Veil of ignorance

Assume for a moment that you are wearing a veil. Now assume that the veil is the veil of ignorance.

Now assume your veil of ignorance extended to yourself. Not only do you not know anything about the society, you don't know anything about yourself either. Now start choosing.

What kind of society would you want to be in? Would you want to be in Saudi Arabia, or in the United States? Remember, you could be extremely rich or extremely poor, you could be a man or a woman, you could be of a dominant race or the dominating race. You could be powerful and control the world, or you could be the most tortured being. You do not know the distribution of wealth, power, and rights in the society.

Done? Now start choosing things. What should go into the constitution? What should happen to women's rights, especially in countries like Saudi and Afghanistan, the situation in North Korea, the minorities everywhere, and so on.  Given the veil of ignorance, what choices would you make?

That is Rawls' original position. He starts from there, and goes on to say how the most likely strategy is going to be Maximin, where you try to maximize your worst possible condition. Because, in he end, you could end up like them.