Justice in the Dark

Why Fairness Requires Ignorance

Imagine you're tasked with designing a society. You are responsible for its laws, its economy, its rights, and its privileges. But before you begin, you have to forget everything about yourself: your race, gender, class, health, nationality, and financial status...

If you didn't know whether you'd be rich or poor, Black or white, male or female, how would you design the world?

In A Theory of Justice, philosopher John Rawls introduces a tool for imagining a fair society. The veil of ignorance. The idea is simple: decision-makers must strip away all personal identifiers. You don't know your gender. Your wealth. Your religion. Your abilities or skills. You could be born into any life. You could be powerful or powerless. Abled or disabled. A genius or someone with severe limitations.

You don't get to choose.

Because you don't know your place, you'd be motivated to make the system as fair as possible for everyone. Because if you don't, you might end up in a terrible position.

Rawls argued that a just society is one you'd agree to from behind this veil. It's the foundation of what he called the difference principle. That inequality is only justifiable if it benefits the least advantaged.

The idea feels radical, but it shouldn't.

Our modern political ideologies are usually built upon what benefits us. They're built on proximity to power, wealth, and privilege. We vote for what protects us. We rarely question the rules of the game as long as we're winning.

Take our current system of healthcare, education, criminal justice, and wealth distribution. They start to make a lot more sense when you realize they weren't designed for everyone. They were designed for the winners of history. Those in power. Landowners, the wealthy, and the connected.

The veil doesn't just reveal injustice; it reveals that inequality is not an accident, it's designed.

This veil isn't about charity, it's about fairness, and fairness threatens the privileged.

Modern Examples of Breaking the Veil

If we designed a society from scratch, the current blueprint would never pass the veil of ignorance test.

Healthcare: No one would sign off on a system where getting cancer means choosing between treatment and bankruptcy, unless they knew they were the ones holding the premium insurance policy.

Education: Indirect funding for schools based on zip codes would be fixed immediately. No one would gamble on ending up in a school with mold on the ceiling or cops in the hallways, simply because they’re in a less affluent district.

Policing and Prisons: The data is clear. Some communities are protected and others are punished. It's easy to support "law and order" when you assume you'll be on the side giving the orders.

Immigration: If you didn't know whether you'd be born in Honduras or Houston, would you design a border policy built on favoritism? Would you be ok with being separated from your children if you were the one on the other side of the fence? Behind the veil, national identity is just luck. Borders become made-up lines to make someone more or less deserving.

Power maintains itself through biased design. A person in power is hard-pressed to keep the veil on when they can see what benefits them. It's no coincidence that's exactly what gets protected. My driver's ed teacher once said something I've never forgotten: Laws get made when someone rich or in power is affected or benefits.

The veil of ignorance is a test of empathy, not just logic. What does it say about our society that so few policies would survive that test? The veil was never meant to be utopian. It was meant to be humbling. A way to imagine justice without the distortion of ego, tribe, or privilege.

But let's be honest. Most people don't want fairness. They want an advantage. They don't want justice. They want protection. That's the devil's playbook in action: make people believe fairness is theft, equality is oppression, and compassion is weakness.

Rawls didn't design the veil to change the world; he designed it to reveal its true colors. The moment you realize how few people would accept the system we live under if they weren't benefiting from it, that's when the illusion breaks.

If you want to know how just and fair a society is, ask yourself this:

Would you trade places with a random stranger, not knowing what your income, race, health, or nationality would be, and still be okay with how the system works?

If the answer is no, don't pretend the system you live under is fair. It isn't. But it is working exactly as designed.

---

🔍 Further reading:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—John Rawls

• A deeper look into John Rawls and his philosophical works | READ

Wikipedia—The Veil of Ignorance

• 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 did not know ahead of time the position which they would end up occupying in that society. | READ

The Devil’s Playbook—The Loss of Moral Imagination

• Drawing on the ideas of Levinas and Arendt, and how to resist the dehumanizing tide by seeing people not as sides, but as sons, daughters, and selves. | READ

---

I hate paywalls. They kill curiosity and reward clickbait. That’s why the core content here will always be free.

But this takes time, thought, and energy. If it helps you see the world differently, consider supporting it by buying me a coffee or becoming a paid subscriber for exclusive content, audio versions of each essay (coming soon), and deeper dives.

Thanks for being here. Stay Curious. Question Everything.

–Luis

---