The phrase "veil of ignorance" was brought to my attention in a recent conversation between Sam Harris, a well-known public intellectual, and Ezra Klein, Editor-at-Large for Vox Media. Sam H's brief description of this idea sounded interesting, so I looked it up. Here's from Wikipedia (highlights my own):
The "veil of ignorance" is a method of determining the morality of political issues proposed in 1971 by American philosopher John Rawls in his "original position" political philosophy. It is based upon the following thought experiment: people making political decisions imagine that they know nothing about the particular talents, abilities, tastes, social class, and positions they will have within a social order. When such parties are selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society in which they will live, this "veil of ignorance" prevents them from knowing who will receive a given distribution of rights, positions, and resources in that society. For example, for a proposed society in which 50% of the population is kept in slavery, it follows that on entering the new society there is a 50% likelihood that the participant would be a slave. The idea is that parties subject to the veil of ignorance will make choices based upon moral considerations, since they will not be able to make choices based on their own self- or class-interest.
Rawls' thought experiment brings the "golden rule" (roughly, do unto others as you would like to be done to you) to a new level. As I understand it, the "veil of ignorance" guides you through a though process something like...
- Imagine a society, made up of individuals.
- Individuals will naturally be divided into classes (e.g. by particular talents, ability, tastes, social class, etc.)
- Imagine you will be born into this society.
- You do not know which individual, with which intersection of identities you will be.
- What political decisions would you make for this society?
Rather than just thinking about ourselves, as we currently are, and how we would like to reciprocally treat people, Rawls invites us to question how we would like people to treat each other if we had no idea who we would be.
Have you ever spoken with a friend that spoke in passionate terms about how to engineer society, but assumed that they would be at the top? Think about somebody advocating serfdom, or oligarchy, or some other form of governing, imagining they would emerge in the governing class. To such a person, a sensible reply you may have advanced is, "how would you like to have been born a slave/serf/working class person/etc."?
Such a friend might actually have some decent answers to this question. They may, for example, defend monarchy by describing how a kings may be benevolent in ways that democracies tend to not be. Or, they may describe how limited government can restrict abuses of power or something else. Or, such a friend might have no answers, and only want a monarchy if they get to sit on the throne. Either way, you can learn something about your friend or their arguments...
Biases and the separation of ideas and identity
It is easy to promote certain ideas, motivated by our own interests based on who we are. No one group is free from this, though through self-reflection and the willingness to accept and examine criticism, I think that we can come to see beyond many of our biases. Often this will, in some form or another, happen by spelling out what our biases are in some form or another.
For example, a person that holds a lot of Bitcoins may have obvious biases when it comes to questions of whether or not crypto-currencies should be regulated. For this reason, people that talk about crypto-currencies often state outright whether or not they hold crypto-currencies. That is, whether or not they have "skin in the game". Similarly, people that have family and friends that are immigrants may be biased to think about the borders of nations in particular ways. Scientists will have their biases about questions of how science is funded.
One of the main points Harris tried to get through to Klein was that we can look at data, or ideas in apart from identity. We can talk about whether the data collection method of some experiment was good science (or likewise the reasoning of some argument) and then later talk about how that translates into how we form policies in the real world.
Continuing the conversation
Which arguments make sense, and which arguments don't? What ideas would we still stand behind, even if we subject ourselve's to Rawls' "veil of ignorance" thought experiment?
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I think Rawls' "veil of ignorance" is a useful heuristic for reminding us to "put ourselves in others' shoes" when forming opinions about controversial issues. Likewise, it can help us better talk with each other, rather than over or past each other. Looking beyond our current, actual, local concerns and instead turning to how the policies we support might affect us if the RNGs (Random Number Gods) did a different roll is and we landed a different lot in life is, as I see it, an important thing to do if we seek to understand each other better and figure out how to move towards the sort of world that all people would find preferable to live in.
If we deny the "veil of ignorance" to one another (e.g. "you can't talk about Thailand and how Thai people might feel because you aren't Thai!"), we prevent people from communicating with one another, rather than talking past each other. It is an article of faith to say that I believe somebody else understands some idea I put forth, or some feeling I express (e.g. I think people can get angry; I've experienced anger). So, I maintain that believing in the fundamental ability of people to empathize with each other to a degree (i.e. not being totally solipsistic) is a leap of faith that is vastly preferable to the alternative of speaking of inaccessible male experiences, or Hungarian experiences, or dog-owner experiences, that people outside these groups simply cannot access.
Labels: philosophy
