Question 4:
How does Rawls use the idea of a veil of ignorance to argue that fair and just distribution can be defended on rational grounds?
Answers
ANSWER :
According to Rawls, Justice is the first virtue of social Institutions as truth is of systems of thought. He develops a Contractarian Theory of justice in the tradition of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Since for Rawls Justice, is the foundation of social structure, all political and legislative decisions must take place within the limits of the principle of Justice. The Contractarian concept of justice is elaborated by Rawls in the following words: “Injustice as fairness the original position of equality corresponds to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social contract…. It is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as lead a certain conception of Justice. 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. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind the veil of ignorance.”
However it is not easy to erase out our identities and to imagine under a ‘veil of ignorance’. However, the imagined veil of ignorance is the first step in arriving at a system of fair laws and policies.
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