Editing Original position (section)

{{short description|Thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society}}
{{redirect|Veil of ignorance|the album by Raised Fist|Veil of Ignorance (album)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2015}}
[[File:Veil of Ignorance.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Citizens make choices about their society from an "original position" of equality ''(left)'' behind a "veil of ignorance" ''(curtain, center)'', without knowing what gender, race, abilities, tastes, wealth, or position in society they will have ''(right)''. Philosopher John Rawls claims this will cause them to choose "fair" policies.]]
The '''original position''' is a hypothetical position from which members of society would consider which principles they would select for the basic structure of their society if they had no knowledge ahead of time regarding the [[social position|position]] which they would end up occupying in that society. The idea of having no such knowledge, because everyone is behind a '''veil of ignorance''', represents a [[thought experiment]] often associated with the work of the American philosopher [[John Rawls]]. 

In this "original position", their position behind the "veil of ignorance" prevents everyone from knowing their [[ethnicity]], [[social status]], [[gender]], and (crucially in Rawls's formulation) their or anyone else's ideas of how to lead a good life. Ideally, this would force participants acting [[rationality|rationally]] to adopt an "initial agreement" on the principles [[impartiality|impartially]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Veil of Ignorance |url=https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/veil-of-ignorance |access-date=2020-05-27 |website=Ethics Unwrapped |language=en-US}}</ref>

In Rawls's theory the original position plays the same role as the "state of nature" does in the [[social contract]] tradition of [[Thomas Hobbes]] and [[John Locke]]. The original position figures prominently in Rawls's 1971 book, ''[[A Theory of Justice]]''. It has influenced a variety of thinkers from a broad spectrum of philosophical orientations.

Rawls coined the phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of ignorance''.<ref name=restate>John Rawls, ''[[Justice as Fairness: A Restatement]],'' Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2001.</ref> However, the same thought experiment had already been described earlier in [[Social choice theory|social choice]] by [[William Vickrey]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vickrey |first1=William |date=1945 |title=Measuring Marginal Utility by Reactions to Risk |journal=Econometrica |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=319–333 |doi=10.2307/1906925 |jstor=1906925}}</ref> and [[John Harsanyi]],<ref name="Cardinal2">{{cite journal |last=Harsanyi |first=J. C. |year=1953 |title=Cardinal Utility in Welfare Economics and in the Theory of Risk-taking |journal=[[Journal of Political Economy]] |volume=61 |issue=5 |pages=434–435 |doi=10.1086/257416 |jstor=1827289 |s2cid=222439814}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last=Harsanyi |first=J. C. |year=1955 |title=Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=63 |issue=4 |pages=309–21 |doi=10.1086/257678 |jstor=1827128 |s2cid=222434288}}</ref> who independently derived proofs showing a rational observer in the original position would adopt a [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian]] framework.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ofWvCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22vickery%22+%22original+position%22&pg=PA92 |title=Arrow and the Foundations of the Theory of Economic Policy |date=1987 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781349073573 |editor1-last=Feiwel |editor1-first=George |pages=92 |quote="...the fictitious notion of 'original position' [was] developed by Vickery (1945), Harsanyi (1955), and Rawls (1971)."}}</ref>