Slide 1
Rawls’s veil hides facts that could bias a fair choice
John Rawls uses an original position to model fair choice of principles of justice. A veil of ignorance hides facts that could bias the parties.
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The device is hypothetical, not a claim that citizens historically met to sign a contract. Its purpose is to represent restrictions on reasons that can fairly shape the basic institutions of society.
Slide 2
General social knowledge remains behind the veil
Behind the veil, parties lack knowledge of their own social position and personal advantages. They retain general information needed to reason about social arrangements.
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Imagine designing access rules without knowing whether you will arrive with abundant resources or very few. The exercise discourages tailoring the rules to a known advantage while still allowing thought about how rules function.
Slide 3
Equal basic liberties receive priority
Rawls gives equal basic liberties a special priority within his theory. Benefits to a social total do not simply purchase permission to remove them.
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This distinguishes the structure from a single calculation of aggregate welfare. A proposed gain in income cannot automatically justify denying some people the political or personal liberties protected by the first principle.
Slide 4
Inequalities must meet opportunity and least-advantaged conditions
Rawls allows inequalities subject to fair opportunity and the difference principle. The latter requires benefit to the least advantaged within the relevant comparison.
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The test is not that any wealthy person's success must produce a small incidental benefit. It compares institutional arrangements and asks how their inequalities affect the position of those least advantaged under them.
Slide 5
The principles concern society’s whole basic structure
The theory concerns society's basic structure. Applying it involves questions about institutions, opportunities and the distribution of advantages across a whole system.
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A single generous transaction does not establish that the surrounding arrangement is just. Conversely, evaluating one person's choices is not identical to evaluating the public rules that organize everyone's starting positions.
Sources
- John Rawls
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy