Does Rawls' 'Original Position' Induce Fairness? Experimental Findings on Selection Criteria in a Discrete Nash Demand Game Played from Behind the 'Veil of Ignorance'

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Sarkar ◽  
Soumyakanti Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
Selection Criteria ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Nash Demand Game ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Experimental Findings

The Irreconcilable Conflict between Islam and Liberalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-265
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zahid Siddique
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Veil

John Rawls used an apparently neutral apparatus to derive the principles of justice that all “rational” people ought to agree with because they provide the basis of coexistence in a pluralistic society. He believes that religious faith is consistent with the commitment to liberalism. The paper shows that the Rawlsian liberal “self” modelled in the original position is not consistent with the original position recognized by religion in general and Islam in particular. According to Islam, the human self is mukallaf (subject of God) while Rawls treats it non-mukallaf. This is so because Rawlsian original position presumes an atheist self behind the veil of ignorance. This conceptualization of self is not only inconsistent with but also hostile to religion. The claims about liberalism’s tolerance towards religion are superficial. The liberal self can express itself in various religious forms provided these are aligned with the system of rights acknowledged by the liberal atheist self.

scholarly journals The “Original Position” as Public Performance: Liberalism, Pluralism, and Asceticism

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 462
Author(s):  
Joseph Rivera
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Late Works

John Rawls’ well-known device of representation (his terminology) that he names the “original position” is put into play by the veil of ignorance. This imaginative device, found in both his early and late works, is often dismissed because it is misunderstood as an exercise in moral geometry. This essay discusses in more detail the subjective mechanics of the original position; while sympathetic of Rawls’ application of the veil of ignorance, I distinguish between a thick and thin veil, whereby I promote the latter. The final section makes a connection between the simulation of the original position and the religious practice of asceticism.

scholarly journals John Rawls’s Concept of Justice as Fairness

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Edor J. Edor
Keyword(s):  
Original Position ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Traditional Conception ◽  
Justice As Fairness ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
The Veil

John Rawls's theory of Justice is one of the most influential conceptions of justice. Scholars have continued to study it to understand the principles in the formation and to further frame it in the context of contemporary situations. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion by presenting Rawls’ concept of “justice as fairness” as it evolved from the traditional conception of justice to the modern-shift in the concept. The paper also examines Rawls’s concept of justice as fairness, and it focuses on analyzing or studying the concept of justice as fairness in terms of the principles used in its formulations. Several criticisms developed by political philosophers to critique the idea were examined. In conclusion, it was argued that Rawls's invention of the veil-of-ignorance for the original position has affected the theory negatively.

Stakeholder Fairness Under an Induced ‘Veil of Ignorance'

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Sarkar ◽  
Soumyakanti Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
Discrete Choice ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Maximin Principle ◽  
Nash Demand Game ◽  
The Veil ◽  
John Harsanyi ◽  
Simultaneous Move

John Rawls introduced the ‘veil of ignorance' in social contract theory to bring about a common conception of justice, and hypothesized that it will enable rational individuals to choose distributive shares on basis of ‘maximin' principle. R. E. Freeman conceptualised stakeholder fairness using the Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance'. In contrast to Rawls' theory, John Harsanyi postulated that rational individuals behind the ‘veil of ignorance' will choose allocation to maximise expected utility. This article investigates how subjects choose allocations behind the ‘veil of ignorance,' in a laboratory experiment, and interprets the findings in light of stakeholder fairness. The ‘veil of ignorance' was induced on randomly paired and mutually anonymous subjects, who were asked to choose allocations in a simultaneous move discrete choice Nash demand game. Both ‘maximin' principle and expected utility maximisation was found to be used by the subjects. Choice of allocations where no one is worse off vis-à-vis status quo was salient. This is consistent with Freeman's Principle of Governance.

Rawls, Risk, and the Maximin Principle

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-154
Author(s):  
Barbara H. Fried
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Uncertainty Aversion ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Maximin Principle ◽  
The Veil

In A Theory of Justice, Rawls acknowledged that rational choice behind the veil of ignorance would generally yield average utilitarianism—John Harsanyi’s conclusion fifteen years earlier. The question is, why would it yield a different conclusion in the Original Position? If, as Rawls assumed, the representative person would be infinitely risk averse in those unique circumstances, utility functions would reflect that preference in the relative weights assigned to different outcomes, yielding Rawls’s maximin solution. In short, Rawls’s disagreement with utilitarians is an empirical dispute about individual preferences and nothing more. Rawls believed the disagreement was more fundamental, because of two erroneous assumptions about standard utility functions: that they reflect peoples’ psychological attitudes toward risk-taking rather than their preferences over a range of outcomes, that they would ignore the transitory disutility of uncertainty aversion in calculating expected utilities.

Principles of Collective Choice and Constraints of Fairness

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (12) ◽  
pp. 678-690
Author(s):  
Alexander Motchoulski ◽  
Phil Smolenski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Basic Structure ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Collective Choice ◽  
Individual Rationality ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil

In “The Difference Principle Would Not Be Chosen behind the Veil of Ignorance,” Johan E. Gustafsson argues that the parties in the Original Position (OP) would not choose the Difference Principle to regulate their society’s basic structure. In reply to this internal critique, we provide two arguments. First, his choice models do not serve as a counterexample to the choice of the difference principle, as the models must assume that individual rationality scales to collective contexts in a way that begs the question in favor of utilitarianism. Second, the choice models he develops are incompatible with the constraints of fairness that apply in the OP, which by design subordinates claims of rationality to claims of impartiality. When the OP is modeled correctly the difference principle is indeed entailed by the conditions of the OP.

Methodenfragen der Gerechtigkeitstheorie

1979 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Kulenkampff
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Veil ◽  
To Come

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is the clarification of some methodological problems concerning Rawls’ theory of justice. The first part seeks to make more precise Tugendhat’s distinction between 1st-person-theory and 3rd-person-theory. Rawls’ theory fulfills all criteria for 1st-person-theories. In the second part Rawl’s coherence model for the justification of norms („reflective equilibrium“) is critically analyzed and opposed to the hypothetical decision which individuals are to make in the original position (contract model). It is shown that the conception of reflective equilibrium is in various aspects mistaken. In conclusion a problem is indicated which Rawls has not satisfactorily resolved: The veil of ignorance is supposed to guarantee that the decision for the basic principles of social justice is unanimous. Nevertheless it would appear that the individuals in the original position either have too little empirical knowledge in order to make a rational decision, or they have too much knowledge in order to come to an unanimous decision. The veil of ignorance is either too fine or not fine enough.

Philosophical Aspects of 500-Year Planning

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 1507-1522 ◽  
Author(s):  
B E Tonn
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The Veil

A class of environmental problems, termed 500-year problems, poses significant threats to the world's societies. In 500-year planning there is a need for a sound philosophical foundation to guide the development of appropriate methods which analyze problems that cover very long time periods and that involve large uncertainties. In this paper philosophical aspects of 500-year planning, related to determining whether present generations are meeting their obligations to future generations, are addressed. Topics discussed include the treatment of future populations (as identifiable individuals or as enumerable groups) and the appropriate base for 500-year planning (utilitarianism or social contract theory). Adopting Rawls's concepts of the original position and of the veil of ignorance, a social contract is developed that guarantees the possibility of existence for all potential individuals, and sets limits on the risks that current and future populations might endure as a result of their ancestors' abuse of the environment. The specifics of the contract represent rational criteria upon which to base 500-year planning activities.

Freeman and Evan: Stakeholder Theory in the Original Position

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Child ◽  
Alexei M. Marcoux
Keyword(s):  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Moral Problem ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Institutional Rules ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
The Veil

Abstract:We argue that the Rawlsian social contract argument advanced for stakeholder theory by R. Edward Freeman, writing alone and with William M. Evan, fails in three main ways. First, it is true to Rawls in neither form, nor purpose, nor the level of knowledge (or ignorance) required to motivate the veil of ignorance. Second, it fails to tailor the veil of ignorance to the fairness conditions that are required to solve the moral problem that Freeman and Evan set out to solve (whereas Rawls’s own use of the device surely tailors the veil of ignorance to the problem of designing a just social order). Third, the argument, considered apart from its claimed Rawlsian pedigree, fails to bolster the stakeholder theory because it fails to demonstrate the rationality of adopting the institutional rules that Freeman and Evan favor.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document