If we believe Rawls that our identity is given "independently of the things I have, independently, that is, of my interests and ends and my relations with others" (Sandel 55) then we are open also to his belief that our talents, traits or ambitions are merely possessions. As such, any benefits they produce will be subject to Rawls' difference principle as objects to be divided or shared for the benefit of the least advantaged. This gives the effect of distancing us from our attributes, and creates the unencumbered Self that Sandel finds so impossible to accept.
Rawls presses very hard in his insistence that special traits such as intelligence, determination, etc. are merely possessions of the self. He does not allow that I am somehow violated when ‘my' intelligence or determination is used for the common good, because to do that is to confuse the self with its "contingently given and wholly inessential attributes (that is, inessential to me being the particular self that I am)" (Sandel 78). But if Rawls must create such a complicated distinction between the self and its possessions, he runs the risk of creating a radically disembodied subject in his zeal to avoid a radically situated one.
But the idea that I am not being used as a means, only my attributes are, threatens the very idea Rawls is trying to cultivate. If it is so difficult to understand and state the distinction between the self and its possessions in the first place, perhaps that is a bad sign for the argument. Indeed, Sandel quickly shows that these attributes, talents, etc. are more than just possessions, and we are more than just a repository for them. He insists that these attributes I was "accidentally" endowed with become "more and more me, and less and less mine" (56) as they are used, cultivated and enhanced. And if the attributes that are to be divided and shared as common assets are part of me, then dividing them for the good of the community will treat me not as an end, but as a means. Thus we see that Rawls' theory comes dangerously close to the very Utilitarianism he was to so anxious to avoid. His insistence that natural talents are merely possessions suddenly seems to be a shallow add-on to make his principle work, rather than an integral and valid point in his argument.
