Q.How does Rawls use the idea of a veil of ignorance to argue that fair and just distribution can be defended on rational grounds?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Rawls argues that if people had to decide the rules of a future society without knowing what position — rich or poor, privileged or disadvantaged — they would themselves occupy in it, then out of pure rational self-interest, not moral generosity, they would choose rules that protect the worst-off, since they themselves might turn out to be among the worst-off; this makes fair distribution something a purely rational, self-interested person would choose, not merely something demanded by morality.
Rawls starts from the problem that if people were simply asked what kind of society they would like to live in, most would pick one that gives them a privileged position — we cannot expect people to set aside their own interest and think only of the good of society as a whole, especially since people also want the best for their own children. So Rawls asks: how can we reach a decision about the rules of society that is genuinely both fair and just? His answer is to imagine ourselves in a hypothetical situation where we have to decide how society should be organised without knowing which position we ourselves would occupy in that society — we would not know what family we would be born into, whether into an 'upper' or 'lower' caste family, rich or poor, privileged or disadvantaged. He calls this reasoning under a "veil of ignorance."
Rawls' key move is this: in such a state of total ignorance about our own future position, each person would still decide in the way people generally do — that is, in terms of their own interest. But since no one knows who they will turn out to be, each person, purely to protect their own interest, would end up envisaging the future society from the standpoint of the worst-off person, because they themselves might be that person. A rational person recognises that those born privileged will enjoy certain advantages regardless of the rules, but there is also a real risk of being born into a disadvantaged position with very few opportunities. So it makes rational sense — purely out of self-interest, not generosity — for each person to want rules of organisation that ensure reasonable opportunities for the weaker sections of society, and that important resources like education, health, and shelter are available to everyone, not just the upper class. …
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