 Two perfectionist responses to this line of thought can be mentioned briefly here.  First, state efforts to promote excellence can be designed to encourage a wide range of human achievements that can be appreciated by many who do not directly participate in them.  Further, people’s self-respect may be affected significantly by the excellence realized by their society.  If so, then by promoting societal excellence, the state would further the self-respect of its members (Kramer 2017). These positive effects on self-respect of state action that promotes excellence would need to be balanced against any negative effects of such action.  Second, self-respect, as characterized by Rawls, may not be the relevant good.  Rather, the relevant good may be merited self-respect (Wall 2013b).  Put otherwise, each person may have a genuine interest in living a life that is valuable and worthwhile, not one that he merely has a secure conviction is valuable and worthwhile, whether or not it in fact is. On this view of self-respect, perfectionist political action that favors worthwhile pursuits over base pursuits can further the relevant good by contributing to a social environment that nourishes it.  As this second response brings out, concerns over self-respect engage deeper questions in value theory that divide perfectionists from many of their critics.