Perhaps it is just here that Dworkin’s understanding of the nature of law as interpretation and of interpretation itself as necessarily involving both ethical and moral values comes fi nally into play.

If some malnourished indeed famished Paris street children are understood, however destitute, as nonetheless persons necessarily embodying a public sovereign good as well as the capacity for exhibiting certain basic minimum capabilities, then among the essentials they still may be properly held to lack is the self-respect which the rule of law in their societies must protect. More simply, destitute Paris street children lack many essentials, and among these missing essentials precisely as persons is proper self-respect.

Accordingly, still a further informal suggestion for helping in the renewed reflection on the nature of social justice today may be put once again in a preliminary way as follows:

Such mutualizings of self-respect can certainly help transform the public perceptions of destitute street children as those persons who not only lack sufficient self-respect, but as those radically impoverished persons who need to develop a proper sense of self-respect.