Rawls and the Original Position

Core Idea

Rawls proposes that just principles are those rational people would agree to behind a 'veil of ignorance'—where they don't know their position in society (class, talent, gender, generation). This device ensures impartiality by removing bias. Rawls argues that under the veil, people would unanimously choose: (1) equal basic liberties for all, and (2) that inequalities benefit the least advantaged (the difference principle). This provides a contractarian foundation for liberal egalitarianism without relying on foundational natural rights.

How It's Best Learned

Work through the veil-of-ignorance reasoning step by step: ask why rational agents would choose equality and the difference principle when they cannot predict their position. Then examine critics' objections to the device.

Common Misconceptions

The original position is not a historical event but a thought experiment for reasoning about justice impartially. The veil of ignorance does not mean people are irrational; it means they reason from a position of uncertainty about their own interests.

Explainer

You already have background in Rawlsian justice and the social contract tradition, so you know that Rawls seeks a contractarian foundation for liberal egalitarianism. The original position is the specific device he invents to do that work. The key insight behind it is that any actual agreement about justice will be biased by the bargaining power, social position, and self-interest of the parties — the powerful will design institutions that favor themselves. Rawls asks: what if we removed all of that? What principles would rational people agree to if they had to choose without knowing who they would turn out to be?

The veil of ignorance specifies exactly what the parties in the original position do not know: their class, their natural talents and abilities, their conception of the good, their generation, their gender, their race. They are stripped of all the information that would allow them to tailor principles to benefit themselves specifically. They retain general knowledge — facts about economics, psychology, political science — but no particular facts about their own circumstances. Rawls's argument is that this device models *impartiality* by forcing agents to reason as though any position in society might be theirs. It is a formalization of the moral intuition "don't make rules you wouldn't accept if you were on the receiving end."

Now comes the philosophical payoff. What would rational agents behind the veil actually choose? Rawls argues they would adopt two principles in lexical order. First, equal basic liberties for all — freedom of conscience, speech, association, and political participation — because no rational person would risk ending up in a society where basic freedoms are denied, and liberties cannot be traded away for economic advantages. Second, the difference principle: inequalities in wealth and opportunity are permitted only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society. Why this rather than simple equality? Because under uncertainty, allowing inequalities that make everyone better off — including the worst-off — is rational. An economic system with some inequality might generate enough growth that the worst-off are better positioned than they would be under strict equality. But the difference principle rules out inequalities that merely benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, since a rational agent who might end up at the bottom would never agree to that.

The original position has been criticized from multiple directions. Libertarians like Nozick argue that the device illicitly smuggles in egalitarian assumptions — real people have different talents and the results of those talents, and Rawls's device erases what is rightfully theirs. Communitarians like Sandel argue that the "unencumbered self" behind the veil is an incoherent fiction — our identities are constituted by our communities and commitments, and a self stripped of those lacks the values needed to make rational choices at all. Utilitarians note that Rawls's argument relies on a specific decision procedure under uncertainty (maximin — maximize the minimum outcome) rather than expected utility maximization, and dispute whether rational agents would actually use it. These debates are the live edge of Rawls scholarship; understanding the original position is the precondition for engaging any of them.