자존감과 수치심은 어디서 오는가?

[석수]

존 롤스(John Rawls)는 그의 정의론에서 자존감(Self-respect)을 가장 중요한 '사회적 기본 가치(social primary goods)'로 꼽았다

그리고  이를 시민적 자존감과 개인적 자존감으로 나누어 설명했다.

롤스는 정의로운 사회란 구성원들의 자존감이 제도적으로 보장되는 사회라고 보았다.

1. 시민적 자존감 (Civic Self-Respect)

정의: 평등한 시민으로서 공적 영역에서 서로를 존중하고, 정의로운 사회 구성원으로서 자신의 권리를 당당하게 누릴 수 있다는 자신감입니다.

기초: 평등한 시민권, 정치적 자유, 차등의 원칙을 통한 사회적 기본 구조가 이를 뒷받침합니다.

특징: 개인적 자존감보다 우선합니다. 즉, 사회는 먼저 시민들이 서로를 평등한 존재로 인정하는 '상호 존중의 관계'를 제도적으로 확립해야 합니다.

2. 개인적 자존감 (Personal Self-Respect)

정의: 개인이 스스로 설정한 인생 계획이나 목적을 가치 있는 것으로 믿고, 이를 성취할 수 있다는 자부심입니다.

기초: 개인이 선택한 가치를 평등하게 인정하는 사회적 관계와 제도가 필요합니다.

특징: 타인의 존중에 의존하는 경향이 있으므로, 사회 구성원 간 '상호 존중의 의무'가 필요합니다.

3. 자존감을 위한 정의로운 제도 (사회적 기초)

롤스는 자존감이 저절로 형성되는 것이 아니라 사회 정의를 통해 지켜져야 한다고 주장했습니다.

정의의 원칙: 정의의 두 원칙(평등한 자유, 공정한 기회 균등, 차등의 원칙)이 실현된 사회는 불운한 환경에 처한 사람들의 자존감을 보호합니다.

상호 존중: 타인을 나의 목적을 위한 수단이 아니라 목적 그 자체로 대우하는 사회 체제가 필요합니다.요약하자면, 롤스에게 정의란 시민들이 평등한 제도 속에서 서로 존중받으며(시민적 자존감), 각자 자신의 인생 계획을 가치 있게 여기며(개인적 자존감) 살 수 있는 환경을 만드는 것입니다.

[ 고려대 철학연구소 연구원 , 강용수의 철학이 필요할 때]




자존감은 모두 가져야 할 ‘기본 가치’
삶의 목적-달성 능력 있을 때 생겨
자연-사회적 우연에 달려선 안 돼
제도로 불운한 자 최우선 배려해야

https://youtu.be/n6k08C699zI?si=HE0z_U9FWB-WVIQx

존 롤스는 ‘정의론’에서 삶의 목적을 추구할 때 갖게 되는 ‘가치 있다’는 느낌과 이러한 목적을 이룰 수 있는 자신의 능력에 대한 신뢰가 자존감의 토대가 된다고 말한다. 

타고난 장애, 부모의 부와 배경 등 삶의 출발선에서 얻은 불운으로 자신의 목적을 추구할 수 없다면 좋은 사회가 아니라고 강조한다. 



《운(運)의 중립화가 곧 ‘정의’

누구나 살기 좋은 이상적인 사회의 모습은 어떨까? 

‘정의론’의 저자 존 롤스는 함께 살기 위해 모든 사람이 합리적으로 획득해야 할 가장 중요한 기본 가치, 또는 기본선(a primary good)으로 자존감을 꼽는다. 

롤스는 “자존감이 없다면 어떤 것도 할 만한 가치가 없어 보이며, 또한 어떤 것들이 우리에게 가치가 있더라도 그것들을 추구할 의지를 상실하게 된다. 

모든 욕망과 활동은 공허하고 헛된 것이 될 것이며, 우리는 무감각하고 냉소적인 상태에 빠지게 될 것이다”라고 말했다. 

자존감을 침해하는 모든 사회적 조건을 피할 것을 당부한 것이다.》


롤스는 두 가지 차원에서 자존감을 구분한다. 


첫째는 자신의 삶의 목적을 추구할 때 갖게 되는 ‘가치 있다’는 느낌이고, 
둘째는 그러한 목적을 달성할 수 있는 자신의 능력에 대한 신뢰다. 

자신이 가치 있다고 느끼는 이유는 아리스토텔레스가 말한 ‘탁월함’을 만족시키고자 합리적인 계획을 세우고 노력할 때, 
우리의 인격이 존경받고 행위가 인정받기 때문이다. 

여기서 탁월함이란 인간이 발전하는 데 중요한 조건일 뿐만 아니라 ‘객관적인 좋음(선·善)’이다.

이러한 탁월함을 갖지 못한 사람은 수치심을 느끼게 된다. 

예를 들어 남들보다 신체적·경제적으로 열등한 조건을 갖고 태어난 사람은 인생의 목적을 세우고 살아갈 때, 능력이 부족하거나 조건이 맞지 않는다고 느껴 쉽게 좌절하거나 실패하는 일이 많다. 

‘이생망’(이번 생은 망했다)이란 자포자기의 감정을 표현하는 신조어까지 있다.

자존감과 반대되는 수치심은 인생의 목적을 이루려고 할 때 필요한 것이 결핍되면서 생겨나는 ‘좌절감’의 다른 이름이기도 하다. 

롤스는 수치심을 ‘능력의 탁월성’의 부재 및 상실에 따른 자연적 수치심과 ‘인격의 탁월성’의 부재 및 상실에서 기인하는 도덕적 수치심으로 구분한다. 

자연적 수치심을 살펴보면 그것은 우리가 원하는 능력을 발휘할 수 있는 탁월성을 갖지 못할 경우 자부심이 손상돼 생기는 감정이다. 

지능, 재능, 외모 등 타고난 능력에 따라 인생의 출발점이 달라지기 때문이다.

자연적 수치심과 구별되는 도덕적 수치심은 도덕적인 덕, 특히 정의감을 갖고 행위하지 못하는 경우 생겨나게 된다. 

도덕적 수치심은 자신의 인생 계획이 도덕 규범과 일치하지 않을 때 생겨나는 부정적인 감정이다. 

인간은 존엄감과 도덕감에 기초해 자존감을 느끼는 인격적 주체다. 

그러나 예를 들어 군인이 전쟁에서 싸우지 않고 항복하는 경우 생명을 보존하는 기쁨(행복)을 누릴 수 있지만, 제대로 싸우지 않아 용기(탁월성)를 발휘하지 못한 것에 수치심을 갖게 된다. 군인의 본분인 ‘용기’를 발휘하지 못하고 비겁하게 도망간다면 부끄러운 일이다.

롤스는 이 같은 자존감의 사회적 토대가 가장 중요한 사회적 재화이며, 정치적 평등의 원칙에 따라 이 같은 재화가 분배될 필요가 있다고 강조한다. 

이때 필요한 것은 절차적 정의다. 

자연적으로 타고난 능력이나 소질, 사회적 우연성에 의해 가장 불리한 사람을 최우선으로 고려하는 ‘최소극대화(Minimax)’ 원칙이 지켜져야 한다는 것이다.

롤스는 ‘자존감이 차등 원칙에 의해 더 확고하게 강화되고 지지된다’고 강조한다. 

극빈자의 기대치를 증진시키는 ‘차등의 원칙’, 

공정한 기회를 허용하는 ‘기회균등의 원칙’, 

그리고 ‘평등한 자유의 원칙’을 지킴으로써 정치적 평등을 실현하고, 사회적 약자의 자존감을 보장할 수 있다는 것이다.

롤스는 무엇보다도 일할 기회가 없는 시민(실업자)의 자존감이 손상되기 쉽기 때문에, 유사한 능력과 재능을 가진 사람이 유사한 인생의 기회를 갖도록 보장해야 한다고 주장한다. 

또 공정한 기회 균등을 통해 자아 실현을 최대한 보장하려면, 자존감이 낮은 최소 수혜자가 최대의 이익을 얻을 수 있도록 불평등을 인정해야 한다고 강조한다.

이어 롤스는 자존감을 ‘개인적 자존감’과 ‘시민적 자존감’으로 다시 한 번 구분한다. 

그리고 ‘개인적 자존감’에 우선하는 ‘시민적 자존감’을 보장하기 위해선 평등한 시민권을 보장하고, 서로 존중하는 관계를 확립할 제도가 필요하다고 말한다. 

구체적으로 차등의 원칙과 정치적 결사체를 통해 ‘시민적 자존감’의 사회적 기초를 만들어 정치적 평등을 제도적으로 확립할 수 있다고 설명한다.

개인의 자존감은 타인의 존중에 의존하기 때문에 ‘상호존중의 의무’가 필요하다. 

이것은 타인을 수단이 아니라 목적 그 자체로 대우하라는 뜻이다. 

우리는 자신의 인생 목적을 향해 꾸준히 나아가는 과정에서 타인에게 인정받을 때 자부심을 갖는다. 

정의의 원칙을 선택하는 과정에서 타인의 자존감을 위해 서로 존중하는 의무를 지킬 때 최우선 고려해야 할 사람은 불운한 사람들이다. 

개인이 외모와 재능과 같은 ‘자연적 우연’이나, 타고난 부와 배경 같은 ‘사회적 우연’에 좌우되지 않도록 배려해야 된다.

인생의 전체가 태어날 때 갖는 운으로 정해지는 사회는 옳지 못하다. 

정의로운 사회는 태어나면서부터 부모의 ‘운빨’에 의해 인생 전체가 결정되지 않게 하는 ‘운의 중립화(Neutralizing Luck)’ 원칙을 갖춘다. 

태생적으로 불리한 조건에서 태어나 미래가 불확실한 사람들이 기죽거나 주눅 들지 않도록 배려하는 시스템이 필요한 것이다. 

결국 롤스의 좋은 사회는 약자의 자존감을 높여주는 사회다. 

개인의 자존감은 사회적 관계와 분리될 수 없다. 스스로 자신에 대한 신뢰를 갖기 위해 사회적 제도를 통해 시민들의 자존감을 보호하는 일이 필요하다.

John Bordley Rawls (February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the modern liberal tradition.

Rawls has been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century.

In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his introduction to the field that "it is generally accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971".

Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum benefit to the least advantaged members of society in any case where inequalities may occur. His argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberatively select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy. In his later work Political Liberalism (1993), he addresses the question of how political power can be exercised legitimately in a society where citizens hold diverse and often conflicting moral, religious, and philosophical points of view.

Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999. The latter was presented by President Bill Clinton in recognition of how his works "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one".

Among contemporary political philosophers, Rawls is frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and Canada and referred to by practicing politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom. In a 2008 national survey of political theorists, based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Rawls was voted first on the list of "Scholars Who Have Had the Greatest Impact on Political Theory in the Past 20 Years".




Biography

Early life and education

Rawls was born on February 21, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland, the second of five sons. His father, William Lee Rawls, was a prominent Baltimore attorney, and his mother, Anna Abell Stump Rawls, was active in local Democratic politics, including advocacy for women's voting rights. Tragedy struck Rawls at a young age:

Two of his brothers died in childhood because they had contracted fatal illnesses from him. ... In 1928, the seven-year-old Rawls contracted diphtheria. His brother Bobby, younger by 20 months, visited him in his room and was fatally infected. The next winter, Rawls contracted pneumonia. Another younger brother, Tommy, caught the illness from him and died.

Rawls's biographer Thomas Pogge calls the loss of the brothers the "most important events in John's childhood".


Rawls as a Kent School senior, 1937

Rawls graduated in Baltimore before enrolling in the Kent School, an Episcopalian preparatory school in Connecticut. Upon graduation in 1939, Rawls attended Princeton University, where he was accepted into the Ivy Club and the American Whig–Cliosophic Society. At Princeton, Rawls was influenced by Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein's student. During his last two years at Princeton, he "became deeply concerned with theology and its doctrines". He considered attending a seminary to study for the Episcopal priesthood and wrote an "intensely religious senior thesis (BI)".

In his 181-page long thesis titled "Meaning of Sin and Faith", Rawls attacked Pelagianism because it "would render the Cross of Christ to no effect".[16] Rawls graduated from Princeton in 1943 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude.

Military service, 1943–46

Rawls enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1943. During World War II, Rawls served as an infantryman in the Pacific with the 128th Infantry Regiment of the 32nd Infantry Division, where he served a tour of duty in New Guinea and was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge and Bronze Star; and the Philippines, where he endured intensive trench warfare and witnessed traumatizing scenes of violence and bloodshed.

It was there that he lost his Christian faith and became an atheist.

Following the surrender of Japan, Rawls became part of General MacArthur's occupying army[13] and was promoted to sergeant. But he became disillusioned with the military when he saw the aftermath of the atomic blast in Hiroshima. Rawls then disobeyed an order to discipline a fellow soldier, "believing no punishment was justified", and was "demoted back to a private". Disenchanted, he left the military in January 1946.

Later life

Rawls rarely gave interviews and, having both a stutter (which he attributed to the deaths of two of his brothers, who died through infections contracted from Rawls) and a "bat-like horror of the limelight", did not become a public intellectual despite his fame. He instead remained committed mainly to his academic and family life.

In 1995, he had the first of several strokes, severely impeding his ability to continue to work. He was nevertheless able to complete The Law of Peoples, the most complete statement of his views on international justice. Published in 2001 shortly before his death was Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, a response to criticisms of A Theory of Justice. Rawls died from heart failure at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts, on November 24, 2002, at age 81. He was buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts.



Philosophical thought

Rawls published three main books. The first, A Theory of Justice, focused on distributive justice and attempted to reconcile the competing claims of the values of freedom and equality. The second, Political Liberalism, addressed the question of how citizens divided by intractable religious and philosophical disagreements could come to endorse a constitutional democratic regime. The third, The Law of Peoples, focused on the issue of global justice.




A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice, published in 1971, aimed to resolve the seemingly competing claims of freedom and equality. The shape Rawls's resolution took, however, was not that of a balancing act that compromised or weakened the moral claim of one value compared with the other. Rather, his intent was to show that notions of freedom and equality could be integrated into a seamless unity he called justice as fairness. By attempting to enhance the perspective which his readers should take when thinking about justice, Rawls hoped to show that conflict between freedom and equality is illusory.

Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) includes a thought experiment he called the "original position". The intuition behind it is that political philosophy will be greatly benefited by a specification of the correct standpoint a person should take in their thinking about justice. When we think about what a just state of affairs between persons would mean, we eliminate certain features such as hair or eye color, height, or race, and focus upon others. Rawls's original position is meant to encode our intuitions about which features are relevant, and which are irrelevant, for the purposes of deliberating well about justice.

The original position is Rawls's hypothetical scenario in which a group of persons is set the task of reaching an agreement about the kind of political and economic structure they want for a society, which they will then occupy. Each individual, however, deliberates behind a "veil of ignorance": each lacks knowledge, for example, of their gender, race, age, intelligence, wealth, skills, education, religion, and disability status. The only thing that a given member knows about themselves is that they are in possession of the basic capacities necessary to fully participate in an enduring system of mutual cooperation; each knows they can be a member of the society.


Rawls posits two basic capacities that the individuals would know they possess. First, individuals know that they have the capacity to form, pursue and revise a conception of the good, or life plan. Exactly what sort of conception of the good this is, however, the individual does not yet know. It may be, for example, religious or secular, but at the start, the individual in the original position does not know which. Second, each individual understands that they have the capacity to develop a sense of justice and a generally effective desire to abide by it. Knowing only these two features of themselves, the group will deliberate in order to design a social structure, during which each person will seek their maximum advantage. The idea is that proposals that we would ordinarily think of as unjust—such as that black people or women should not be allowed to hold public office—will not be proposed in this, Rawls's original position, because it would be irrational to propose them. The reason is simple: one does not know whether he himself would be a woman or a black person. This position is expressed in the difference principle, according to which, in a system of ignorance about one's status, one would strive to improve the position of the worst off, because he might find himself in that position.

Rawls develops his original position by modeling it, in certain respects at least, after the "initial situations" of various social contract thinkers who came before him, including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Each social contractarian constructs their initial situation somewhat differently, having in mind a unique political morality they intend the thought experiment to generate.

Iain King has suggested that the original position draws on Rawls's experiences in post-war Japan, where the Allied Occupation authorities were challenged with designing new social and political arrangements for the country while "imagining away all that had gone before"

In social justice processes, each person early on makes decisions about which features of persons to consider and which to ignore. Rawls's aspiration is to have created a thought experiment whereby a version of that process is carried to its completion, illuminating the correct standpoint that a person should take in their thinking about justice. If he has succeeded, then the original position thought experiment may function as a full specification of the moral standpoint we should attempt to achieve when deliberating about social justice.

In setting out his theory, Rawls described his method as one of "reflective equilibrium", a concept which has since been used in other areas of philosophy. Reflective equilibrium is achieved by mutually adjusting one's general principles and one's considered judgements on particular cases, to bring the two into line with one another.

Principles of justice

Rawls derives two principles of justice from the original position. The first of these is the Liberty Principle, which establishes equal basic liberties for all citizens. 'Basic' liberty entails the freedoms of conscience, association and expression‎ as well as democratic rights; Rawls also includes a personal property right, but this is defended in terms of moral capacities and self-respect, rather than an appeal to a natural right of self-ownership (this distinguishes Rawls's account from the classical liberalism of John Locke and the libertarianism of Robert Nozick).

Rawls argues that a second principle of equality would be agreed upon to guarantee liberties that represent meaningful options for all in society and ensure distributive justice. For example, formal guarantees of political voice and freedom of assembly are of little real worth to the desperately poor and marginalized in society.

Demanding that everyone have exactly the same effective opportunities in life would almost certainly offend the very liberties that are supposedly being equalized. Nonetheless, we would want to ensure at least the "fair worth" of our liberties: wherever one ends up in society, one wants life to be worth living, with enough effective freedom to pursue personal goals. Thus, participants would be moved to affirm a two-part second principle comprising Fair Equality of Opportunity and difference principle.

This second principle ensures that those with comparable talents and motivation face roughly similar life chances, and that inequalities in society work to the benefit of the least advantaged.

Rawls held that these principles of justice apply to the "basic structure" of fundamental social institutions such as the judiciary, the economic structure and the political constitution, a qualification that has been the source of some controversy and constructive debate (see the work of Gerald Cohen). 

Rawls's theory of justice stakes out the task of equalizing the distribution of primary social goods to those least advantaged in society and thus may be seen as a largely political answer to the question of justice, with matters of morality somewhat conflated into a political account of justice and just institutions. Relational approaches to the question of justice, by contrast, seek to examine the connections between individuals and focuses on their relations in societies, with respect to how these relationships are established and configured.


Rawls further argued that these principles were to be 'lexically ordered' to award priority to basic liberties over the more equality-oriented demands of the second principle. This has also been a topic of much debate among moral and political philosophers.

Finally, Rawls took his approach as applying in the first instance to what he called a "well-ordered society ... designed to advance the good of its members and effectively regulated by a public conception of justice".

In this respect, he understood justice as fairness as a contribution to "ideal theory", the determination of "principles that characterize a well-ordered society under favorable circumstances".