Questions What is a just society?The veil of ignorance: choosing the rules without knowing who you will be

What is a just society?The contract

The veil of ignorance: choosing the rules without knowing who you will be

The veil of ignorance, the original position, the difference principle

John Rawls 1921 · 2002A society is just if its rules would be chosen by people who did not know what place they would hold in it.

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What it claims

Equal liberty and the difference principle are the principles of justice that should govern the basic structure of society.

Why

If nobody knows their place in society, everyone chooses rules that are fair to all.

The same idea through history

Thomas Hobbes1651The contract takes people out of the state of nature out of self-interest. Rawls nevertheless sets him apart: he writes that the Leviathan, for all its greatness, raises special problems.Jean-Jacques Rousseau1762The contract becomes a test of legitimacy, not a true story: this is what Rawls takes up.

Immanuel Kant1785For Kant, the contract is an idea of reason. Rawls thinks the veil of ignorance is already implicit in the categorical imperative: one does not know one's place in the imagined system of nature.

John C. Harsanyi1953Harsanyi also imagines a choice where one ignores one's place. But he draws utilitarianism from it: if one is equally likely to be anyone, one chooses the rule giving the highest average well-being. Rawls notes this himself.

John Rawls1971

In short

"The veil of ignorance: choosing the rules without knowing who you will be" is an argument by John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971, §3, 11, 24, 26, 1971) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: the contract). Its claim: Equal liberty and the difference principle are the principles of justice that should govern the basic structure of society. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 4 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

A Theory of Justice, 1971, §3, 11, 24, 26

Valid with an implicit premise

How can we tell whether a society's rules are just? Rawls proposes a thought experiment. Imagine you had to choose all the rules (laws, school, taxes, rights) without knowing whether you will be rich or poor, strong or weak, gifted or not, from what background, with what beliefs. This "veil of ignorance" stops you from cheating in your own favour. Rawls argues that in this situation you would choose two principles: equal liberties for all, and inequalities only if they help the worst off.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where the veil exists, the choice is fair and the two principles are chosen, but they are not just: fairness of the choice would guarantee nothing about the value of the result.

The argument is valid with premise P5. Without it, we would only know that these principles would be chosen, not that they are just. P5 is an idea of Rawls ("pure procedural justice") which he supports by its fit with our firmest judgments. The strength of the argument depends mostly on P3: if one can reason differently under the veil (for instance by betting on the average), the chosen principles change.

Analogy. To share a cake fairly, let the person who will pick his slice last cut it. He does not know which slice he will get, so he cuts equal ones. The veil of ignorance does the same for a whole society.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Robert Nozick 1974 · attacks the conclusion

Rawls looks for a pattern of distribution to achieve (the worst off as well off as possible). But if people are free, the pattern is destroyed at once. Example: in a society distributed as Rawls wants, a million people each pay 25 cents to watch the basketball player Wilt Chamberlain play. He becomes rich, and the distribution changes, although everyone acted freely. To keep the pattern, free exchanges must be forbidden. What matters is how one got one's holdings, not the shape of the distribution.

Rawls replies

see the argument

Rawls What Rawls wrote in 1971, before Nozick

For Rawls, each person's shares are just only if they result from a just procedure, as in a fair bet. Such a procedure exists only within a framework: a just system of institutions must be set up and impartially administered. Only against the background of a just basic structure (constitution, economic and social institutions) can one say that the just procedure exists.

The debate goes on (our summary) This passage predates Nozick's book and does not mention him: it only shows that Rawls judges free exchanges inside a just framework, which is the point at issue. Nozick answers that keeping this framework requires constant interference with free exchanges. Rawls answers that the basic structure is precisely the subject of justice, because its effects are so profound and present from the start.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Deep disagreement: should a society be judged by the shape of its distribution (Rawls) or only by how holdings were acquired (Nozick)? The debate remains open. (Our summary.)

John Harsanyi 1975 · attacks premise 3

Under the veil, we do not know who we will be, but that does not mean we can estimate nothing: we can assume equal chances of being each person. Then the rational rule is to choose the society with the highest average well-being, not to guard against the worst. Maximin is too cautious: applied to everyday decisions, it would forbid taking a large gain whenever there is a small risk of disaster.

Rawls replies

Rawls What Rawls wrote in 1971 about maximin

Rawls grants that the maximin rule is not, in general, a suitable guide for decisions under uncertainty. He argues that it holds only in situations with certain features, and that the original position has them to a very high degree: the odds cannot be known, one cares little for what one might gain above the secure minimum, and the other outcomes are hardly acceptable.

The debate goes on (our summary) This text dates from 1971 and concerns the choice of principles in general, not Harsanyi's specific 1975 criticism. Harsanyi maintains that the three features are not met: equal chances can be given to each place, and the rejected outcomes are not so grave as to justify giving up a higher average well-being. The two camps have answered each other on this point for fifty years.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Deep disagreement about rational choice behind the veil: guard against the worst (Rawls) or aim at the average (Harsanyi). Neither has convinced the other. (Our summary.)

Michael Sandel 1982 · attacks premise 1

For people to choose without knowing their goals, attachments or values, they must be imagined as a self already constituted before its ends. But we do not understand ourselves that way: our attachments (family, country, beliefs) are part of who we are. Sandel even claims that a convincing defence of the difference principle requires a conception of the person that Rawls's theory does not allow.

Rawls replies

Rawls Rawls's reply (1985, then Political Liberalism, 1993)

Rawls answers that the original position is a device of representation and that the person he describes is a political conception (free and equal citizens), not a metaphysical thesis about what the self is. Not knowing one's attachments behind the veil does not mean believing one has none in life: it is a way of setting them aside to choose common rules.

The debate goes on (our summary) Communitarians answer that even a "political" conception of the person is not neutral, since it gives priority to individual choices over memberships. This passage summarises Rawls's position without quotation, because his 1985 and 1993 texts could not be read here.

Where the debate stands (our summary)The debate is about neutrality: is the political conception of the person really neutral between ways of life? Still an open point. (Our summary.)

G. A. Cohen 1992 · attacks premise 4

The difference principle allows inequalities so that the most talented work harder. But if the talented really accepted the principle, they would not need these bonuses to work well. The inequalities are therefore not required by justice: they arise because the better placed demand more in order to act. A principle of justice must also apply to our personal choices, not only to society's rules.

Rawls replies

Rawls Rawls in 1971: the basic structure

For Rawls, the basic structure is the primary subject of justice because its effects are so profound and present from the start. The principles of justice therefore apply to institutions, which assign rights, duties and advantages, and not to individual choices.

G. A. Cohen 1997

Cohen answers that the basic structure cannot be separated from personal choices: social rules hold only because people follow and approve them. A society that truly follows the difference principle would also have a spirit of justice among its citizens (an "ethos"), which would limit their demands.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Deep disagreement: does justice apply only to common rules (Rawls) or also to personal choices (Cohen)? Followers of both authors keep discussing it. (Our summary.)

What today's voices say

Defend it

Martha NussbaumShe shares Rawls's political liberalism but says the model of a contract between free, equal and independent adults must be challenged, because it leaves out people with disabilities.

Criticize it

Michael SandelHe argues that the veil of ignorance assumes unencumbered selves, people without the ties that shape them. In 2026 he says meritocracy rests on the idea that we are ultimately self-made and self-sufficient.