 One possible rationale has to do with the kind of solidarity that citizens realize through their shared status as “citizens”. When members of a society reason in terms of the principle of common interest, they set their private and sectional interests aside whenever possible in order to focus on their common interests as citizens. Setting their sectional interests aside (e.g., as members of the least advantaged group, the second least advantaged group, the third least advantaged group, etc.), citizens treat their shared interests as “citizens” as being more fundamental than their distinct and potentially competing interests as private individuals. Each citizen effectively tells her fellow citizens, “What unites us is more important than what divides us”. Bringing the status of “citizen” to the center of how citizens relate to one another in public life is particularly important for Rawls because mutual recognition on the basis of this shared status is important to his account of how a just social order will prevent envy and positional competition from undermining the basic liberties (1971 [1999: 476–9]).