Rawls refers to the uncertainty as the "Veil of Ignorance." (119) He continues "These remarks show that the original position is not to be thought of as a general assembly which includes at one moment everyone who will live at some time; or, much less, as an assembly of everyone who could live at some time." (120) While he establishes the mindset that one should be able to adopt this original position mindset at any time, Rawls establishes that the amount of knowledge - or lack thereof - is equal, so no one has a morally irrelevant advantage over another. Strange as it may seem, this ignorance is necessary for these future citizens to plan out their prospective society. If I have foreknowledge that I'm going to be a plumber, I will try and skew society such that plumbers make the most money out of any career. For Rawls, lack of knowledge should logically create unanimity in a creation of an equal society.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Rawls and The Veil of Ignorance
Prior to section 24, Rawls gives the analogy of a group of people who are dividing up a cake. To ensure equality, Rawls suggests that the person who cuts the cake ought to pick his slice last. The cutter wants as much cake as possible, and assuming the conditions of his cake-cutting are clear, he will divide the cake evenly. Here, self-imposed equality eliminates both his disadvantage of picking the last slice while also eliminating the advantage of deciding where the cake gets cut. For Rawls, societal equality should work similarly. If citizens do not know what role they will play in a future society, it makes sense that those who decide what that society should look like will strive to make it as equal as possible; if their luck is bad, the disadvantage of being born into a poor family is minimized.
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Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post! I just want to add that lack of knowledge specifically means lacking the knowledge about oneself. Everyone in the original position should understand the conception of right, which is "a set of principles, general in form and universal in application, that is to be publicly recognized as a final court of appeal for ordering the conflict claims of moral persons (117)."
Thank you for bringing this up, Daniel. Another point that Rawls make that I find to be particularly interesting is that individuals cannot know "even the special features of his psychology such as his aversion to risk or liability to optimism or pessimism" (118) or any information regarding the generation to which they belong. It seems a bit odd that an individual that has already become exposed to all of these forms of bias is trying to persuade us that he is unbiased in formulating the original position. He is deriving principles from a system that has already developed a pre-determined idea of what is fair.
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