Debate: What would you choose behind the veil?

Rawls: justice as fairness

Behind the veil, rational people would choose equal basic liberties for all, fair equality of opportunity, and inequalities only if they benefit the least advantaged.

Best argument

Since you might end up in the worst position, and the stakes are your whole life, Rawls argued it would be rational to choose the rules that make the worst possible position as good as possible (a strategy called maximin). You would protect basic liberties first, then insist that any inequality of wealth or power be justified by its benefits to those at the bottom. This is the difference principle.

Strongest objection

Why be so cautious? Maximin is rational only if you are extremely averse to risk. Someone might prefer a society with a slightly worse bottom and a much better average, betting that they will probably not end up at the bottom.

The reply

Rawls argued that the choice is unlike ordinary gambles: it is made once, for a whole life, with no knowledge of probabilities, and the worst outcomes could be catastrophic. In such conditions, caution is reasonable.

Defended by

John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon

Utilitarian choice

Behind the veil, a rational person would choose the society with the highest average wellbeing, since they have an equal chance of being anyone.

Best argument

John Harsanyi, who used a similar thought experiment before Rawls, argued that if you have an equal chance of occupying any position, rationality requires maximising your expected wellbeing, which means maximising average wellbeing. This leads to a form of utilitarianism, not to Rawls's principles.

Strongest objection

Average utilitarianism could allow some people to be terribly off if enough others are very well off. Rawls argued that this fails to take seriously 'the distinctness of persons': one person's suffering is not cancelled by another person's gain.

Defended by

John Harsanyi, John Stuart Mill

Entitlement, not design

Justice is not about choosing a pattern of distribution. It is about whether people acquired and transferred their holdings fairly.

Best argument

Robert Nozick, Rawls's Harvard colleague, argued that any fixed pattern of distribution would be upset by people's free choices. If millions freely pay to watch a great basketball player, he becomes rich; what is unjust about that? Justice, on Nozick's entitlement theory, depends on history: on how holdings came about, not on who ends up with what.

Strongest objection

Real holdings have a history full of theft, conquest and coercion. Nozick accepted that past injustice requires rectification, but critics argue that this undermines the case against redistribution.

Defended by

Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek

The veil removes too much

People behind the veil, stripped of every attachment and value, are not real people. Principles chosen by such abstract selves cannot guide real communities.

Best argument

Communitarians such as Michael Sandel argued that Rawls's 'unencumbered self' is an illusion. We are partly constituted by our families, communities and traditions. Justice must start from shared understandings of the good, not from a choice made by no one in particular.

Strongest objection

Rawls replied that the veil is a device of representation, not a theory of the self. It expresses fairness, not a claim that people are actually detached from their communities.

Defended by

Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer

Where you stand

Which idea of a just society is closest to yours?

Choose one to see how people answer.

For the full background, variations and open questions, read the entry: The veil of ignorance.