the veil of ignorance

David shared this idea with me--I don't think I had ever heard of it before (although it certainly has similarities to the golden rule) and I think it is really cool and would do a lot toward changing public policy in this country.

Paul Krugman puts the idea into his own words, "We should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be."

The idea originally comes from John Rawls.  If society was completely changed, and we stood behind a curtain, not knowing whether we would be poor, rich, smart, less smart, male, female, which race we would be--how would we design that society, standing behind the veil of ignorance?  I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, I think.  Let's try using someone else's words...

Here is some text from the Wikipedia article on the concept of Veil of Ignorance.
"It is a method of determining the morality of a certain issue (e.g. slavery) based upon the following principle: imagine that societal roles were completely re-fashioned and redistributed, and that from behind the veil of ignorance, one does not know what role they will be reassigned. Only then can one truly consider the morality of an issue....Since one may occupy any position in the society, once the veil is lifted, this theory encourages thinking about society from the perspective of all members."

I am convinced that some of the policy decisions in congress right now (Hello!  Revoking health care?! ) would not be taking place if each one of those people stood behind the veil of ignorance and considered the issue.  Unfortunately, I think many folks would have a hard time setting aside their well worn ideologies to consider a completely refashioned society. 

It makes me sad that people are so selfish, only considering how something will affect them in their current situation.