John Rawls proposed a method, which he called the veil of ignorance, for determining which social customs were just and which were unjust. The veil of ignorance criterion is as follows: a rule is just if everyone would agree to it given that they were made ignorant of their position in society. That is, the just society would be chosen by people who had set aside considerations of their own gender, wealth, race, parentage, ect. Ideally this rule eliminates personal bias from the choice and thus guarantees the fairness of rules.
However, even behind the veil of ignorance there will not be consensus as to which rules are best, throwing into question the assumption that the veil of ignorance would reveal the unique best set of rules, which is one of the reasons Rawls seem to favor it. For example consider two possible societies, one in which the men are…
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