Ryan Muldoon (Buffalo)

Veil of Ignorance Arguments and the Limits of Justification

Abstract: Veil of Ignorance arguments have frequently been deployed to provide a justification for principles of justice. Their appeal is clear: behind the veil, agents only have access to morally relevant information, and so their decision process is meant to result in a choice unsullied by self-interest. However, the outcomes of the reasoning behind the veil are subject to the details of the different presentations of the conditions behind the veil. This sensitivity to initial conditions is problematic from the standpoint of liberal justification. Since there will be large class of apparently reasonable starting conditions, none will be in a position to argue that they have a justificatory grip on persons who prefer another set of starting conditions. This makes veil of ignorance arguments unsuitable for any kind of universal justification. Instead, I argue that we should employ veil of ignorance arguments for exploring the explanatory relationship between the starting point and the resultant principles.

Preceded by a pre-talk for graduate students, 1:30PM Benjamin Library (School of Philosophy, HC Coombs Building, Room 2219).

3:30-5:30PM Thursday 9 Aug 2018
Room 3.02 Sir Roland Wilson Building, ANU