Rawls and the veil of ignorance

In short: The veil of ignorance is a thought experiment by the American philosopher John Rawls. You are asked to imagine setting the rules of a society without knowing what position you yourself will later hold in it.

In more detail: Rawls presented the idea in his 1971 book “A Theory of Justice”. He wanted to show which principles reasonable people would choose as just if their own advantages could play no part.

In detail

• The original position: Rawls describes an imagined starting situation in which people decide together on the basic structure of a society.
• What stays hidden: Behind the veil, nobody knows their own sex, background, wealth, talents or personal goals in life.
• The purpose: Because nobody knows whether they will be rich or poor, healthy or ill, nobody can choose rules that favour only themselves.
• First principle: Everyone should have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberties possible, such as freedom of speech, conscience and assembly.
• Second principle: Social and economic inequalities are only permitted if positions are open to all under fair equality of opportunity and the inequalities bring the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.
• The difference principle: This second part means that inequality is not unjust in itself but must be justified by also benefiting the worst off.
• Contrast with utilitarianism: Rawls criticised that a pure sum of welfare could sacrifice the rights of individuals if this brought more to the majority overall.
• Criticism: Robert Nozick objected that redistribution violates property rights, and communitarians argued that people cannot sensibly be thought of as separate from their ties and values.
• Significance: The thought experiment is still used today in politics, law and ethics to test questions of fairness (utilitarismus-nutzen-fuer-alle, ethik-grundlagen-gut-und-richtig, kategorischer-imperativ-kant).