Ethical Inquiry Discussion Project: Choosing Principles of Justice

According to Social Contract Theory, the correct moral rules are those that rational people would agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others will follow those rules as well. But which rules would rational people accept?

John Rawls argues that, unless we place some constraints on the problem, there will be no determinate answer. He tries to convince his readers that the choice of basic rules will be fair only if it is made from behind "a veil of ignorance." That is, we should imagine that the "rational people" who are trying to decide what set of rules to accept are ignorant of what their specific place or role in society will be. We should imagine that they don't know what race or class they will belong to, what talents or disabilities they will have, or even what their personal tastes and preferences will be. If they were ignorant of all these things then they would not be tempted to try to skew the social rules to benefit themselves. This "veil of ignorance" would then make it possible for rational people to agree on a set of rules that would be fair to all.

Part 1

Imagine as best you can, that you and your fellow group members are ignorant in all these ways. Suppose that you are sitting down to choose the fundamental social rules that will govern your lives.

Are you inclined to choose the rules included in the libertarian view of justice advocated by John Hospers? (Remember that for Hospers the fundamental rules require each of us to refrain from violating the persons or property of others -- and that's all. There are no requirements for the well-off to assist the needy and no public provision for anything but enforcement of the criminal law. On Hospers’ view, to require some of us to pay taxes to provide services and opportunities to others is little better than slavery or theft.)

Or are you more inclined to choose Rawls' principles of justice? (Note that for Rawls, although he agrees with Hospers about the overriding importance of liberty, there is also a second principle that requires that any inequalities of wealth, power, etc. be arranged to benefit those who are least well off and be open to all. Rawls interprets these requirements quite strongly, so that any society which would satisfy his principles would have to have -- at least -- a very substantial "social safety net" to prevent anyone from falling into poverty, strict rules against discrimination, and significant public provision of education and training, so that people would have genuinely equal opportunities to 'move up'.)

Try to agree on a choice between these two sets of rules and on an explanation of why your choice is the better one. Consider the arguments offered by Hospers, Govier, and Rawls as you try to make and justify your choice.

Part 2

The intuition that leads Rawls to propose the veil of ignorance is that the outcome of the social lottery (what social position we happen to have been born to) and the outcome of the natural lottery (what talents and character traits we happen to have been born with) are both "morally arbitrary." We don't deserve these things, Rawls says; they are gifts. So it makes sense to him to try to imagine a bargaining process that would prevent people from turning these things to their advantage.

Conservatives and libertarians sometimes criticize this conception of ‘the original position’. They think that a bargain struck between real people, who know all the things that Rawls wants his bargainers not to know, is fair as long as no one is in a position to coerce anyone else. So they reject Rawls’ claim that the veil of ignorance provides a reasonable constraint on the choice of principles of justice. They say that Rawls is skewing the social contract towards egalitarianism by imagining that the choice is made "behind the veil."

What do you think about this criticism of Rawls? Do you think that the "veil of ignorance' would make the choice of principles fair? What principles do you think you would choose if you knew what the veil kept you from knowing in Part 1. (Can you agree on a choice in your group?) Would these principles be different from those you chose in Part 1?