 Rawls substantially relies on the publicity condition to argue against utilitarianism and perfectionism. He says publicity “arises naturally from a contractarian standpoint” (TJ, 133/115 rev.). In Theory he puts great weight on publicity ultimately because he thinks that giving people knowledge of the moral bases of coercive laws and the principles governing society is a condition of fully acknowledging and respecting them as free and responsible rational moral agents. With publicity of first principles, people have knowledge of the real reasons for their social and political relations and the formative influences of the basic structure on their characters, plans and prospects. In a well-ordered society with a public conception of justice, there is no need for an “esoteric morality” that must be confined “to an enlightened few” (as Sidgwick says of utilitarianism, Sidgwick 1907 [1981], 490). Moreover, public principles of justice can serve agents in their practical reasoning and provide democratic citizens a common basis for political argument and justification. These considerations underlie Rawls’s later contention that having knowledge of the principles that determine the bases of social relations is a precondition of individuals’ freedom.( CP 325f.) Rawls means in part that publicity of society’s fundamental principles is a condition of citizens’ exercise of the powers and abilities that enable them to take full responsibility for their lives. Full publicity is then a condition of the political, rational, and moral autonomy of persons, which are all significant values according to justice as fairness.