The Veil of Ignorance
Rawls · A Theory of Justice · 1971
Imagine you must set the rules of your society, but from behind a "veil of ignorance": you do not yet know who you will be in it. Rich or poor, gifted or not, well or badly born, healthy or sick, none of this is known to you. What rules of distribution would you choose, knowing you might end up in any position at all, including the very lowest?
Behind this veil, would you accept large inequalities, or would you first insist on protecting the lot of the least advantaged?
What it does in the debate
Objects to Libertarianismattacks the position
Behind a veil where I do not know my place, I would not accept rules that hand me over to destitution should I be born on the wrong side: the mere freedom of exchange is not enough.
- Let us ask which rules of society each person would choose without knowing the place they will occupy in it, rich or poor, gifted or infirm.
- In that position, no one would gamble on rules that let a person sink into destitution on the sole ground that their exchanges were 'free': one would first protect against the worst.
- Now justice is what free and equal persons would accept from such an impartial standpoint, not what favors those whom birth has already favored.
Therefore So the mere legitimacy of transfers does not make a just society: a distribution none of us would accept without knowing our place cannot be called fair.