Rawls Primary Goods And Wellbeing

There is something that comes off as intuitively correct in this connection between Rawls’ primary goods and wellbeing. For those who lack political rights and liberties and live in constant fear of arbitrary imprisonment from the state do seem to lack an important part of their well-being. Likewise, never does it seem plausible to suggest that those without shelter or food would be better-off than the billionaire who has more wealth than he knows what to do with. But in spite of the intuitiveness that comes from the connection between Rawls’ primary goods and wellbeing, there is something deeper at work to consider. For why exactly is it that these primary goods are good at all? What is it about wealth, self-respect, or liberty that improves …show more content…
This concept depicts Rawls’ primary goods as important because they fulfill peoples ends as those ends relate to the ends of a rational being. What these ends ultimately are may be different for different people, hence this definition of the good being thin, but nonetheless we should expect certain rational ends like enough wealth for one to feed them self as part of one’s primary goods and well-being. Disregarding certain problems including figuring out why exactly certain ends are rational and others are not, even if we are to accept Rawls’ primary goods as the rational conclusion of a thin definition of goods, this account remains to simplistic to account for some of the deeper mechanisms at play here. How does this idea cope with the example of the wandering hippie, who despises materialism and finds immense pleasure from his poverty? Or the Christian, who chooses humility over self-respect when they admit to the world that they are intrinsically wicked and sinful and are unworthy of respect? Are both examples illustrations of human irrationality acting against their own well-being? The answer would seem to be yes unless we take our analysis a step deeper and consider the psychic component of our well-being. For well-being isn't simply the accumulation of arbitrary primary goods, but instead the accumulation of those things with which we value. This explains why Rawls uses as his primary goods things such as wealth, self-respect, and political rights as part of our fundamental well-being, and why they intuitively sound right to us. For most of us do value these primary goods and do think they are important to us because they help structure our lives in a way that we find valuable, or that improves our psychic well-being. But for the wandering hippie, more