For whatever reason I like thought experiments, probably because I was homeschooled. Anyway, I recently came across a thought experiment where you imagine making a new society. It really gets your thinking motor running. It’s called The Veil of Ignorance and I first heard about it on The Making Sense Podcast with Sam Harris. The originator of the idea was an American philosopher named John Rawls.
The basic idea is you get to make a society from scratch, but you don’t know who you’ll be in that society. Pretty exciting, huh? Let’s explore that more since so far this isn’t long enough to be considered an article by itself.
What’s involved in making a society?
Well, so you get to decide about the rules and laws, such as whether or not people who wear green shoes can be in your society. Whether or not people who use the word ‘moist’ are allowed in. What about people who mismatch their socks?
You get to decide if jaywalking is a punishable crime. Are people allowed to walk back and forth on the streets all willy-nilly? Will your new society have the order of crosswalks or the chaos of lawless jaywalking? Jaywalking may seem like a victimless crime but man, it IS frustrating when people walk in front of me when I’m driving. It’s like they KNOW I probably won’t hit them. Pedestrians are so cocky these days. I am aware I’ve devoted too much space to jaywalking. I will move on.
Pretty interesting so far though, yeah? You get to decide everything. It’s a big task, but you’re up for it. How are people who wear hair gel treated? How is money made and distributed? Do gluten-free people have a seat at the table?
If you’ve always had a certain political opinion or way to fix the world’s problems, this is your chance to shine. Imagine what kind of laws you’d make if you could just snap your fingers and have it be so. Imagine what kind of world you’d form.
Some decisions are fun, like whether or not we treat middle children differently. Other decisions are incredibly serious, like does everyone get the same rights.
Some things we won’t want to deal with, but we’ll have to figure it out. Like what are we supposed to do with people who wear hats like this…
…then act like they aren’t wearing the hat version of overalls?
What you don’t get to decide is who you’ll be.
You might say, “People who wear obnoxious hats aren’t allowed in our society,” only to find yourself on the outside looking in. Tough break, in this new society you’re the type of person who wears obnoxious hats.
The point of this thought experiment is to get you to think of how differently you would choose to set up the rules of the game if you didn’t know who you’d be. If you knew you had an equal chance at being gay or straight, rich or poor, black or white, Christian or atheist, would that change how you’d want the rules to be set up compared to how you want the rules set up now? Maybe it wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe it would change everything.
Do you currently look down on homeless people and assume they must deserve their predicament? In this new society you might find yourself a homeless woman suddenly devoid of the social skills that enabled you to thrive in modern society. If that were the case, would it change how you feel about giving a dollar to the beggar on the street?
Maybe in this new society you don’t have the social circle that has helped you through many trying times. In this new society you find yourself down and out. Would that change your thoughts on welfare or who should receive government assistance?
Maybe today you’re a strong feminist who has a deep hatred towards all men, especially those in positions of power, regardless of how they act individually. Imagine in this new world you’re an affluent male CEO. Would you gladly blame yourself for the problems of the world or would you want the masses of this new society to paint you with a more nuanced brush?
The Golden Rule
I try my best to practice what I consider the central focus of the Bible which is “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” This is also known as The Golden Rule.
The Veil of Ignorance thought experiment cuts through it all and leaves you with no choice but to treat everyone fairly. It’s the ultimate, You get to split the candy bar, but your brother gets to pick the half. We often don’t really empathize with those different than us because we know who we are and that’s not going to change.
We already know that we get to pick which candy bar half we want so we’re not overly concerned with how fairly the candy bar is split. I’m already an educated straight white male. Knowing this it’s easy for me to split the candy bar unfairly in my direction, possibly without even realizing it.
In this new world, living by The Golden Rule is the only logical way to form any rule set. You’d want the candy bar to be split as evenly as possible across all demographics. Maybe that doesn’t translate to any real world change in your life but I think it’s important to wrestle with questions like this.
This thought experiment is just that, a thought experiment. It’s easy to dismiss it because we already know who we’ll be in society and the likelihood of that changing is almost nonexistent. What we have less control of is our loved ones, and especially the children of our loved ones.
Out of the hypothetical.
Step outside of yourself and let this thought experiment become real. Baby Burrito Bowl recently made her entrance into the world. We have no idea who she’ll grow up to be. I already know she’ll have many advantages over other kids of the world simply because of her race, geographical location, and the family she’s born into.
What I have no idea about is what career choices she’ll make, her sexual orientation, or whether she’ll inexplicably choose to wear hats like this:
Ugh. I really hate those hats.
No matter what she chooses, I’ll of course love her the same. I will love her slightly less if she wears hats like this though.
Dumb hats aside, I want her happiness over my own. I’d gladly take any amount of suffering to limit her suffering. How I treat those around me matters, maybe even more than before, because someone I love more than myself may grow up to be that person. I can do my best to steer her in positive directions, but I can’t live life for her.
What do you think?
The world would be a better place if we treated each other the way we’d want to be treated. We can all get behind that, right? The trick is to imagine not only who you are now, but who you might be in this thought experiment. Now, make sure you’re treating those people how you’d want to be treated if you were them.
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