Choosing Behind A Veil
Written by Studio AM.
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In 1971 the political philosopher John Rawls proposed a test for fair rules. Imagine that you must design the basic institutions of a society, its laws, its schools, its distribution of wealth, before you learn anything about your own place inside it. You do not know whether you will be rich or poor, healthy or ill, a member of the majority or of a small minority. Rawls called this imagined lack of personal information the veil of ignorance.
The device is intended to prevent people from tailoring principles to their own social advantages. Under normal conditions, a rule that favors the strong is attractive to the strong. Behind the veil, you cannot count on benefiting from that advantage. Rawls uses this uncertainty to connect concern for yourself with fair terms for others.
Rawls argued that people reasoning this way would not gamble on landing at the top. His principles protect equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity. They permit social and economic inequalities only when these benefit the least advantaged as much as possible under those conditions. Whether or not you accept his conclusion, the test is portable. Before defending a rule, ask whether you would still defend it without knowing which side of it you would stand on.
The passage is hidden while you answer. It comes back with your result.
Questions
Choose an answer. The explanation appears after you answer.
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Question 1 of 4
What is the main point of the passage?
The answer is C: Not knowing your own position is a way to test whether a rule is fair.
The veil excludes knowledge of personal social advantages so proposed principles cannot simply be tailored to them.
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Question 2 of 4
According to the passage, what do people behind the veil not know?
The answer is B: Whether they will be rich or poor, healthy or ill.
The first paragraph lists exactly this: rich or poor, healthy or ill, majority or minority.
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Question 3 of 4
How is the veil intended to connect self-interest with fairness?
The answer is D: You must consider that rules disadvantaging a group could apply to you.
Without knowing your position, you cannot assume that a rule favoring one group will favor you.
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Question 4 of 4
What does “portable” mean in this passage?
The answer is A: usable in other cases
The writer says the test is portable and then shows how to use it on any rule, whatever you think of Rawls's conclusion.
Score: none answered yet.