this paper. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. 2 See also, Deigh 1983; Labukt 2009; Lane 1982; McKinnon 2003; and Yanal 1987. Distinctions among different types of self-respect that have bearing upon the supposed equivocation contained in Rawls's account are discussed in Darwall 1977; Dillon 1992; Hudson 1980; Massey 1983; Middleton 2006; and Sachs 1981. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi establishes that Rawls, in the end, sees self-respect primarily as an intrinsic good. I proceed as follows. First I outline the equivocation objection. Second I argue that that Rawls's view of self-respect should be interpreted as the belief that the activities that make up one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matter. Third I establish that this interpretation is consistent with all of Rawls's arguments justifying justice as fairness by appeal to self-respect. Finally, I show that these arguments are primarily designed to demonstrate that justice as fairness upholds the self-respect of lower class citizens in spite of their diminished class position. the argument and the standard critique Rawls's argument that his principles of justice preserve citizens' selfrespect has the following structure. First, Rawls claims that selfrespect-the secure conviction that one's plan of life is worth carrying out-is what he calls a "primary social good." It is, along with wealth, liberties, and opportunities, a necessary all-purpose means for citizens (as moral persons) to achieve their ends. He maintains, second, that because self-respect has this special role, the provision of self-respect is a matter of justice. Indeed, political arrangements can be judged just or unjust in part on the basis of whether those arrangements sustain selfrespect. Third, he argues that the arrangements proposed by justice as fairness indeed secure citizens' self-respect.3 He concludes that those arrangements are, to that extent, just. Rawls's critics claim that this argument breaks down because the attitude Rawls identifies as a primary social good, and hence as necessary for agents to achieve their ends, is not the same attitude as the one he shows his principles to promote.4 The former attitude consists in believing one's conception of the good to have value; the latter consists in recognizing one's equal standing as a citizen. So, Rawls has not shown 3 For a discussion of the ways in which Rawls's two principles of distributive justice support citizens' self-respect see Cohen 1989. 4 Though there are subtle differences in meaning between such terms as "support," "promote," "secure," "advance," and the like, for stylistic reasons, I use these interchangeably when discussing Rawls's idea that social arrangements and principles of justice can contribute to or detract from citizens' self-respect. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 239 that his principles ensure that citizens have the sense of worth they need to pursue their ends. Furthermore, the argument goes, this problem cannot be fixed because the attitude said to be supported by justice as fairness is not plausibly counted a primary social good: one need not recognize one's equal civil status in order to pursue one's ends. And, the attitude Rawls identifies as a primary social good is not plausibly supported by his principles of justice. While the equal distribution of liberty, for example, might help citizens recognize their equal civil status, it will not likely cause them to believe their conceptions of the good to be valuable. rawls's account of our sense of worth In A Theory of Justice, Rawls defines self-respect (or self-esteem-he uses the terms interchangeably) as follows: "First," he says, ". . . [I]t 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, selfrespect implies a confidence in one's ability, so far as it is within one's power, to fulfill one's intentions" (1971: 440). Later, in Political Liberalism, Rawls characterizes self-respect5 thusly: "Self-respect is rooted in our self-confidence as a fully cooperating member of society capable of pursuing a worthwhile conception of the good over a complete life . . . The importance of self-respect is that it provides a secure sense of our own value, a firm conviction that our determinate conception of the good is worth carrying out" (1993: 318). So, there are two separate aspects to Rawls's account of self-respect. One involves confidence in one's capacity to pursue a conception of the good. Call this the "self-confidence aspect." The other involves a secure belief that one's conception of the good is worth pursuing. Call this the "sense of one's value aspect." Now, as it turns out, the self-confidence aspect of Rawls's account does very little justificatory work in his theory. His arguments that various features of justice as fairness support citizens' self-respect rarely invoke the self-confidence aspect. So, I will set aside, for the purposes of this paper, this aspect of Rawls's view and focus on the sense of worth aspect. 5 By now Rawls maintains that self-respect and self-esteem are not the same attitude and refers to the notion of self-worth that concerns him as "self-respect." See Freeman 1999: 260. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 240 Cynthia A. Stark attitudes towards our activities Let us assume, then, that Rawls is primarily concerned that citizens see their conceptions of the good as worth carrying out. That is to say, for Rawls, self-respecting citizens attach value of some sort to their conceptions of the good. And those who lack self-respect fail to attach such value to their ends. As mundane as this idea might seem, it is actually puzzling as an account of self-respect, for it seems to render selfrespect an empty concept. To see this, consider someone-call him Marty-who has a career as a chef. Suppose Marty has adopted gourmet cooking as a substantial aspect of his conception of the good. Suppose, in other words, that Marty has adopted gourmet cooking as an end. Cooking for him is not merely an interest, an inclination, or a pastime. It is something to which he is committed. Surely it follows directly from the fact that Marty has taken gourmet cooking as an end, that he values (in some sense) gourmet cooking. Given that gourmet cooking is at the center of Marty's conception of the good, to state that he values it is not to make an additional claim about his relation to gourmet cooking, for the claim that one values the components of one's conception of the good is plausibly counted a conceptual truth. It is hard to see how one could not value something that is by definition part of his set of values. Taking a cue from Rawls's later characterization of self-respect, in which he invokes the idea of the citizen as a "fully cooperating member of society," I propose that we see Rawlsian self-respect not as a valuing stance toward one's ends or conception of the good, but as a valuing stance toward the activities that make up one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation. There is no conceptual barrier to a person failing to value these activities-to one's failing to see these activities as worth pursuing. And one's failing to see these as worth pursuing would indeed be likely to hinder one's pursuit of one's ends. It follows that viewing as worth doing the activities that make up one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation fits Rawls's characterization of a primary social good-a good that is necessary for one to pursue one's ends, whatever they are. There are three cases where we can see how a failure to value the activities that make up one's contribution to a scheme of social OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 241 cooperation would impede one's pursuit of one's ends. If I am right that it is a conceptual truth that persons value their ends, it follows that if a person fails to value her contribution to a scheme of social cooperation that contribution is not an end for her. If she has no other ends, then she is, at it were, "at loose ends" and is hindered in the pursuit of her ends simply by not having any. In the more likely case that she does have other ends-other activities that she values to which her contribution to a scheme of cooperation is a means-then not valuing her contribution will make it difficult for her to pursue her ends simply by making it difficult to undertake the activities she must in order to pursue her ends.6 Another way that not valuing one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation can hinder one's pursuit of one's ends is that, in making one's (unvalued) contribution, one is not pursuing one's ends. One's ends and one's contribution pull apart and so one is deprived of the experience of fulfilling one's ends through the activities that one spends much of one's life doing. Indeed, I suspect that in claiming that social arrangements should encourage citizens to value their conceptions of the good what Rawls has in mind is that those arrangements should encourage, or at least allow, citizens to regard the activities that make up their contributions to society as among their ends. So, let us suppose that Rawls's concern about citizens' self-respect is the concern that citizens believe that the activities that make up their contribution to a scheme of social cooperation are in some sense valuable. There are three ways that we might understand the attitude of valuing that one might have toward one's contribution.7 A person might see his contribution as valuable 6 I realize that this interpretation represents a significant departure from Rawls's stated view and that this interpretation-or perhaps, more accurately, modification-ultimately requires more argument than I have provided. I think this modification can be supported by the link, suggested in Rawls's work, between self-respect and the ideal of reciprocity that Rawls claims is expressed by his principles of justice. He says, for instance, that while the least advantaged in society "control fewer resources, they are doing their full share on terms recognized by all as mutually advantageous and consistent with everyone's self-respect" (2001: 139). Thanks to Jeffrey Moriarty for pointing out to me this passage. 7 Larry Thomas has interpreted this valuing stance as seeing oneself as having worth for her success in the pursuit of her conception of the good. I do not think that interpretation is supported very well by Rawls's writings, though there are some grounds for thinking that this notion is what Rawls has in mind in his description of the self-confidence aspect of self-respect. See Thomas 1978a and 1978b. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 242 Cynthia A. Stark (1) in the sense of being "meritorious,"8 or (2) in the sense of thinking it is good for him to undertake it, or (3) in the sense of judging that it matters. We can get a grasp on these different attitudes of valuing by appealing again to our example of Marty. Let us suppose now, for the sake of simplicity, that Marty does not value cooking as an end; it is not part of his conception of the good. (Let us say that his conception of the good revolves around coaching soccer, which is what he does much of the time when he's not cooking in a restaurant.) Cooking is simply the career Marty has chosen and he values it as a means to his ends. One way in which we might understand the valuing stance that Marty takes toward cooking is that he thinks that the activity of gourmet cooking has merit. He believes that gourmet cooking has high value in comparison with other activities as measured on an objective scale. Marty thinks, for example, that cooking endeavors, in comparison to, say, real estate sales endeavors have considerably more worth. Indeed, he has chosen cooking over real estate sales, let us say, for this reason. A different attitude of valuing that Marty might have toward his cooking activities is that he might see cooking as good for him. In this case, he does not think that cooking is objectively better than, e.g., real estate sales. He simply thinks that cooking is a better activity for him than, real estate sales, given his attributes, dispositions, etc. Perhaps he founds this judgment on the fact that he is good at cooking, or enjoys it, and that cooking does not require him, as real estate sales would, to talk to strangers, which he dislikes. This type of valuing is subjective in the following sense: one judges the value of an activity strictly in terms of its suitability for oneself without making a judgment about the value of the activity per se. The judgment is not "one ought to cook (rather than sell real estate)" but rather "given the sort of person I am, I ought to cook (rather than sell real estate)." Consider now the last attitude of valuing listed above. This is the belief that one's contribution matters. If Marty, our cook, has this attitude then he thinks that gourmet cooking is important-that it is not pointless or trivial or dispensable. He thinks that gourmet cooking is worthwhile; that it counts. He thinks that gourmet cooking meets a 8 Labukt 2009 and Yanal 1987 interpret Rawls along these lines. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 243 threshold of being worth doing. He believes, in other words, that there is a place for it in society. In thinking this, he ascribes to gourmet cooking a kind of standing. Moreover, to be self-respecting, Marty need not think that he is making an especially significant contribution to society. If he later decided to join a monastery and take up the contemplative life, Marty would have to admit that the nature of his contribution is not significant compared, to, say, policing or manufacturing. Indeed if the mattering view required one to believe that one's contribution was significant, the view would begin to collapse into the merit view, for one would be judging one's contribution on a scale of merit that attaches merit to contributions in reference to how significant those contributions are for a given society.9 The value associated with mattering, as I am understanding it, is independent of various judgments about the relative virtues of various contributions. It is a type of valuing that is orthogonal to the type of valuing one engages in when assessing contributions on the basis of their merits. Whatever citizens believe about the merits of their contribution to a system of social cooperation, to be self-respecting, citizens believe that their contribution is legitimate-that it has weight. Now, if the source of the value of one's contribution on the mattering view is not its significance (or its other merits) but it nonetheless matters objectively, on what basis, one might ask, does it matter? Here, what I think Rawls has in mind is simply that one's contribution matters because it is what one has to offer. To deny that the contribution that one is suited or able to make to one's system of social cooperation matters is to say that one has nothing to offer to that system. So when Rawls claims that a just society preserves the self-respect of its citizens, he is saying that it is a matter of justice that citizens believe that they have something to offer-that they are never led to believe that, 9 An anonymous referee suggested to me that the mattering view might be understood along the following lines: one respects oneself when one judges oneself a good cooperator. One sees one's chosen activities as helping to form an overall better scheme of cooperation. My worry about such a view is that the notion that one ought to be a good cooperator seems as though it belongs to a comprehensive doctrine. It expresses a moral ideal of what sort of person one should strive to be. So, an ideal of self-respect founded upon this notion would be incompatible with Rawls's commitment to political liberalism. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 244 Cynthia A. Stark though they are participating, they have no contribution to make.10 Self-respecting citizens, on my reading of Rawls, believe that whatever they are equipped to do to take part in their system of social cooperation is worth doing. grounds for the mattering interpretation We can reject the merit interpretation of Rawlsian self-respect fairly swiftly. There is plenty of textual evidence, which I consider below, that implies that the merit view is not what Rawls has in mind. More importantly, though, if this were what Rawls has in mind, his view of self-respect would conflict with his view of conceptions of the good. Because Rawls thinks that every citizen should have self-respect, he would be committed, on the merit interpretation, to the idea that every citizen should have as part of his conception of the good the idea that persons' contributions can be assessed on an objective scale of merit. He would not be committed to a particular view of which contributions have merit-he would not be, that is, committed to a particular standard of merit. But he would be committed to the notion that all persons should have an objectivist view about the merit of various types of human activities. In the language of the later Rawls, we can say that Rawls would be committed to the idea that a reasonable comprehensive doctrine as such must contain the view that the various sorts of contributions people make to a scheme of social cooperation can be ranked on a scale of merit. But Rawls clearly does not restrict reasonable comprehensive doctrines in this way (1993: 58–66). He counts among the reasonable comprehensive doctrines those that deny the existence of an objective standard for assessing the merit of various human activities. So, we have a fairly strong reason to conclude that Rawls does not see self-respect as a secure conviction in the merit of our contributions to a scheme of social cooperation. That leaves us with the good-for-oneself and the mattering interpretations of Rawlsian self-respect. Before outlining my argument for the 10 There may be, in rare cases, adult members of society who have virtually nothing to offer to a scheme of social cooperation. To encourage them to have self-respect, then, would be to encourage them to have a false belief. This problem is set aside by Rawls's conception of the citizen as a fully cooperating member of society. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 245 mattering interpretation, I must make a distinction between two types of circumstances that Rawls thinks sustain citizens' self-respect. When he explains that self-respect is a primary social good, Rawls gives us what I will call the "personal circumstances" that support individuals' selfrespect. These include, first, the conformity of one's activities to the Aristotelian Principle and, second, the appreciation of one's activities by one's associates. When he explains why the tenets of justice as fairness secure citizens' self-respect, Rawls is identifying what I will call the "political circumstances" that support self-respect. There are three of these. The first is the duty of mutual respect, which Rawls thinks would be adopted by the parties in the original position along with his two principles of distributive justice. The two principles of distributive justice include, first, the equal liberty principle, which prescribes the equal distribution of the maximal degree of liberty compatible with its being distributed equally. The second allows inequalities of wealth provided that there is substantive equality of opportunity and that the inequalities maximally benefit the person with the least wealth. The second of these constraints on inequality is termed the "difference principle." The second political circumstance that supports citizens' self-respect, according to Rawls, is the difference principle and the third is the "lexical ordering" of his two principles, also known as the doctrine of the priority of liberty. This doctrine prohibits constraining liberty for the sake of increased wealth. In what follows, I examine Rawls's explanation of both the personal and political circumstances that sustain self-respect. I show that citizens' self-respect is supported by all of these circumstances when self-respect is understood as the mattering notion. However, citizens' self-respect is supported only by the personal circumstances, and perhaps by one of political circumstances, when self-respect is understood as the goodfor-oneself notion. It follows that if Rawls were offering the good-foroneself view in his account of self-respect as a primary social good, then he would indeed by offering an equivocal account of self-respect, as critics have maintained. Moreover, Rawls, to a certain degree, invites this objection because the passages explaining the political circumstances that secure selfrespect are often cryptic. Rawls is attempting in these passages to show that certain aspects of his view are justified by the fact that they OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 246 Cynthia A. Stark promote self-respect. Yet, in each case, he briefly describes the aspect that he wishes to justify and then simply asserts that this aspect advances citizens' self-respect. He does not make explicit the connection between the aspect and self-respect and he rarely speaks in terms of the definition of self-respect that he has proposed-the conviction that one's endeavors are worth carrying out. The reader, then, is left wondering how the feature of Rawls's view that is said to secure citizens' self-respect in fact advances the ideal of self-respect he has identified as primary social good. As I see it, critics have, first, taken Rawls to be defending the goodfor-oneself or the merit view when he describes the personal circumstances that support self-respect. Second, they have argued (not implausibly) that the political circumstances cannot be understood to promote self-respect when it is interpreted in this way. The political circumstances, they claim, suggest a different notion of self-respect, namely a belief in one's equal worth as a citizen.11 My contention is simply that all the circumstances that Rawls identifies as sustaining selfrespect are consistent with the mattering interpretation of self-respect. So the generous reading of Rawls attributes to him that interpretation. the personal circumstances supporting self-respect Rawls says, "[T]he circumstances that support the first aspect of selfesteem, the sense of our own worth, are essentially two: (1) having a rational plan of life, and in particular one that satisfies the Aristotelian principle; and (2) finding our person and deeds appreciated and confirmed by others who are likewise esteemed and their association enjoyed" (1971: 440). The Aristotelian Principle is a principle of human psychology that says "other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their innate and trained 11 Doppelt sees Rawls as characterizing self-respect as an appraisal of the value of the life one pursues and an appraisal of the standards that are most appropriate for judging that life. He claims that this ideal is "an empirical notion devoid of normative content" and that it is "subjective" (2009: 128, 134). Eyal characterizes Rawlsian self-respect as "confidence in the value of one's plans" but does not state what sort of value he thinks Rawls has in mind (2009: 202). He claims that, in any case, this confidence is distinct from the Kantian ideal of selfrespect as "confidence that one has the dignity of persons" (2009: 203). This is the ideal he thinks Rawls invokes throughout most of A Theory of Justice. Doppelt makes a similar claim (2009: 133). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 247 abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity" (1971: 426).12 One's activities satisfy the Aristotelian Principle when they make sufficient use of and adequately contribute to the cultivation of one's capabilities. The Aristotelian Principle is related to self-respect in the following straightforward way: one is more likely to respect oneself to the extent that one undertakes activities that fulfill the Aristotelian Principle. Rawls says, I assume then that someone's plan of life will lack a certain attraction for him if it fails to call upon his natural capacities in an interesting fashion. When activities fail to satisfy the Aristotelian Principle, they are likely to seem dull and flat, and to give us no feeling of competence or a sense that they are worth doing. A person tends to be more confident in his value when his abilities are both fully realized and organized in ways of suitable complexity and refinement. (1971: 440) In other words, the more one's activities incorporate the exercise and development of one's talents, the more likely one is to value them and, in this sense, be sure of one's own worth. The second personal circumstance that supports individuals' selfrespect-others' appreciation of our life plans-is influenced by the Aristotelian Principle. Rawls asserts, For while it is true that unless our endeavors are appreciated by our associates it is impossible for us to maintain the conviction that they are worthwhile, it is also true that others tend to value them only if what we do elicits their admiration or gives them pleasure. Thus the activities that display intricate and subtle talents, and manifest discrimination and refinement, are valued both by the person himself and those around him. (1971: 441) So, the degree of complexity in the activities that make up one's life plan influences one's self-respect both directly and indirectly. One's sense of worth is bolstered by one's engaging in complex activities and by one's associates' appreciation of one's endeavors. But one's associates' appreciation of one's endeavors depends upon one's endeavors incorporating complex activities. 12 For a critical discussion of the Aristotelian Principle, see Shue 1975. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 248 Cynthia A. Stark Now, Rawls is aware that it might seem that only very talented people who are surrounded by other very talented people are likely to have selfrespect on this view of what encourages self-respect. He denies that this is the case, however, because the Aristotelian Principle, he says, "is always relative to the individual" (1971: 441). A person's activities fulfill the Aristotelian Principle if they are suitably complex given his capabilities.13 Moreover, societies are diverse in their associations so a person can find a group of people with similar tastes and capability levels who will affirm his undertakings (1971: 441–2). As long as this is the case, then, each person, no matter the extent of his capabilities, will have the opportunity to come to value his endeavors. Rawls's account of the relation between self-respect and both the Aristotelian Principle and the appreciation of others is consistent with both the good-for-oneself and the mattering interpretations of selfrespect. If one finds one's activities challenging and engaging one will be lead to think that those activities are both suitable for oneself and that they matter. Insofar as Marty, for example, finds gourmet cooking challenging, he is inclined to think that gourmet cooking is an activity that he should pursue. He is inclined to think that gourmet cooking is good for him to do. But it is also likely that Marty would conclude from the fact that he finds cooking interesting and engaging that cooking itself matters-that cooking is good to do simpliciter. If our endeavors bring us satisfaction, we tend to think, as Rawls says, that they are worth doing. Likewise, if others appreciate our undertakings, we are likely to make a number of inferences about the worth of those undertakings. Suppose Marty's friends and neighbors appreciate his cooking skills. They commend him for his cooking, let us say, and seek out opportunities to sample his food. This fact might encourage Marty to believe that cooking is a good activity for him to engage in. He might interpret the appreciation of his associates as confirming his judgment that he ought to pursue cooking. It is certainly likely, though, that Marty will infer from the appreciation of his associates that cooking is worth pursuing in other senses. In particular, this appreciation is likely to cause him to think that cooking itself matters-that cooking is a worthwhile and 13 This notion strongly suggests that Rawls does not see self-respect as a belief in the objective merit of one's conception of the good. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 249 important activity. Surely he is likely to think not just that gourmet cooking is good for him to do, nor merely that his gourmet cooking matters to his friends, but that gourmet cooking is a worthwhile activity. So, Rawls's appeal to the Aristotelian Principle and the appreciation of others as personal supports for self-respect is consistent with both the good-for-oneself and the mattering interpretations of self-respect. the political circumstances supporting self-respect The duty of mutual respect After describing the two personal circumstances that support citizens' self-respect, Rawls intimates that they are not sufficient to ensure citizens' self-respect. He suggests that they are sufficient only ". . . whenever in public life citizens respect one another's ends and adjudicate their political claims in ways that also support their self-esteem. It is precisely this background condition," he continues, "that is maintained by the principles of justice" (1971: 442). So, the public norm requiring citizens to respect one another's contributions referred to in this passage is to be distinguished from the appreciation of one another's contributions that takes place within associations. We can get an idea of what is involved in respecting one another's contributions by looking at Rawls's account of the duty of mutual respect, for Rawls claims that the parties in the original position would adopt the duty of mutual respect precisely because the self-respect of those whom they represent would be at risk in a society in which this duty is absent (1971: 178–9). So, it is reasonable to conclude that the attitude expressed through the observance of the duty of mutual respect is part of what is involved in the respecting of others' contributions that is necessary for citizens to have full self-respect. The duty of mutual respect, Rawls says, [I]s the duty to show a person the respect that is due to him as a moral being, that is, as a being with a sense of justice and a conception of the good. . . . Mutual respect is shown in several ways: in our willingness to see the situation of others from their point of view, from the perspective of their conception of their good; and in being prepared to give reasons for our actions whenever the interests of others are materially affected. (1971: 337) OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 250 Cynthia A. Stark If this duty is plausibly seen as encouraging citizens to believe, among other things, that their contributions to a scheme of cooperation matter, then we have grounds for thinking that the view of self-respect he describes as a primary social good consists in that belief. I submit that the passage above implies that showing respect includes recognizing that others' contributions matter. Moreover, if we assume that the kind of respect one is shown determines the kind of self-respect one acquires, then we can conclude that when one's contribution is judged by others to matter, one tends oneself to judge that one's contribution matters. It follows that Rawls's account of the duty of mutual respect gives us grounds for attributing to him a view of self-respect as the belief that the activities making up one's contribution to a scheme of cooperation matter. Consider the two actions or attitudes that Rawls identifies as paradigmatic of respecting others: being willing to see things from their point of view and being willing to give them reasons for our actions. A willingness to see things from another's perspective conveys one's belief in the legitimacy of that perspective. It conveys a sense that one regards the other's point of view as having standing. One may not fully understand the other's point of view or agree with it. One may in fact feel alienated from it. But in being willing to take it up, as it were, one shows that one regards it as significant or important, not trivial or silly. A willingness to provide reasons for one's actions expresses one's realization that we may act in ways that might interfere with or limit others' projects only if there are good reasons for doing so. It expresses, in other words, the idea that one sees another's projects, again, as having standing, and acknowledges that others are entitled, all things equal, to undertake their projects. Both of these attitudes would likely encourage individual citizens to think that their contributions to the cooperative scheme in which they are participating with other citizens matters. When one's fellow citizens acknowledge the standing of one's perspective and projects, they acknowledge that one's perspective and projects matter. Given that our perspectives and our projects are intimately bound up with our contributions to a cooperative scheme, acknowledging the standing of our perspectives and projects includes acknowledging the standing of our contributions, and hence recognizing that our contributions matter. For example, to see, in the public forum, Marty's situation from his OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 251 point of view, the fellow citizens of Marty would have to see things from the point of view of someone who has a career as a chef. And in being prepared to give reasons for their actions that affect others' interests, Marty's fellow citizens would have to be willing to justify their support for policies that might negatively affect restaurant workers. By acting in these ways, Marty's fellow citizens would fulfill the duty of mutual respect and in so doing convey their belief that Marty's contribution to the scheme of cooperation they share with him matters. So, by acting in these ways, Marty's fellow citizens encourage Marty to believe that his contribution matters. It follows that the duty of mutual respect can be seen to support citizens' self-respect where their self-respect is understood as the belief that their contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matters. Notice that a failure to be respected by one's fellow citizens would not typically cause one to cease to think that the activities making up one's contribution are good for oneself. That others disrespect those activities would not likely make one change one's mind about the suitability of those activities for oneself. One's judgment that an activity is good for oneself is founded primarily upon features of oneself, not upon factors such as the respect of other citizens who are not, in Rawls's words, one's associates. One might be dismayed that the activities one judges good for oneself to undertake are not respected by one's fellow citizens, but this is different from doubting whether one's activities are well suited to the kind of person one is. Being disrespected in the public forum, then, is not likely to diminish one's self-respect if self-respect is understood as a belief that one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation is valuable for oneself. It follows that Rawls's discussion of the duty of mutual respect does not support the good-for-oneself interpretation of self-respect. The difference principle The difference principle, which is a principle governing the distribution of wealth, allows inequalities, but only those that maximally benefit the least well off. Part of Rawls's argument that the difference principle supports citizens' self-respect is contained in his remarks about envy. Envy, Rawls says, "is the propensity to view with hostility the greater good of others . . . .We envy those persons whose situation is superior to OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 252 Cynthia A. Stark ours . . . and we are willing to deprive them of their greater benefits even if it is necessary to give up something ourselves" (1971: 532). Rawls is concerned about envy because he thinks that the unequal distribution of wealth in a society can damage citizens' self-respect to an extent that gives rise to envy and in turn to instability. Indeed, he claims that the primary cause of envy is the absence of self-respect. "[T]he main psychological root of the liability to envy," Rawls says, "is a lack of selfconfidence in our own worth combined with a sense of impotence" (1971: 535). Moreover, according to Rawls, when people's self-respect is damaged by their having considerably less wealth than others, the envy that they feel toward the better off is excusable. That is to say, we cannot expect the less fortunate to overcome their envy in that case; rather we are obliged to change the political arrangements that reduce their selfrespect and foment envy. Because Rawls's theory allows for inequality of wealth, he must consider whether his theory recommends arrangements that are likely to induce excusable envy. In the end Rawls thinks that the difference principle will not generate excusable envy because, first, it does not encourage large disparities of wealth, and second it allows only those disparities that are to greatest advantage of those who have the least wealth. Citizens are not inclined toward envy when "the greater advantages of some are in return for compensating benefits for the less favored" (1971, 536). We can set aside the issue of whether or not this is a strong argument. I simply want to pinpoint the notion of self-respect that is at work in Rawls's claim that distributive inequality can seriously injure citizens' self-respect and that this injured self-respect tends to generate envy. A plausible reconstruction of the reasoning behind Rawls's contention that distributive inequality may damage the self-respect of the less well off is as follows. If one's contribution is remunerated far less than the contributions of others, then one will come to see one's endeavors as unimportant or insignificant. The relatively small reward one receives for making one's contribution inclines one to judge that others see one's contribution as mattering little and this leads one to doubt oneself that one's contribution matters. If "what we do in everyday life" brings us a scanty wage or salary, which in turn gives us access to few of the advantages our scheme of social cooperation creates, then we are inclined to conclude that what we do does not matter (1971: 441). This feeling that what we do does not matter can induce hostility toward OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 253 those who engage in activities that we see as mattering on account of the high compensation garnered by those activities. And this hostility can generate a desire to impose a loss, even at a cost to ourselves, on those who engage in those activities. Notice that if one's activities are poorly remunerated one does not typically cease to see those activities as good for oneself. If one thinks that e.g., gourmet cooking is good for oneself, the fact that one gets remunerated little for it is not likely to change that assessment. Again, this is because one's judgment that an activity is good for oneself is founded upon features of oneself, not upon factors such as prestige or compensation. One might, of course, choose to make a contribution that involves activities for which one is not well suited because one prefers wealth and prestige. But this phenomenon is compatible with the idea that one's judgment about what is good for oneself is generally unaffected by how well remunerated one is for one's activities. Having considerably less wealth than others, then, is not likely to diminish one's self-respect if self-respect is understood as a belief that one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation is valuable for oneself. It follows that Rawls's discussion of envy does not support the good-for-oneself interpretation of self-respect. The priority of liberty The doctrine of the priority of liberty is justified by Rawls largely in terms of its support for citizens' self-respect. This doctrine states that, when a society has reached a level of wealth that allows all citizens a decent standard of living, constraints on liberty that would increase citizens' wealth should not be permitted. The merits of Rawls's argument for the priority of liberty have been much discussed (Doppelt 1981; Shue 1974/75; Hart 1979; Neilson 1979; Taylor 2003). I do not hope here to add anything to that discussion; I confine myself to showing that Rawls's argument for the doctrine supports the idea of self-respect as a conviction that one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matters. There are two types of restrictions on liberty, according to Rawls, that might be imposed for the sake of increasing wealth (1971: 244). First, liberty might be less extensive but still distributed equally. Second, liberty might be distributed unequally-it might be limited for only some citizens. The first type of restriction might seem justified if OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 254 Cynthia A. Stark it resulted in an increase in wealth, consistent with the difference principle, for all citizens. The second type of restriction might seem justified if it resulted in an increase in wealth, consistent with the difference principle, for those with less liberty. Both types of restriction, Rawls thinks, are in fact unjustified because they would damage citizens' self-respect. He argues that the parties in the original position, as they are concerned to promote the good of self-respect, would therefore adopt the doctrine of the priority of liberty. There is no doubt that Rawls's argument that an unequal distribution of liberty would damage citizens' self-respect invokes the importance of civil equality. Unequal liberty, he tells us, would damage the self-respect of those with fewer liberties by publicly establishing their inferiority as defined by the basic structure of society. This subordinate ranking in the public forum experienced in the attempt to take part in political and economic life, and felt in dealing with those who have a greater liberty, would indeed be humiliating and destructive of self-esteem. (1971: 545) The idea seems to be that people would lack self-respect if they were forced to see themselves as civilly inferior to their compatriots. This idea is compatible with a notion of self-respect as a secure conviction in one's civil equality. But it is also compatible with a notion of self-respect as a secure conviction that one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matters. The reason for this mutual compatibility is that the fact that civil inferiority can cause diminished self-respect, as the quoted passage suggests, does not entail that the content of self-respect is (or is only) a belief in one's civil equality. Indeed Rawls implies that it is not merely the civil inequality itself that undermines the self-respect of the civilly inferior but also "the hardships arising from political and civic inequality and from cultural and ethnic discrimination" (1971: 545). Surely having an inferior civil status has a host of effects on one's sense of oneself. And it seems reasonable to think that being marginalized and discriminated against can lead one to believe that one's more politically advantaged compatriots care little about one's contribution to society, and this can lead one to doubt oneself that one's contribution matters. Rawls's account of the injuries to self-respect that arise from civil inferiority strongly suggests that injuries to self-respect would arise also OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 255 from economic inferiority. Surely having a low rank in an economic hierarchy would impose hardships on citizens similar to those imposed by having a low rank in a political hierarchy. Though not literally second-class citizens, the poor are often politically powerless and disenfranchised. The poor no doubt feel their inferiority in attempting to take part in political and economic life alongside the wealthy and are prone to experience humiliation and diminished self-respect. So, it appears that inequality of wealth would also damage citizens' selfrespect. Yet Rawls's theory permits this kind of inequality. Rawls gets around this problem in the following way. His argument for the priority of liberty assumes that citizens have what he calls "a need for status." This is the need to be valued by others, which valuing, Rawls claims, is a prerequisite for self-respect. This need can be met in the political domain either by one's economic status or one's civil status. Rawls thinks political institutions should be arranged so that the need for status is met by something that gives people equal status, because this will support the self-respect of all citizens. Because there are independent reasons, according to Rawls, for allowing inequality of wealth, then if wealth is positioned as the ground for status, the need for status will be satisfied by something that gives people unequal status, and so will put the self-respect of those with less status at risk. It follows that the need for status should be satisfied by an equal distribution of liberty. Rawls concludes, In a well-ordered society then self-respect is secured by the public affirmation of the status of equal citizenship for all; the distribution of material means is left to take care of itself in accordance with pure procedural justice. Of course doing this assumes the requisite background conditions which narrow the range of inequalities so excusable envy does not arise. (1971: 545) Rawls's argument that an equal but less expansive liberty undermines self-respect also supports the mattering interpretation of self-respect. His argument is as follows. As the economic conditions of a society improve, so that everyone enjoys a comfortable standard of living, citizens' interests in pursuing their life plans as they see fit increases. They are no longer preoccupied with subsistence and so can focus on, e.g. their spiritual needs. Human beings, as such, develop and pursue their plans, Rawls says, within "communities of interest." They undertake their endeavors, that is, by means of attachments to others who OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 256 Cynthia A. Stark share their interests and ideals. The associations that are necessary for people to pursue their life plans flourish only when citizens are afforded extensive liberties (1971: 542–43).14 Liberty, in short, gives rise to pluralism. One of the reasons pluralism is required for citizens to undertake their projects is because it is within various associations that citizens come to attach value to their activities-to regard their activities as worth doing. One can pursue one's ends adequately only when one values the activities that make up one's contribution to a cooperative scheme, and the primary way one comes to value those activities is by being surrounded by similar others who confirm their value. Because liberty is required for the emergence and survival of communities of interest, liberty is required for citizens to experience their associates appreciating their endeavors, and it is therefore required for citizens believing in the worth of their endeavors. Liberty sustains citizens' selfrespect, then, by securing one of the personal circumstances that upholds self-respect. Because the mattering notion of self-respect is supported by Rawls's claim that self-respect depends upon the appreciation of others, the mattering notion is supported by Rawls's claim that self-respect depends upon a more expansive liberty since the role of liberty is to afford citizens the opportunity to feel that their activities are appreciated by others. (Notice that the good-for-oneself view of self-respect is also supported by Rawls's claim that liberty secures citizens' self-respect by creating one of the personal circumstances upholding self-respect. This follows from the fact that Rawls's account of the personal circumstances is compatible with both the good-for-oneself and the mattering interpretations of self-respect.) self-respect, primary goods, and social hierarchy I have argued that Rawls's theory of justice employs a univocal notion of self-respect as the belief that the activities that make up one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matter. In what follows, I maintain that Rawls nonetheless equivocates on the value 14 For the importance of social groups for the development of self-respect see McKinnon 2000. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 257 of self-respect, sometimes regarding it as merely instrumental and other times as intrinsic. I argue further that his main interest in stressing the importance of self-respect is to explain how justice as fairness avoids what he sees as an objectionable outcome of markets-the specific sense of inferiority that might burden those at the bottom of class hierarchies. Rawls thinks, on my reading, that unless institutions within market societies are carefully designed, citizens who lose out in market competition will fail to see the worth of their contribution to a system of cooperation that nonetheless relies on their contribution. The centrality of this preoccupation reveals that Rawls sees self-respect, in the end, as having intrinsic worth. In identifying self-respect as a primary social good, Rawls claims that self-respect is good chiefly as a means-like wealth and opportunities, its value lies in its enabling us to carry out our ends, or at any rate to do with ease or with pleasure. Moreover, his account of the personal circumstances supporting self-respect suggests that Rawls sees the risk of diminished self-respect as equally distributed throughout the population. Each of us, to be fully self-respecting, he says, needs to undertake activities that are sufficiently complex and needs for our associates to affirm these activities. It seems that any of us might fail in these regards. But it is clear that the political circumstances are what really matter on Rawls's view, for he tells us that these personal circumstances are sufficient only in an environment of mutual respect, equal liberty, and limited inequality of wealth.15 His account of the political circumstances, moreover, suggests that Rawls is largely concerned with the self-respect of citizens who have less wealth and prestige than others. This is especially obvious in his treatment of envy where he assures us that under the difference principle the less fortunate will lack grounds to doubt their worth. This concern, however, is also implied by his discussions of the duty of mutual respect and the priority of liberty. In those passages Rawls strongly suggests that so long as the economically less well off are treated with respect by other citizens in the public forum and afforded equal liberty, they will have secure self-respect. 15 I leave out expansive liberty here because Rawls's argument for the importance of expansive liberty for sustaining self-respect is that such liberty is a precondition for one of the personal circumstances sustaining self-respect. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 258 Cynthia A. Stark Now, if the value of self-respect resides merely in its enabling us to fulfill our ends, then we should expect that Rawls's concern for the security of the self-respect of the less fortunate would be a concern that the less fortunate will be hindered in fulfilling their ends. It appears from his discussion of the political circumstances, though, that Rawls is not worried that the less fortunate will be hindered in this way. Rather he seems concerned with the bare fact of the potentially diminished selfrespect of the less fortunate. Consider again his accounts of the connection between self-respect and the difference principle, the duty of mutual respect and the priority of liberty. In these accounts at no point does Rawls say or imply that self-respect is important so that citizens can adequately fulfill their ends. It seems quite clear that in these discussions Rawls takes a diminished or insecure sense of worth to be bad in itself. To be encouraged to think less of oneself by having one's projects publicly demoted or one's perspective ignored or by being given fewer rights is to be wronged, Rawls thinks, regardless of the effects of this damaged sense of worth upon one's ability to pursue one's ends. On my interpretation of Rawlsian self-respect, then, Rawls thinks that when citizens are encouraged by political institutions to believe that their contributions to society do not matter, they have been wronged. And this is regardless of the debilitating effects this belief may have on their carrying out their life plans. I have maintained that Rawls's account of self-respect does not have the major flaw that has been attributed to it. Rawls offers us one notion of self-respect. It is the conviction that the activities making up one's contribution to a scheme of social cooperation matter. Rawls suggests that this conviction is instrumentally good insofar as it helps us to pursue our ends, or at least to pursue them with pleasure. But that is not its chief importance. He thinks that this conviction is also intrinsically good, for he clearly regards its absence as bad in itself. It is the hallmark of just society, Rawls believes, that it secure this belief for everyone, especially lower class individuals who are at risk of thinking that their contributions are not worthwhile. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi Rawlsian Self-Respect 259 REFERENCES Boxill, Bernard (1976) "Self-Respect and Protest," Philosophy and Public Affairs 6, 58–69. Cohen, Joshua (1989) "Democratic Equality," Ethics 99, 727–51. Darwall, Stephen (1977) "Two Kinds of Respect," Ethics 88, 36–49. Reprinted in Dillon 1995, 181–97. Deigh, John (1983) "Shame and Self-Esteem," Ethics 93, 225–45. Reprinted in Dillon 1995, 133–56. Dillon, Robin (1992) "How to Lose Your Self-Respect," American Philosophical Quarterly 29, 125–39. --(ed.) (1995) Dignity, Character and Self-Respect (New York: Routledge). Doppelt, Gerald (1981) "Rawls' System of Justice: A Critique From the Left," Noûs 15, 259–307. --(2009) "The Place of Self-Respect in A Theory of Justice," Inquiry 52, 127–54. Eyal, Nir (2009) " 'Perhaps the Most Important Primary Social Good': SelfRespect and Rawls's Principles of Justice," Politics, Philosophy and Economics 4, 195–219. Freeman, Samuel (ed.) (1999) John Rawls: Collected Papers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Hart, H. L. A. (1979) "Rawls on Liberty and Its Priority." In Norman Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls (Stanford University Press), 230–52. Held, Virginia (1973) "Reasonable Progress and Self-Respect," The Monist 57, 12–27. Hudson, Stephen (1980) "The Nature of Respect," Social Theory and Practice 6, 69–90. Labukt, Ivar (2009) "Rawls on the Practicability of Utilitarianism," Politics, Economics and Philosophy 8, 201–21. Lane, Robert E. (1982) "Government and Self-Esteem," Political Theory 10, 5–31. McKinnon, Catriona (2000) "Exclusion Rules and Self-Respect," Journal of Value Inquiry 34, 491–505. --(2003) "Basic Income, Self-Respect and Reciprocity," Journal of Applied Philosophy 20, 143–58. Massey, Stephen (1983) "Is Self-Respect a Moral or a Psychological Concept?" Ethics 93, 246–61. Middleton, David (2006) "Three Types of Self-Respect," Res Publica 12, 59–76. Miller, David (1982) "Arguments for Equality,"Midwest Studies in Philosophy 7, 73–87. Mohr, Richard (1988) "Dignity vs. Politics: Strategy When Justice Fails." In Mohr, Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society and Law (New York: Columbia University Press), 315–27. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 2/11/2012, SPi 260 Cynthia A. Stark Moriarty, Jeffrey (2009) "Rawls, Self-Respect and the Opportunity for Meaningful Work," Social Theory and Practice 35, 441–59. Neilson, Kai (1979) "Radical Egalitarian Justice: Justice as Equality," Social Theory and Practice 5, 209–26. Postow, B. C. (1979) "Economic Dependence and Self-Respect," Philosophical Forum 10, 181–205. Rawls, John (1971) A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). --(1993) Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press). --(2001) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Sachs, David (1981) "How to Distinguish Self-Respect from Self-Esteem," Philosophy and Public Affairs 10, 346–60. Shue, Henry (1974/75) "Liberty and Self-Respect," Ethics 85, 195–203. --(1975) "Justice, Rationality and Desire: On the Logical Structure of Justice as Fairness," Southern Journal of Philosophy 13, 89–97. Taylor, Robert (2003) "Rawls' Defense of the Priority of Liberty: A Kantian Reconstruction," Philosophy and Public Affairs 31, 246–71. Thomas, Larry (1978a) "Morality and Our Self-Concept," Journal of Value Inquiry 12, 258–68. --(1978b) "Rawlsian Self-Respect and the Black Consciousness Movement," Philosophical Forum 9, 303–14. Yanal, Robert (1987) "Self-Esteem," Noûs 21, 363–79. 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