Veil of ignorance
A device for choosing principles without knowing which position in society you will occupy.
What it commits you to
Rawls's parties choose principles behind a veil that hides class, race, talents, and conception of the good. The point is not that the resulting principles are correct but that they are the ones nobody could choose strategically. As a method it generalises to any question about what to build: what principles would you pick not knowing which group you will be in?
Which realms lean on this
Philosophy carries the arguments the other four kinds are downstream of — what an agent is, what a person owes, what a rule is for.
philosophy · 8 realms — The Care Weft, The Contractual Court, The Existential Wilds, The Kantian Citadel, The Longview Foundry, The Middle Kingdom, The Pragmatic Wharf, The Sangha Terraces.
Canon that discusses this
See also
Original position
philosophyThe hypothetical forum at which principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.
Reasonable rejectability
philosophyThe standard that a principle is unacceptable if someone could reasonably refuse to live under it.
Legitimacy
philosophyThe right to be obeyed, held by a rule or authority rather than by its author.
Symmetry
philosophyThe assumption that no being's interests matter more than another's merely as a matter of fact.