The veil of ignorance is an important concept from Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Searching the keyword “veil of ignorance” in my school library’s system turned up several hundred works on the subject! This unfamiliar term struck me hard, an outsider to legal studies.

Put simply, the veil of ignorance is a curtain hung in front of decision-makers, so that they don’t know what outcome their upcoming decision will produce — that is, they don’t know whether they themselves will end up as the “strong” or the “weak.” As a result, they tend to make a compromise decision. In this way, both others and themselves are left with some “way out.”

Rawls believed that if this kind of procedure were operated rationally, it would allow the most disadvantaged groups to receive the greatest benefit. But people often have another course of action available to them behind the “veil of ignorance” — gambling. Before a gamble concludes, none of the gamblers know who the eventual winner will be, yet the winner stands to gain the greatest benefit. Before the decision is made, wouldn’t there always be someone willing to risk everything on a single throw? This is one example used to argue against the veil of ignorance.

Even taken purely on its own terms, the idea isn’t all that realistic either. When people make choices, they inevitably carry their own “biases” with them, and the sources of these biases tend to be social status, education level, one’s position in society, and so on. As with the kind of scenario quoted in the book (The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten), it really is… far too idealized.

Rawls’s theory doesn’t rule out the factor of gambling, but he imagined human beings as far too simple and pure, and made justice come far too easily. At least in my own experience (the college entrance exam, for instance), I did once stand behind something like a “veil of ignorance” — but more often, I heard certain people’s hints and pointers. From a certain angle, “ignorance” is fair, at least, to the “fool” — because he always lives behind the curtain anyway.