Imagine, for a minute, you had no prior knowledge of your race, economic condition, sexuality, gender identity, or even birthplace. You are a sentient adult, but these crucial aspects of life have yet ...

Using his thought experiment of adopting a “veil of ignorance”, John Rawls advocated for basic liberties and redistribution to benefit the least well-off. Robert Nozick opposed this view, arguing for ...

Rawls's theory of justice as fairness is the most well-balanced in accounting for social justice and security culture needs. Unlike your creative writing professor, an entreaty for a suspension of ...

Imagine a scenario where you have a strong grasp of politics, economics and other factors that inform your voting decisions. You have the ability to shape the kind of society you want to live in. The ...

If you’ve been reading this week’s Econ Extra Credit chapter on fairness and public policy, you’ll have come across the concept of the “veil of ignorance.” Simply put, it’s a philosophical idea about ...

Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 56, No. 1 (January 2021), pp. 57-66 (10 pages) How should we rank different income distributions? Should we adopt the Rawlsian criterion that focuses on the minimal ...

Jonah returns to ruminate on a smorgasbord of things this week: injecting bleach to cure COVID-19 (big if true!), an extended meditation on John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance,” how the veil is nonsensical ...

While we cannot change the world with dreams alone, moral ideas can inspire people to come together and change their societies for the better. John Rawls in 1987. What would a fair society look like?

John Rawls, who turned 80 this year, is the most distinguished moral and political philosopher of our age. Initially isolated in a world of Anglo-American philosophy preoccupied with questions of ...