Utilitarianism, the Difference Principle, and the Veil of Ignorance: An Application of the Theory of Social Situations

1992 ◽  
pp. 337-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Roemer
Keyword(s):  
Difference Principle ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Theory Of Social Situations

scholarly journals Freerolls and binds: making policy when information is missing

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
ANNIE DUKE ◽  
CASS R. SUNSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Regulatory Policy ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Difficult Cases

Abstract When policymakers focus on costs and benefits, they often find that hard questions become easy – as, for example, when the benefits clearly exceed the costs, or when the costs clearly exceed the benefits. In some cases, however, benefits or costs are difficult to quantify, perhaps because of limitations in scientific knowledge. In extreme cases, policymakers are proceeding in circumstances of uncertainty rather than risk, in the sense that they cannot assign probabilities to various outcomes. We suggest that in difficult cases in which important information is absent, it is useful for policymakers to consider a concept from poker: ‘freerolls.’ A freeroll exists when choosers can lose nothing from selecting an option but stand to gain something (whose magnitude may itself be unknown). In some cases, people display ‘freeroll neglect.’ In terms of social justice, John Rawls’ defense of the difference principle is grounded in the idea that, behind the veil of ignorance, choosers have a freeroll. In terms of regulatory policy, one of the most promising defenses of the Precautionary Principle sees it as a kind of freeroll. Some responses to climate change, pandemics and financial crises can be seen as near-freerolls. Freerolls and near-freerolls must be distinguished from cases involving cumulatively high costs and also from faux freerolls, which can be found when the costs of an option are real and significant, but not visible. ‘Binds’ are the mirror-image of freerolls; they involve options from which people are guaranteed to lose something (of uncertain magnitude). Some regulatory options are binds, and there are faux binds as well.

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.

On Choosing the Difference Principle Behind the Veil of Ignorance

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (8) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Hun Chung ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Published Paper ◽  
Main Strategy

In a recently published paper entitled, “The Difference Principle Would Not Be Chosen behind the Veil of Ignorance”, Johan E. Gustafsson attempts to demonstrate that the parties in Rawls’s original position would not choose the difference principle. Gustafsson’s main strategy was to show that Rawls’s difference principle in both of its ex post and ex ante versions imply counterintuitive distributional prescriptions in a few contrived examples. The purpose of this paper is to precisely demonstrate exactly how Gustafsson’s arguments have failed to show that the difference principle would not be chosen behind the veil of ignorance.

scholarly journals Comprender la pobreza: debate entre John Rawls y Amartya Sen

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eguzki Urteaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil

RESUMENReconstrucción teórica de nuestras intuiciones a propósito de la justicia social, la Teoría de la justicia de John Rawls debía tomar en consideración a los más desfavorecidos a través del principio de diferencia que reparte los bienes de manera equitativa. Para Rawls, la objetividad moral está garantizada por la experiencia del posicionamiento original, caracterizada por el velo de ignorancia. Amartya Sen cuestiona ese planteamiento criticando el índice de los bienes básicos. Este artículo explicita lo que está en juego en este debate y desarrolla las aportaciones de la teoría de las capacidades a la reflexión contemporánea sobre las desigualdades socioeconómicas.PALABRAS CLAVERawls – Sen – teoría – pobreza – capacidadABSTRACTIn his theoretical reconstruction of our intuitions about social justice, John Rawls’s Theory of justice intended to take into consideration the worst-off due to the difference principle that distributes the goods in an equal way. For Rawls, the moral objectivity is guaranteed by the experience of the original position, characterized by the veil of ignorance that conceals particular interests. But, Amartya Sen has criticized this theory and specially the index of basic goods. This article states explicitly what is at stake in this debate and develops the contributions of the theory of capabilities to the contemporary reflection on the economic and social inequalities.KEYWORDSRawls - Sen - theory - poverty - capability

Decisions Behind the Veil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin P. Bruner
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Fair Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Veil

This chapter explores the behavior of individuals placed in circumstances approximating the ‘veil of ignorance.’ Unlike previous experiments of Rawls’ veil, it considers Rawls’ fair equality of opportunity principle in addition to the so-called difference principle. The chapter author’s experimental design can register whether behavior is consistent with a lexicographic ranking of principles of justice. The chapter observes wide support for utilitarianism as well as fair equality of opportunity and, moreover, finds the former is lexically prior to the latter.

scholarly journals Making the Veil of Ignorance Work: Evidence from Survey Experiments (forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Vol.4)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Inoue ◽  
Masahiro ZENKYO ◽  
Haruya Sakamoto
Keyword(s):  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Impartial Reasoning

The paper provides empirical feedback on impartial reasoning to justice derived from data obtained using online survey experiments. Specifically, our study focused on whether and how different conceptions of the veil of ignorance and John Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium affect people’s impartial reasoning to justice. Our findings revealed that ordinary people tend to support the difference principle, but their endorsement echoes neither John Harsanyi’s nor Rawls’s reasoning. The results illuminate that findings in human psychology, such as the principles of loss aversion and “perceived luckiness,” cannot be disregarded for denoting relevant impartial reasoning to justice.

Laboratory Results on Rawls's Distributive Justice

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Frohlich ◽  
Joe A. Oppenheimer ◽  
Cheryl L. Eavey
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Average Income ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Expected Gain ◽  
Laboratory Results ◽  
The Difference ◽  
General Concern

The behavioural underpinnings of Rawls's notion of distributive justice as outlined in A Theory of Justice are tested in experimental contexts. Under conditions approximating Rawls's ‘original position’ (including the appropriate agenda, a ‘veil of ignorance’ and a choice rule designed to capture his main theoretical constraints), we test his ‘predictions’ that individuals would reach a unanimous consensus on a principle of distributive justice and would select the difference principle: a principle that maximizes the welfare of the worst-off individual in the society. This view is contrasted with our belief, that any general concern for fairness (or distributive justice) will take a different form: one that both attempts to take into account several values and pays attention to cardinal rather than ordinal measures of utility. Our results strongly indicate that individuals are capable of reaching consensus but that they choose what Rawls has called an ‘intuitionistic’ principle which attempts to take into account not only the position of the worst-off individual but the potential expected gain for the rest of society. The overwhelmingly preferred principle is maximizing the average income with a floor constraint.

A Challenge to Neo-Lockeanism

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Roemer
Keyword(s):  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Insurance Policy ◽  
Difference Principle ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Training And Education ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Lockean Proviso ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Distribution Of Income

The neo-Lockean justification of the highly unequal distribution of income in capitalist societies is based upon two key premises: that people are the rightful owners of their labor and talents, and that the external world was, in the state of nature, unowned, and therefore up for grabs by people, who could rightfully appropriate parts of it subject to a ‘Lockean proviso.’ The argument is presented by Nozick. Counter-proposals to Nozick’s, for the most part, have either denied the premise that people should morally be viewed as the owners of their talents, or have challenged Nozick’s Lockean proviso.Rawls, and to a more limited extent Ronald Dworkin, deny self-ownership. As Rawls writes: ‘…the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset … The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.’ Behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, those who deliberate about justice are deprived of knowledge about characteristics whose distribution is morally arbitrary. In Dworkin’s proposal for resource egalitarianism, agents calculate the insurance policy they would hypothetically ask for, were they denied knowledge of what talents they will draw in the birth lottery. Compensation for unequal talents is, according to Dworkin, properly made by taxing and transferring income according to the way it would have been distributed as a consequence of such insurance. Dworkin’s veil of ignorance is thin, because agents in the appropriate posture for deliberating about income distribution know their preferences and attitudes toward risk, but not their talents. For both Rawls and Dworkin, the self-ownership premise is challenged by constructing a veil of ignorance in which people are deprived of knowledge of certain personal characteristics, knowledge of which would bias their opinions, from a moral viewpoint.

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