Rawls' Whale of Ignorance

A slightly bewildered cartoon whale, spout in the air and a little dizzy swirl above its head, under the words Rawls’ Whale of Ignorance. It is a pun on John Rawls’ veil of ignorance – somebody misheard veil as whale, and the image was too good to correct. Silly on the surface, and surprisingly useful for remembering the real concept.

The veil of ignorance is John Rawls’ thought experiment for choosing fair principles of justice. Imagine designing society without knowing who you will be in it – your class, talents, gender, ethnicity, religion or idea of the good life. Since you cannot rig the rules in your own favour, Rawls argues, you would choose rules that are fair to everyone.

The original position is the hypothetical situation in A Theory of Justice (1971) in which free, equal and rational people choose the basic principles for their society from behind the veil of ignorance. It updates the social contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau and Kant; its point is not that such a meeting ever happened, but that fair conditions of choice produce fair principles.

First, each person has an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties compatible with the same liberties for all. Second, social and economic inequalities are allowed only if they are attached to positions open to all under fair equality of opportunity, and if they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged – the difference principle. The first principle has priority over the second.

The difference principle says that inequalities in income and wealth are just only if they make the worst-off members of society better off than they would be under a more equal arrangement. Higher pay for doctors, for example, can be justified if it ends up improving care for everyone, including the poorest. Rawls links it to a cautious maximin reasoning behind the veil.

John Rawls (1921–2002) was an American philosopher who taught at Harvard for decades. A Theory of Justice (1971) develops justice as fairness, a liberal egalitarian alternative to utilitarianism, and is widely regarded as the most influential work of political philosophy of the twentieth century. He refined his views in Political Liberalism (1993).

A classic illustration is dividing a cake when you do not know which slice you will get – you cut fairly. Applied to society, ask whether you would accept a rule if you might end up as the person it disadvantages most, for example in health care, inheritance or education. If you would hesitate, the veil suggests the rule may be unjust.

Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), argued that justice is about how holdings arose, not about patterns of distribution, and that redistribution violates people’s rights. Communitarians such as Michael Sandel objected that the person behind the veil is an unrealistically unencumbered self, stripped of the commitments that make us who we are. Others question whether maximin is really the rational choice.

Yes – it is a pun that only lands with people who know their Rawls, which makes it a nice in-joke for students of philosophy, politics, law and economics, and for their lecturers. The design comes as a classic t-shirt, women’s t-shirt, sweatshirt, premium hoodie, mug and sticker. Design the rules blind; bring the whale.