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Sandel wants to argue that this radically individualistic theory
of the person is inadequate for at least some of Rawls's own pur–
poses. Most important, it provides an inadequate foundation for
Rawls's defense of the difference principle.
At one point Rawls observes that the difference principal "rep–
resents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural
assets as a common asset." But what gives Rawls's contractees the
right to make such an agreement? Natural assets, after all, come into
the world attached to individual human beings. What gives the par–
ties to the Rawlsian contract the right to treat the talents and
abilities of individuals as common property? Why are they entitled
to decide that individuals "who have been favored by nature ... may
gain from their good fortune only on terms that improve the situa–
tion of those who have lost out"? Rawls's answer to this question
revolves around the claim that people are not responsible either for
their natural assets or for the way in which they develop those assets;
we have done nothing to deserve our abilities or the fortunate cir–
cumstances that gave us a chance to make use of them. And so we
have done nothing to deserve whatever benefits come from the pos–
session of those abilities. They are, in an important sense, not really
ours.
In Sandel's view, this response rests on a mistake. Rawls seems
to believe that once we agree that people do not deserve their natural
assets, it automatically follows that they do not own those assets.
And from this, he assumes, it follows that all individual assets are
the property of the community. But as Sandel makes clear, even if
the first part of the argument works, the rest does not follow auto–
matically. "To show that individuals, as individuals, do not deserve
or possess 'their' assets is not necessarily to show that society as a
whole
does
deserve or possess them." To establish common owner–
ship, something more is necessary. What is needed is a theory of the
person different from the theory implicit in Rawls.
It
is necessary to
conceive of the moral subject "as a 'we' rather than an
'1'."
One must
imagine a wider subject of possession, "presumably the community,
held to own assets we individually bear."
If
Rawls's theory of the moral subject is too individualistic to
support his own defense of the difference principle, it is also defec–
tive in another respect. According to Sandel, Rawls doesn't recog–
nize that some of us hold "loyalties and convictions whose moral
force consists in the fact that living by them is inseparable from
