more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Walzer says behind the veil of ignorance there would be no way to know how a particular good should be distributed, because we would not know the social meaning of the good in question.
Gist of Idea
You can't distribute goods from behind a veil, because their social meaning is unclear
Source
report of Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice [1983]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian'
Book Ref
Tuckness,A / Wolf,C: 'This is Political Philosophy' [Wiley Blackwell 2017], p.97
A Reaction
Is Rawls actually proposing to decide details of distribution from behind the veil? There is just the maximin principle. What that means in practice would surely come once the society was under way.
| 20005 | The rich would never submit to a lottery deciding which part of their society should be slaves [Montesquieu] |
| 18636 | Choose justice principles in ignorance of your own social situation [Rawls] |
| 20595 | You can't distribute goods from behind a veil, because their social meaning is unclear [Walzer, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| 23109 | The veil of ignorance is only needed because people have bad motivations [Kekes] |
| 20987 | The veil of ignorance encourages neutral interests, but not a wider view of values [Sen] |
| 20568 | The principles Rawls arrives at do not just conform to benevolence, but also result from choices [Oksala] |
| 20593 | The veil of ignorance ensures both fairness and unanimity [Tuckness/Wolf] |
| 22848 | People with strong prior beliefs would have nothing to do with a veil of ignorance [Charvet] |