What Is the Original Position? Rawls's Thought Experiment

Introduction

The original position is the most famous thought experiment in twentieth-century political philosophy. Developed by John Rawls in his landmark book A Theory of Justice (1971), the original position is a hypothetical situation in which free, equal, and rational individuals are asked to choose the principles of justice that will govern their society. The purpose of the original position is to model the idea of fairness: the principles of justice are those that would be chosen by persons who are placed in a fair choice situation. The original position is Rawls's answer to the fundamental question of political philosophy: what principles should govern the basic structure of a just society?

Historical Background

The original position belongs to the tradition of social contract theory, which includes Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Social contract theory holds that the legitimacy of political authority rests on the consent of the governed — on an agreement, real or hypothetical, among free and equal persons. Rawls's original position is his version of the state of nature, the hypothetical situation in which the contract is made.

But Rawls transformed the social contract tradition in a crucial way. The classical contract theorists imagined the state of nature as a situation in which individuals know their interests, talents, and social positions. The purpose of the contract was to establish a sovereign who would protect their interests. Rawls, by contrast, argued that a fair agreement must be made under conditions of ignorance. The parties in the original position do not know who they are — their race, class, gender, talents, or conception of the good. This "veil of ignorance" ensures that no one can choose principles that favor their own particular situation. The original position is a device for making the choice of principles impartial.

Key Thinkers

John Rawls (1921-2002) developed the original position as the cornerstone of his theory of justice as fairness. The original position has two main features: the description of the parties and the veil of ignorance.

The parties in the original position are described as free, equal, and rational. They are free because they are not bound by prior commitments or obligations. They are equal because no one has greater bargaining power than anyone else. They are rational because they seek to advance their own interests — they want as many "primary goods" as possible (rights, liberties, opportunities, income, and the social bases of self-respect). But their rationality is constrained by the veil of ignorance.

The veil of ignorance deprives the parties of knowledge about their particular characteristics. They do not know their social class, their natural talents and abilities, their race or gender, their conception of the good, or the specific circumstances of their society. They know only general facts about human psychology, economics, and social organization. The veil of ignorance ensures that the principles chosen are impartial: no one can tailor the principles to their own advantage, because no one knows what their advantages are.

Rawls argues that the parties in the original position would choose two principles of justice. The first principle guarantees equal basic liberties for all citizens: freedom of speech, assembly, conscience, and thought; the right to vote and hold office; and the rule of law. The second principle has two parts: fair equality of opportunity (offices and positions must be open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity) and the difference principle (social and economic inequalities are permitted only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society). The first principle has "lexical priority" over the second: basic liberties cannot be traded for economic benefits.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a major influence on Rawls's conception of the original position. Rawls's idea that the principles of justice are chosen by free and equal rational beings is a reinterpretation of Kant's concept of the categorical imperative — the principle that moral laws must be universalizable, applying to all rational beings regardless of their particular desires and circumstances. Rawls's theory of justice as fairness is a form of "Kantian constructivism" — the idea that moral principles are constructed by rational agents, not discovered in a independent moral order.

Critics of the original position have raised important objections. Robert Nozick argued that the original position is a "tailored" thought experiment designed to produce Rawls's preferred conclusions, and that the principles of justice should be derived from the inviolability of individual rights, not from a hypothetical agreement. Michael Sandel argued that the original position presupposes an "unencumbered self" — a conception of the person as detached from all particular commitments and communities — that is both unrealistic and morally problematic. These criticisms have generated a rich literature in contemporary political philosophy.

Contemporary Relevance

The original position remains one of the most influential and widely discussed concepts in contemporary political philosophy. It has been used to analyze a wide range of issues, including global justice, intergenerational justice, health care, disability, and the distribution of educational opportunities. The concept of the veil of ignorance has been applied in ethics, economics, and public policy as a tool for thinking about fairness.

The original position has also been the subject of ongoing debate and refinement. Rawls himself revised his formulation of the original position in his later work, particularly in Political Liberalism (1993), in which he argued that the original position is a "political" conception that does not depend on any particular comprehensive moral doctrine. The question of whether the original position is a useful device for thinking about justice, or whether it is a flawed and misleading abstraction, remains a central topic of debate in contemporary political philosophy.