Political autonomy and civic friendship are distinct ideals. Unlike political autonomy, civic friendship is an essentially common good—its benefits cannot be enjoyed by an individual in isolation but can be enjoyed only with others. Only citizens who relate to each other in a particular way—that is, as joint pursuers of a shared conception of justice—can enjoy this kind of civic friendship (Rawls 1996: 204; Leland and Wietmarschen 2017; Lister 2013; Ebels-Duggan 2010; Schwarzenbach 1996, 2005; Watson and Hartley 2018). Elaborating upon the idea of essentially common goods, Rawls writes,