What Would You Choose If You Didn't Know Who You'd Be?
Imagine you are designing a society from scratch — its laws, its economic system, its distribution of rights and opportunities. You have complete freedom to construct any arrangement you like. But there is a constraint: you must make these choices from behind a "veil of ignorance." You do not know what position you will occupy in the society you design. You don't know your race, gender, class, abilities, talents, religion, or conception of the good. You don't know whether you'll be born to wealth or poverty, whether you'll be healthy or disabled, whether you'll be in the religious majority or a persecuted minority.
This thought experiment is John Rawls's veil of ignorance, introduced in "A Theory of Justice" (1971). Rawls argued that principles of justice chosen from behind the veil of ignorance would be genuinely fair, because no one could design the system to favor their own known characteristics. If you don't know whether you'll be rich or poor, you wouldn't choose a system that exploits the poor. If you don't know your race, you wouldn't choose a system that discriminates by race.
The original position
Rawls called this choice situation the "original position." It is not a description of how societies were historically formed (they weren't formed behind veils); it is a hypothetical device for generating principles of justice. The veil of ignorance is the specific epistemic constraint that makes the original position deliver impartial results.
Rawls derived two principles of justice from this thought experiment:
First principle (equal liberty): Each person should have the most extensive system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system for all. Freedom of speech, conscience, assembly, and the like should be distributed equally.
Second principle (difference principle + fair opportunity): Social and economic inequalities should be arranged so that they (a) benefit the least advantaged members of society and (b) are attached to positions open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.
The difference principle is Rawls's most distinctive contribution: inequalities are not inherently unjust, but they must work to benefit the worst-off. A system where some are much richer than others is just only if the worse-off are better off than they would be under a more equal arrangement. This rules out inequalities that arise purely from birth advantages — inherited wealth, class privilege — rather than from arrangements that generate benefits for all.
Why the veil delivers these principles
Rawls argued that rational choosers behind the veil would adopt a maximin strategy: maximize the minimum outcome. Because you don't know which position you'll occupy, and because ending up in the worst-off position in a badly designed society could be catastrophic, you'd choose principles that make the worst-off position as good as possible. You wouldn't gamble on ending up well-off in an extremely unequal society when you might instead end up in grinding poverty.
Critics questioned the maximin assumption. Why wouldn't a rational person behind the veil take a risk — choose a more unequal society with higher average welfare, since they might end up in the advantaged position? Rawls's response: because the stakes involve one's entire life prospects, and the downside (severe poverty or oppression) is so severe that risk-aversion is warranted even without knowing the probabilities.
Applications and influence
The veil of ignorance has become one of the most influential concepts in political philosophy and is widely used as a practical decision-making tool. Applications include:
Constitutional design: Drafting constitutions involves a mild version of the veil — you're designing rules for a future society whose precise composition you don't know. Rawls's insight is that this epistemic uncertainty should be embraced, not minimized.
Policy analysis: "What policy would you support if you didn't know whether you'd be a recipient or a payer?" This reframing often shifts policy intuitions substantially. People who oppose welfare programs when they assume they'll be payers often support them when they genuinely consider the possibility of needing them.
Algorithm design: In machine learning fairness, a version of the veil asks: "What algorithm would you design if you didn't know which demographic group you'd be in?" This frames fairness as designing systems you'd accept regardless of which side of sensitive attributes you occupy.
Critiques
Rawls's framework has been challenged from multiple directions:
Libertarians (Nozick) argue the veil of ignorance violates rights: natural talents are one's own, and a framework that requires redistributing the fruits of them treats persons as resources for collective benefit. The veil erases what makes individuals distinct.
Communitarians (Sandel) argue the veil misunderstands selfhood: people behind the veil have no attachments, communities, or conceptions of the good — but these are constitutive of who we are. Stripping them produces an "unencumbered self" that doesn't correspond to real persons capable of making meaningful choices.
Feminist critics note that the veil of ignorance includes ignorance of gender — but gender shapes experience so thoroughly that stripping it may obscure rather than correct injustices that depend on understanding gendered experience.
Despite these criticisms, the veil of ignorance remains a powerful tool for exposing the self-interest behind political arguments. When someone argues for a policy that happens to benefit exactly their demographic group, asking what they'd choose behind the veil is a useful check on motivated reasoning.
Quick answers
What is Veil of Ignorance?
John Rawls's veil of ignorance: a thought experiment for designing fair societies — choose principles without knowing your place in society.
Where does this concept come from?
The concept originates with John Rawls, "A Theory of Justice" (1971).
