Designing a Fair Society
Rawls, Nozick, and the shape of justice
The Veil of Ignorance
John Rawls asked: what rules would you choose for society if you didn't know who you'd be in it: rich or poor, healthy or sick? From behind this 'veil of ignorance' in the 'original position,' he argued we'd pick principles that protect the worst-off. Robert Nozick pushed back, arguing that justice is about how holdings are acquired and transferred, not about engineering a fair distribution.
“Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”
Where this sits in the course
“Designing a Fair Society” is lesson 1 of 3 in Justice Now, a course about apply ethics to society: fairness, liberty, and obligation.. The lessons are sequenced rather than a menu, so this one assumes what came before it.
Justice Now is itself one of 18 courses in thinkr. The set opens with what philosophy is, moves through the Stoics and the Eastern traditions, then into what can be known, what exists, how to act and how power works — closing on practical reasoning you can use in an argument this week.
In the app this lesson is followed by 5 exercises that check whether the idea actually landed — and every answer, right or wrong, is explained rather than scored. That is the part a written page cannot reproduce.