Governments and Justice: Rawls's Veil of Ignorance

Thus we are to imagine that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits...

...This original position...is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice. Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to deign principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain.

What principles of justice would be chosen?

Rawls claims that "free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests" (11) would, from behind the veil of ignorance he describes, agree to the following principles as a "blueprint" for their society: "All social values - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be distributed equally unless the unequal distribution of any, or all, of these values is to everyone's advantage" (62).

Sources:

John Rawls. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. 11, 12.

Peg Tittle. What If...Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy. Part 8, Social and Political Philosophy. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. 206-207.

This activity contains 2 questions.

One might concede that people will choose basic equality in case it turns out they're the ones not so fortunate with regard to natural assets and abilities; one might also concede that people will permit inequality in case they are unfortunate - so they can take advantage of their superior resources. But what principle could have been agreed to instead? One possibility is the Marxian "to each according to his or her need"; another is "to each as he or she is entitled"; yet another is the utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number." Which of these will result in a just society?

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Critics of Rawls have pointed out the difficulty, and even the impossibility, of making decisions about rights, duties, and social benefits when one's values ("conceptions of the good") are unknown. Furthermore, insofar as where you end up depends on where you start, one might ask why Rawls postulates only self-interested people - what sort of society would communally interested people come up with?

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