Rawls: The Veil of Ignorance

Quote

"Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."

— John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Chapter III, Section 24 (1971)

Author

John Rawls (1921–2002) was the most influential political philosopher of the twentieth century, whose work restored the centrality of justice in political theory after a long period dominated by utilitarianism and positivism. Drawing on Kant, Locke, and Rousseau, Rawls sought principles that free and equal citizens would agree to under fair conditions. See Rawls.

Source

A Theory of Justice (1971; revised edition, Harvard University Press, 1999) is Rawls's masterwork, reconstructing the social-contract tradition to produce a theory of justice as fairness. Chapter III introduces the original position, the hypothetical choice situation from which the veil of ignorance is defined. The wording follows the Harvard University Press revised edition. See A Theory of Justice.

Context

Rawls wrote against a dominant utilitarianism that judged institutions by the aggregate welfare they produced — a standard that could, in principle, sacrifice some individuals for the greater good of others. He also wrote against the intuitionism and positivism that had left political philosophy without a constructive method. Recovering the social-contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes, Rawls asked: what principles would rational parties choose for their society if they did not know who they would be within it? The veil of ignorance is the device that secures the fairness of that choice.

Meaning

The veil of ignorance is not a claim about what people actually forget, nor a psychological state; it is a feature of a designed choice situation, the original position. By stipulating that no one knows their class, status, talents, intelligence, or even their conception of the good, Rawls removes the information that would let parties bias principles in their own favor. The device is a model of impartiality: behind the veil, no one can tailor principles to their advantage, because no one knows what their advantage would be.

The point of the device is procedural. If the principles chosen under such constraints are fair, it is because the procedure that generates them is fair — not because the parties are altruistic, for they are assumed to be mutually disinterested, but because the terms of choice prevent exploitative bargaining. Rawls argues that rational parties so situated would choose two principles: equal basic liberties for all, and social and economic inequalities arranged to benefit the least advantaged and attached to positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity. The veil is what makes this outcome a matter of justice rather than power.

The passage also carries a substantive view about the arbitrariness of fortune. Intelligence, strength, and social class are, from the moral point of view, matters of luck. A theory of justice that let these contingencies determine life prospects would ratify accident rather than principle. By screening them out, the veil expresses the Kantian idea — central to deontology and to Kant's moral philosophy — that persons are free and equal, owed terms of cooperation that no contingent feature can override.

Critics have pressed the device hard. Is mutual disinterest behind the veil realistic, and does the chosen set of principles genuinely follow from it? Utilitarians argue that parties might maximize average welfare rather than secure the least advantaged. Yet the veil's power as a tool of political imagination remains: it forces us to evaluate institutions not from where we happen to stand, but from a standpoint that honors the freedom, rights, and autonomy of every citizen.

Related Wisdom

The veil is central to what the veil of ignorance is and to justice as fairness. It speaks to justice, rights, freedom, and obligation, and is examined alongside the priority of justice in Rawls on justice as fairness.

Sources

1. "Rawls." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/
2. "Original Position." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/
3. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice (1971). Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, Chapter III, Section 24.