How Do You Design a Just Society? | Thought Experiment: The Original Position 

There's a concept similar used in doctor Who, "the Zygon inversion", where just before starting to negotiate a peace treaty both negotiators are made to forget whose side they're with.

"The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem." - Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy ;)

Can I get "Totalitarianism Isn't Rad" on a t-shirt? It might come in handy over the next few years.

!!! ROBOTS / AI - It seems there's some ideas floating around about the possibility of using AI / Robots to do this kind of work effectively, so incase it's helpful: I wanna pin this comment to provide a space for people thinking along those lines to chat ⬇️

Ok but can we get a "totalitarianism isn't rad" gif?

Every time I read about an ideal fictional society, whether it's from academic reading or science fiction, stripping things away (stuff, identity, economy, rules) is always a unifying trait. There is always a need for people to be more responsible or "better" than we actually are in real life or game the system in order to force people to behave themselves and make the impossibly perfect society function.

This kind of neutrality proposed in the Original Position isn't very useful. Paulo Freire wrote a lot that neutrality just doesn't exist in his book Pedagogy of the Opressed. His argument could be summarized by something like this: "If one doesn't take a side, a position, they are in practice taking the side of the winner, of the status quo" So, when proposing a "ground zero" or a "neutral" space to design society you actually will tend to keep things the way they already are.

Sounds like an extremely powerful supercomputer, not an AI, should design this society. It has no sense of self, identity, no self interest except for optimising and solving problems. This supercomputer will calculate all the best outcomes for every single thing possible and humans then follow the best solutions.

"Society is a spook that needs busting." - Max Stirner, the Spookbuster.

Thank you, Idea Channel. After a hard day of school, where you are expected to absorb, not think, it is always a joy to sit back and watch some Idea Channel. Thanks for the thoughts.

how about someone who is capable of unconditional love: a dog

"Those who are blond tot he past are blind to the future." _or however exactly that quote goes_

I was about to start outlining how I would set up what I see as a fair and just society, but the youtube comment section didn't seem to be the right place for what would have turned into a thesis. Even as I write this comment, it threatens to turn into an essay outlining the thesis that I just said I wasn't going to write.

Wow, this was an amazing episode, I wish I had something to add, but I don't know what to even say.

I just want to point at that the OP is just a natural extension of the method for sharing a cake; that is, if two people want to split a cake so that each gets an equal size piece, then the person who cuts the cake should not know which slice he is getting. The reasoning is similar to the OP reasoning, since the cutter would like to maximize the size of the smaller slice, which happens when both slices are equal in size.

This made me think of religious societies who believe in rebirth like the Hindu. As long as the rebirth is somewhat random, politicians in those societies have a similar position as the ones in the OP committee of not knowing what they will become in their next life or the life after the committee. The problem there is, of course, the problem of incomplete knowledge and also that most religions with that believe design the rebirth mechanism so that it mostly gives incentive for submission to the religious and societal rules.

Coming back through and watching all the old favorites. I feel so old seeing the age on these lol

So.... just according to whom? I mean what is just? Is it just to, for example, kill animais to eat them? Probably not according to the animals, but we are okay with it. Is it just to, for example, people in Africa work for a 1 dollar a day in order for us to have cheap electronics products? Probably not to the African poor people, but we are okay with it.

In the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special there was a point where they actually adopted this philosophy in order to create a treaty between two warring races. The Zygons were invading the humans, and they have the ability to shapeshift into others and even steal their memories. Eventually the Doctors got a bunch of them in a room with the leaders that they were imitating, but then the Doctors wiped all of their memories of who was on who's side. And he refused to let them back out and give back their memories until they had finished the treaty, effectively returning them to the OP since all people doing the negotiating had no idea what side they'd be on.

I'm definitely not first. But I am not unremarkably close.

I have a 3 step plan to bring about a just society. 1. Every gets a puppy. Even the allergic people get puppies. 2. Pizza will be eaten every Monday. 3. Pants will always be optional. I think I'm pretty good at this.

I don't think it's entirely necessary for the rulemakers to forget their past. All that's really needed is uncertainty for the future. First, assemble a committee of a evenly distributed assortment of people, pulling from every skin color, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. Then, inform them that at the end of their term in office, everyone will be assigned a completely randomized job, salary, criminal status, citizenship status, etc. Assuming that the committee cooperates with this batshit crazy plan, the even distribution of physiological traits amongst the committee gives the best chance that they will pass laws that benefit all people possessing those physiological traits. Meanwhile, the fact that nobody on the committee knows if they'll be rich or homeless or serving in the military or jailed, ensures that they'll do their damnedest to pass laws that won't screw anybody over (at least, by an undue amount).

Yes! One of the best, most overlooked philosophers is getting the credit he deserves! This makes me so happy for some reason

I spent the entire video trying to come up with a good joke about doin' it in the Original Position. And this is all I came up with.

Pity Doctor Steel has retired. His propaganda made him look like he had a good grasp of what was needed. Also looking up CGP Grey's Keys to Power video seems interesting. Also what this 'original position' committee sounds like is AI designed for this task. However AI is only as effective and unbiased as it is programmed and if the coder knows the AI's task then the coder could theoretically introduce biases for the AI to follow once past the selection process.

To create a perfect society, you need perfect people. The same with caring, hopeful, just, etc.

It's true that no one can have all possible perspectives, but everyone could. The process would just be a lot more chaotic and it would take much longer.

can we some how make it were everyone can feel the effects of there actions on everyone else. would that make a just society?

The idea of making a perfect society is addressed in Plato Republic where the letter of the nation would have to be prune to become the leader while not knowing he will be leader

The idea of removing a person's personal desires and status is ok but from there I wouldn't limit controversial material but rather include all of it. As well as having Karl Marx you have Ayn Rand and even Mein Kampf and include history of where those ideas have led in the past. One idea if you don't mind the whole process taking a life time is to take very young children and shape their whole lives and education towards the task of designing this society without telling them it's anything but hypothetical.

This reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. And this is a spoiler for the end of the second book in the "trilogy" in which it is revealed that the person in charge of the Universe is actually one guy who lives in a cabin with his cat. He doesn't believe he rules the universe; he's not even sure about the existence of his cat.

Presidental democratic systems are bad, I prefer a coalition democracy like Germany has, where the chancellor is not voted but the parties are and they have then to find together and choose then the chancellor based on which parties could work out to work together.

I cannot believe I have only just discovered this channel! And it's indescribable how happy I am! I watched every single Crash Course Mythology episode. It was a family event; we'd all gather around the screen and watch your lessons. So glad this channel exists, so sad I found it a bit late. But better late than never!

6:22 Justice is not about debating controversial ideas, but finding the truth. And the truth is not subjective.

My Political Science professor thinks that anyone without a Political position would never claim they have no Political position without an ulterior motive. I think this society Rawls envisions is that of extreme liberalism. It isn't democratic or authroritative, it's lazy. Alot of presumptions exist in order for this to work. The way our Political system works is that everyone can voice their opinion on how the goverment should work. Not having an ideology is different from not knowing your ideology. Any basic knowledge of how society works will affect your ideology. Those without that knowledge are no help to our society. How will people transition peacefully to the newly formed society?

I think the entire idea of trying to build a society from the ground up is flawed. No matter how careful your planning, you can't predict every little problem that'll arise, every loopholes in your plans. A society needs to be built by iterations, you try things, you see what works and what doesn't and then you try other things. It's also required for the imperative of the rules of conducts that are understood and agreed upon by all who are subject to them. How can you expect people to understand or agree with rules that they aren't accustomed with. If you want to build a society from scratch you are going to have to carefully plan the transition that is going to take at least a century. Also when building a society from scratch, how do you plan for possible innovations that'll change things? Do you plan for a mostly agrarian society to find out that two century later farm work is almost entirely automated and only requires a small fraction of the work force? Do you destroy your society every once in a while a redo the all commity thing, rebuilding it from scratch?

maybe justice is one of those things that you can't pursue directly, like happiness. The more you chase it the more you get embroiled in *trying* rather than just *being* happy (or just). In my opinion what would _really_ help if we could agree on aims, and then strive toward that... like hey, let's focus on figuring out space travel. With a unifying aim, everyone might band together and achieve justice as a happy side effect?

I've hated this idea since the first time I came across it. The problems with the veil of ignorance are numerous, but let's just focus on a couple. The video already went over the impossibility of creating a biases-free committee, through the leader, the general knowledge allowed to the committee, or simply willing the committee from not having biases, so the idea of attaining the original position is impossible from a strictly practical standpoint. The lack of practical applicability, even as a thought experiment, is the first problem, but that isn't it's worse sin. There's no denying that material wealth and justice have some value to individuals and society as a whole, but this value is negotiable. The real problem with the original position/veil of ignorance is it's denial of human perspective as having value. This idea starts off by assuming that human experience is fundamentally a poison, despite that experience is fundamentally what defines our identities. If no one's perspective has value, then how do those without perspective in the original position assume greater value? Either perspective and experience matters and only a respective body made of a plurality of human identities could create a just society, or nobody's perspective and experience matters, in which case attaining the original position is useless endeavor. It's an obsolete ouroboros. And frankly, this is such a white man answer to ills of society. Obviously, we can't go back in time to restart society, so this experiment must be under the operating position of society exists in a current conditions and that the just society would be built upon these conditions for a hypothetically better world. This means all previous sins and inequalities go unaddressed, because one would not be able to act in a just matter to remedy these existing issues- only prevent future occurrences. Even if the focus on material wealth and justice, there's no getting around how interlocked material wealth and justice are with our socio-political identities. Read Ta-Nashei Coates' "The Case for Reparations" to see evidence and personally understand just how interlocked black identity and black wealth are together. Look at the history of the Native Americans; there is no getting around that their modern extreme poverty rates and social ills accompanying such poor living conditions are the direct result not of their capability to produce and work, but of who they are as a people. The white man came in at a low point in Native American history after disease had decimated many tribes, and then proceeded to slowly and violently exploit their land, resources, and living conditions to the point where living as their ancestors did is a practical impossibility for the majority of living Native Americans. I'd be happy if the veil of ignorance made a hypothetically better future for my descendants, but I don't them and I do know people now who suffer and would not see justice now if such an endeavor through the original position were pursued. Justice at the expense of the innocent is not justice. Much in the same way that an earlier Idea Channel proposed that media= political, so too is this true of the existence of a human being, even if that person is in a vegetative state. And should it not be a big red flag that there is something wrong with his argument if it turns out that the results of his thought experiment are the society he is living in? Doesn't that seem like a lazy way to morally justify one's life- 'no significant change is required of me, because through my philosophical pondering, I've come to the conclusion that I'm already living in a just society,' says the white man in the ivory tower. (I don't mean that to be a snide remark at all of academia, as I wish to pursue my own doctorate work one day, but academics like this piss me off.) The idea of creating a just society is a dream, and like dreams we should understand both how we will never quite be able to achieve it's beauty and that we should strive to make the world more like it's beauty. Racism, sexism, ableism, gender performance bias, and the many other ways we have found to deny humans of basic respect and dignity will not disappear anytime soon or likely ever. Our goals in building a government that acts in a just manner on behalf of the people is minimize the conditions that produce such psychic and physically violent biases by building better and more plentiful housing, create more effective transportation systems, find better ways to open and regulate labor markets, and encourage an education system beyond compulsory elementary and high schools. We need to create systems that allow people to find what they do in their day to day lives as satisfying and/or meaningful, and this doesn't necessarily have to be through work or education- it could be in a monastery of pop culture, since Nietzsche did envision culture as a future substitute for religion. Dreams are worth striving for, but they are the horizon of human thought as they are always the guiding light just beyond our reach. Links: The Case for Reparations: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ What if Jobs are not the Solution but the Problem: aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but-the-problem "Buried Treasure," Existential Comics: existentialcomics.com/comic/37

I actually wrote a philosophy master's thesis on this exact topic!!! However, that was a few years ago, so my Rawls is a little rusty. Still, I think I identified a few places where we aren't being entirely fair to Rawls in this video. First, The Veil of Ignorance: It is important to recognize that Rawls constructs his method to have different degrees of ignorance at different stages of the designing of society. The high level of ignorance that the video describes is only in place while the representatives are deciding on the principles of justice (a fairly general topic). As the representatives descend into more narrow and specific decisions, they are allowed more information about history, social conditions, theory, etc. Still, all the information allowed is always of the public sort. That is, at no point do the representatives have access to information about themselves. The idea is that if they do not have access to information about themselves, they will only agree to things that anybody and everybody would agree to; this allows for a sort of hypothetical unanimous consent. At least, this allows for hypothetical unanimous consent in western countries. In POLITICAL LIBERALISM, Rawls concedes that his method is based upon (seemingly ubiquitous) western values, values that he can give no argument as to why people should hold them, if they don't already, but values that by historical accident every western country seems to hold. (That all said, I disagree with Rawls's supposed need to withhold information about history, theory, and social conditions from representatives in the original position, at all. It always seemed to me that it is necessary to keep the hypothetical representatives ignorant of information about themselves, but that the representatives should have free access to information of the public sort, i.e. information about history, theory, and social conditions.) Second, Rawls DID NOT think that his method led to a political situation basically resembling mid-20th century United States. To think this about the principles of justice that Rawls comes up with is to ignore that Rawls's principles of justice require a robust and actual, not merely formal, respect for civil rights and equal opportunity. That is, and Rawls is clear on this, a person's expected life outcomes should in no way be linked to any social group or class that the person is a member of or associated with. This is clearly not true about mid-20th century USA. Further, Rawls's second principle of justice gives the so-called difference principle: That any inequality should be of the greatest advantage to the least well-off in society. American capitalism clearly does not meet this requirement. And, Rawls says as much in part IV of JUSTICE AS FAIRNESS, when he compares his preferred just society, a "property-owning democracy," against mid-20th century American welfare-state capitalism. Rawls repeatedly states that it seems to him that either "market socialism" or property-owning democracy could fulfill his principles of justice, and he merely prefers property-owing democracy; however, what is clear to him is that neither soviet communism, nor American capitalism, can fulfill his principles of justice. Lastly, The Social Basis of Self Respect: Martha Nussbaum's critique of Rawls is a common one, but it stems from a misunderstanding of Rawls. The criticism assumes that Rawls is primarily discussing distribution of material goods and that Rawls believes that if material goods are distributed fairly that everything else will work itself out. This is simply not the case. Rawls is at no point discussing the distribution of mere material goods. Rawls clearly states that he is always discussing the distribution of what he calls "primary goods." Rawls defines primary goods as those things that any individual would need to be able to pursue any conception of the good life that they might hold. Rawls recognizes that different people have different ideas as to what a good life might be. Thus, Rawls imagines a list of things that any person would need to be able to pursue any possible conception of the good life. Material and financial well-being are on this list of primary goods, but Rawls clearly states that the most important primary good is the social basis of self respect. With a quick glance of the index of A THEORY OF JUSTICE, I already found that he claims the social basis of self respect as the most important primary good in section 29 of the revised edition. So, basically, Rawls agrees with the criticism. He agrees that we shouldn't only focus on material goods. Self respect is important. In fact, Rawls clearly states that he thinks self respect is the most important. Anyway, I apologize for the length. Brevity was never my strong suit. Hopefully these comments forward the conversation.

1984 and Brave New World. Maybe from a less malicious ideal, but this concept reminded me so much of these works.

So, in other words, it's impossible to have a just society.

My first thought was to have the committee design multiple societies so that we may let them run and see which one(s) are best, but with the explicit knowledge that after they design the societies, they will personally be picked to live in whichever one benefits them LEAST. Then select a diverse committee. After some given amount of time, meet and see what worked and what didn't.

Why I think we can't ever get a utopia is because we could all have a perfect world, but can't together have a perfect society. If I got into a cloning machine and left it on overnight, me and all my copies could get together and produce our vision of a perfect society. But to literally anyone else on the planet, that society would seem positively bonkers... because we rarely have enough in common with others to agree in everything. Like in the real world, elections swing from party to party as their attempts to build a great society with their philosophy is almost always met by people pointing to the mistakes or side effects as being fundamentally flawed.

0:39 YES MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE, I cant finally initiate all my plans for the brighter future!

There's a Walden 2 type community near my city called "Los Horcones" which works as a real-life experiment for this precise theme.

Whoa, I think I've got it, and this is where the anonymity of the internet can really come into play. You randomly select people for your committee, from all walks of life, and get them to work together without ever meeting, and instruct them that they should make decisions without regard to their own station, and that everyone else should too, or the rest will call them out, remove them from the committee, and choose someone else. They never meet, never talk, and are selected based on relative intelligence, all higher than average, but not too high. And all have unique perspectives due to their class, station, position, and social standing, but are not allowed to talk about their personal experiences, nor allowed to let it influence their decisions, lest they are expelled from the committee. Hard to know though... Maybe they have handlers who know whether they're staying too close to personal subjects? Wow this is hard. Maybe the secret is that you need two societies, and each governs the other, and they never interact with each other outside of that.

One of my favourite videos from you guys so far. Very well made, kudos.

I think the inability to anticipate potential inequalities is the biggest death-knell to the Original Position. I can imagine some sort of injustice developing in the society--say racism or sexism--but any complaints would be immediately silenced by, "Don't be silly; we carefully planned a society free from bias and inequality. You are living in the best possible of worlds."

Rawls' Original Position reminded me a lot of the Ruler of the Universe in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe". The Ruler was determined to be the person most fit for the job because he is the least ambitious person ever born and has a philosophy of pure solipsism. He only believed what his senses could perceive at the time, and even then, he had his doubts. The point didn't seem to be that this was the best choice to rule the Universe-- as The Ruler cannot understand the consequences of his decisions, and therefore has no moral or ethical ground on which to stand-- but it more highlights how a man like Zarniwoop (who is arrogant and manipulative) should *not* have this kind of power.

This is what the past 5 years of my life have been about I believe; the gathering of as many perspectives as possible. Until this video it's never been so much about creating equality and a just world for me, but about personal reality creation. With perspectives as tools to meld and form the world through our lenses, transforming for example devestating tragedies like the death of loved ones into blissful celebratings and honorings to life. I see now the societal value this approach has as well. I wonder in what position that attitude would have the most impact. Regardless, thank you for this thought experiment!

As a thought experiment, it was designed to argue the impossible. Pure objectivity is impossible: even our objectivity is subjective. The real question is whether we should stop trying to be objective about what constitutes a just society, and accept that this debate is and will be ongoing in every society. Societies are human artifacts, and like humans they must evolve to survive. So change and uncertainty will always be present. Each generation can only hope that they are not judged too harshly by history.

Interesting, I was thinking of something similar for an idea I had for a book that's basically the opposite of 1984

The best way to make a just society is to not be part of it but still knowing everything about it. Something like us playing The sims but to a much larger scale.

Ask the aliens to forget about themselves and then to design for us 20 supercomputers that will design our just society.

I see people talking about an AI but as a game designer the first thing that popped in my head to solve this problem was iteration, essentially AB testing.I think the original position could be a great tool but as you pointed out it's limited in that it has no hindsight.however, if we could create a society simulator and give each player input as to how the society should be run along with a knowledge base about the people, resources, technology, etc. They could have no knowledge of their avatar in anyway, only be able to shape the rules of the game. Then after a period of time the results of the game test are factored into the knowledge base and any factors that can be interchanged such as skin color and geography are randomized and it begins again. I think this could be a good starting point, but my gut instinct is telling me players would try to make things really really unequal in the hopes of being one of the lucky 1%.

I think everyone should be given the minimum ability to be happy because everything we do is to be comfortable and happy

Should just take the game show approach, "Right decide on some stuff for the local jobs, tomorrow we'll toss some jobs into a hat, by we i mean me not you, and you'll draw to see where you go next week. Have fun!" :D Or don't tell them at all and see how they react for the first week or so XD

This idea is illustrated fairly well in the Doctor Who episode "The Zygon Invasion": *The Doctor(s):* Any second now, you're going to stop that countdown. Both of you. Together. And then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time. Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides. And the key to perfect negotiation? Not knowing what side you're on. So, for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out, no one in this room will be able to remember if they're human or Zygon. I'm not sure that this would work on a larger scale, though, designing an entire society rather than a single treaty. Something that Mike didn't touch on at all is the issue that to even set up this situation requires solving several ethical questions first, chief among them being how to define "society". Can the theoretical committee members know that they're human, for example? Is it possible for them to leave the committee room and then discover that, surprise, they entered this new society as, say, livestock? When will the committee members be entering the society? Will it be immediately? If so, how would you avoid them creating a society that lives extravagantly for a single human lifetime, and then leaves future generations to deal with the consequences? If the entry is randomized, how do we determine the range of dates at which they can enter? That leads to the question of *how* they enter as well. Will children be included in this hypothetical committee? When the members enter society, do they simply walk into it at their current age, or do they have to be born into it? Further than that, do they have to be *conceived* into it? These issues are very important, because they mean that any society designed according to the original position will inevitably be in at least some respects a reflection of the one that set up the committee, because these kinds of decisions will need to be made. I could certainly imagine that if the committee were formed in antebellum Dixieland, the architect very well may have made sure that the committee members would know that they would not be entering society as slaves, reasoning that slaves are chattel and not true persons or members of society. Obviously, the line has to be drawn somewhere; we're not going to have cabbages or gemstones sitting in our committee, but how the current society deals with edge cases will determine where we draw that line, which will have a profound effect on the implementation and results of the hypothetical process in this thought experiment, shaping how the resultant society deals with issues such as animal welfare, sustainability, the treatment of children, abortion, slavery, and so forth.

Is it possible to *design* a just society in practice? Do any societies exist or has a society ever existed that "played out" according to design? Your point about perspective is golden. Societies are not designed; they evolve naturally. Rather than attempting to conjure up an entirely new Just Society out of whole cloth, it seems that we would be better served by endeavoring to maximize the justice of our existing society, a process that must surely come about as a result of employing and embracing a multitude of perspectives in a broadly popular movement that is concerned with justice and intent on realizing justice.

Removing personal bias automatically makes a fair society since nobody knows who is benefiting from that culture.

Whoa...You just gave me a philosophical understanding of the resolution in "Day of the Doctor". Neat! It seemed to work out okay for them-for a time... In the "No Perspectives" vs "As Many Perspectives As Possible" options, I lean towards as many as possible. I work in Student Affairs at a university, and the idea of sharing perspectives is an important one. Only by including someone at "the table where the conversation is happening", i.e. giving them a chance to voice concerns, critique ideas, and contribute to the creation of programming, can we hope to create something balanced and of value for a lot of people (with the ultimate, lofty, dream goal being for everyone). Making decisions from a "blank perspective" seems like it would only work for a society of "blank people"-which we are not, and never have been. And thank goodness for that! Can you imagine how boring that world would be... It makes me think of the "Happy holidays!" exclamation. We use it at work so as to not centre out any specific holiday observance (or neglect any other), but in the process (in my opinion) lose a lot of the joy, nuance, and life of the specific holidays. I've recently been reading Fraction's run on Hawkeye, and the "Winter Friends" issue really drove this home: they celebrated each holiday together, not removing the pieces of each until there's only a bland holiday gruel left, but celebrating each side by side, united by a winter urge to "...reach out to one another and hold on against the long dark cold together."

For a couple years now, I've been writing some stories about a seemingly utopic world of god-like humans. Long story short, I've been for a long time now trying to come up with a way to define their government method that seems utopic on the surface but allows me to plant corruption in it, and I suddenly realise that this Original Position idea not only has potential for it, but the very act of using it for so may prove an interesting proving exercise for the original position concept itself, at least from a personal point of view.

Something very similar was done in an episode of Doctor Who. A leader of a human shadow military organization and a shape shifting alien had their memories altered so that neither of them could remember which of them was which. I don't remember the results being shown. I think The Doctor left or the show cut ahead before negotiations really got started.

Please investigate a resource based economy.

I would add a time perspective too. The OP should not know who they will be nor WHEN they will be born, from now to the end of time. This then favours stability and progress and ensures happiness for future generations.

"Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!" Donquixote Doflamingo One Piece

If I were "leader of the world", I would implement this rule in every constitution, and see what happens: "The right to participate in rule-making. Every member of a social structure (City, country, region, municipality, living area) must have the right to vote on the rules and laws concerning that organization. Votes are decided by simple majority. Every citizen has the right to initiate a vote, if they reach a number of signatures decided on by that structure." I would also experiment with adding this right to other organizations: government agencies, bureaus, companies, etc., because I'm not sure of the result. If it turns bad, the society can always vote to change it back, because it's guaranteed by the rule itself.

Seriously diggin him rocking that 2600-Shirt!

...bias would be a major interference with the whole "make it as good as possible because you don't know what you'll be" so even if it's something's considered "lowly" you'll still be living goodish...but you will never be unable to separate yourself from your own bias as to what makes living "goodish" as it will always be the goodish in relation to you, your own personal idea of goodish, and even with a consensus on the goodish, so your not basing it on the things that make life goodish for just you, the consensus is still making it so it will be goodish for them no matter where they end up... you're always operating for your own goodish... In this way the idea is flawed as it relies on a specific outline of human nature and doesn't confer onto that outline the possibility of actually considering the value in making life goodish for others, the goodish for others is assumed in the making it goodish for oneself, which will always be based on what that individual considers a goodish life.

I just love your T-SHIRT!!! It's wonderful!

A Just society must be completely free from the initiation of force. Which means no government, no laws, and no taxation as those are examples of the initiation of force. Many assume this will lead to chaos, but that is not true. Most people do not want to aggress against others. To protect ourselves from the few who do we will form private protection agencies, funded voluntarily. Voluntary funding is key to all good services. As soon as we are force to pay for anything injustice and corruption creep in.

I found the whole video to be quite fascinating, but I'm glad that it reached the point that it did. Diversity is like a cheat code against inborn prejudice, in the sense that not just knowing but having people who are different from you in your life makes it difficult to hate people who are like them. One of my favorite articles on the internet is a Cracked article interviewing a reformed neo-Nazi, and the whole article is amazing and I highly recommend looking it up (it also tackles how cults and hate groups are able to find recruits by targeting those who are isolated and offering community, but that's a thread of discussion for another comment). Anyway, the final point of the article talks about how after he got out of prison he began to work at a construction company for someone he didn't realize immediately was Jewish and when he learned that he already thought the guy was alright, and he became an exception to the "rule" in his eyes. Then he kept meeting people he had sworn to hate that he actually liked, and he kept making them the exceptions until they weren't anymore, and that's how he was reformed. A similar story can be found about the former Grand Wizard of Maryland. Anyway, that's my piece to add

I think reverting to original position disregards the fact that as human beings, we are grounded in experience. OP is fundamentally saying that no experience, just information. What makes us brilliant -- and very flawed -- is how we process that information with our human experience lens. But although we may be biased, unfair, we can also be kind when understanding this information. So I agree that for a fair society to take place, we need as many perspectives as possible -- not a blank slate that is more susceptible to bias than having convictions rooted in experience.

Sounds like the perfect plot for a black mirror episode :)

I think a distilled version of Rawls' theory is needed where instead of asking for the impossibly untainted mind to comprehend a society we should only have to ask ourselves to empathise with others. Wouldn't it be great if the first question a politician or a political committee asked themselves after designing new policies and societies was "if I where to be born tomorrow into this society with a completely random chance of who and where I would be, would I worry before hand about who I would be and if so why?" I think that this question is how societies should be judged as if you don't care who you could be tomorrow then you truly have a just society and if you do care then moralistically speaking something should have to change

The main question to ask when making a society is "why?" Why do taxes exist? Why do laws exist? Why is morality needed? Why would this be necessary? All questions that can be answered logically without interest of the self would also answer the needs of the society being created.

There's probably a Star Trek episode about this. I haven't gotten that far in TOS. Honestly, I agree with the idea that we need as many perspectives as possible, to understand as many theoretical outcomes as possible, in order to figure out the best society. The "veil of ignorance" is not only physically impossible save for an AI or some outside alien race, the insistence that it avoid "controversial" ideas is counter-productive to avoiding the worst possible outcomes. How can you know to stop injustice if you don't know what forms injustice may take? I would argue that empathy is the key factor for this theoretical committee to embrace. Many different kinds of people from many different backgrounds but all should have a strong sense of empathy, because empathy is the first step to fighting injustice. This would likely mean a lot of shouting, a lot of disagreement, a lot of soul-searching within this committee, and it would invariably take a long time for them to come to a conclusion, but I think it would be worth it.

What about a committee where none of the members know who else is on the committee and then another committee synthesizes that, and another committee approves it?

"And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God." 4 Nephi 1:16 this is a passage of Scripture that is describing a society that has completely accepted and followed the teachings of Jesus Christ the son of God. I could not be more certain that his teachings bring true happiness and bring about justice. I have seen first hand in my life how those things have brought increased joy and peace to my life and the lives of all those who have followed them.

I think there's an episode of Doctor Who which (unintentionally) deals with some of this. The Doctor's Daughter was about an army of clones who were at war with another group, and all they knew was what they had been told (other side is bad). The episode ended when the doctor stopped them from fighting, but if it had continued, they would have had to create a society with the new knowledge that what they knew about the other side was not necessarily true, and they said they would work to create a new society together. In that situation, I think that it might be successful, but only because they are literally only working with two types or groups of people. I would also imagine it to be a very rigidly structured society, since all they know is military structure. I think we naturally see rigid hierarchies as being injust/unequal, but if you knew nothing else, and had no reason to question it (cruel treatment) I don't think you would see it that way. Then you can ask the question, if nobody, anywhere in the society knew of anything different, and they never thought to see themselves as unequal to somebody else, even if by our standards they might be, would it still be an unequal society?

As a general principle for determining fairness, this thought experiment has merit - a deal is fair if you'd be happy to be on either side of it (including the context - so you're not just trading grain for bread or vice versa; you're trading grain you have a lot of for bread you lack, or trading bread you can make more of for grain you need in order to keep making bread). Where I depart from John Rawls' position is in his assertions about what that best society should look like... There's also an issue, though it's fairly easily patched, of "cheat codes" - if you design a system where anyone who knows certain things can gain significant advantages, then when you enter into that society, that knowledge would let you bypass the fairness or otherwise of the society...

I've been curious as to why I've never heard of any of these ideas in practice. While Rawls' OP can't be perfectly achieved, it can be approximated (and so, on the other end, can plurality positions)--so why not form a few of these design committees? It seems to me that these committees have much greater potential for developing truly just societal rules than any other system we have. Perhaps governments avoid these committees because there is greater stability in a society with an overcompensated upper class and an undercompensated lower class; a just society would be swiftly broken down by citizens looking to rob power from vulnerable members.

Hey! Longtime fan of the show, but I'm only just getting up the gumption to hazard a response. I hope I'm doing this right. I can't help but worry that a panel of people who have little to no understanding of the way a society works will inevitably design a system that, on some level, is broken beyond repair. As a thought experiment I love this, but as a natural cynic it's in my nature to wonder where the cracks would begin to show. It's idealistic at best, and suicidal at worst, to hope that either no knowledge, or a balanced knowledge, will lead to a society that is ultimately "just". So many examples in recent news media have shown that what is justice for some is injustice to others. Any decision that is made will have a percentage, however large or small, that feels the choices made are unjust either on themselves or unto others. And in this just society, what would be done with dissenting opinions? Simply accept them as valid opinions, as one version of the panel might? Try to enforce that, for however long, this is just how the world will work? At what point is the line between policing and tyranny drawn? It seems like there is no best conclusion for this. Where an ignorant panel might lead to accidental injustice, a well versed panel will not be able to avoid adding their own subjectivity to the policies. That might be one form of justice, as justice is subjective to the people designing, enforcing, or experiencing it, but it won't be a blanket justice that everyone will accept.

I CANNOT BELIEVE you guys did not mention the VENUS PROJECT! It's a very interesting idea of reinventing how society works by Jacque Fresco, based on distributing resources, not money. Look it up, it's gonna boost this discussion! :) Thanks!

A society similar to those in the dispossessed by Ursula le guin, might occur. Something where a centralised system says what jobs need doing where, and people sign up to the jobs as a response to moral, and society pressure. A just society requires a total readjustment of the way we think about ourselves and each other

If someone would teach me how to go about it, I would make a genuine attempt at making rules for a new, just society. But right now, I'd have no idea where to start.

Randomly assign each committee member a role to play in the new society they built, so they have to ensure all no roles are screwed over. The lengths to which you would have to go would be massive and in some cases impossible with current technology, but you would be getting closer to the desired result.

I could imagine the Original Position theory working however only under a single specific circumstance. Infants randomly picked would be placed in a pseudo-society and only be taught about the importance of society and its current values. For about 4 years they would live separated in this model society and discuss how they feel about the "rules" and how best to change them. An anime, Psycho Pass, created a slightly different society where those who could not fit in were removed and set to govern society. It seems to suggest that only those who could see society but were never truly part of it could possibly make fair decisions on how to govern it.

Lot to take in, but here's my thoughts. 1) The no-perspectives thing is akin to the SIBYL system in the "Psycho Pass" series. Without getting too into spoiler territory, I'll point out that the system judged every citizen's aptitude (ability to contribute) and crime coefficient (ability to harm society). The powers that oversaw this system from an admin level were all accepted as having crime coefficients at or near zero despite having the greatest propensity to commit a crime. It only makes sense because to identify a criminal, you have to compare them to other criminals. So then the argument becomes a necessity for the grand overseers to have a perspective which, if they were integrated into society, would ultimately be negative for themselves and good for (most) everyone else. 2) With the "many perspectives" argument (I'ma call it the "All Possible Outcomes" argument), the only way to make that work is with some technology-based decision engine (think "MAGI SYSTEM" from Evangelion). The ability to calculate every possible scenario, chart the rates of success and filter only the scenarios which produce the target success margin may be in the realm of science fiction, but I doubt it will be for that much longer. Finally, "INEQUALITY is not WRONG! EQUALITY IS!" - Charles Zi Britannia, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

While this theory blows itself up, for the reasons mentioned and many, many more, it is interesting to think about this as social version of the "I cut, you choose" problem. If you haven't heard about it, it basically solves problems of fairness by saying that whoever divides the portions gets the last choice among those portions. If your brother and you have to share a piece of cake, you get to cut and your brother chooses which piece he wants first. This means you will want to divide the piece as evenly as possible, so you get the biggest piece. While I think much of what's discussed in this episode points to the complete and entire infeasibility of this approach on a wide scale, thinking about incentive structures in this way is actually useful. Perhaps voting districts are the obvious application, but it's worth thinking about who benefits by being able to define the parameters of the decisions of others.

Here's an idea: we know about what a society would be like with an Original Position, at least in microcosm. It's called The Sims. *rewarp sound* So first, let's take the rather large assumption that the player is playing the game "properly" - attempting to improve the lot of all simulants in their household. I'd argue that the player meets the conditions required to maintain the original position, have the information needed to make informed decisions, and the power to implement that household, which itself forms a kind of society. The player has no position within the household and as a result can act without prejudice and self-interest. (An aside: Sims household as microcosm for society. As with society at large, there are a number of jobs that need to be handled (both income and household chores), and a diverse set of workers with different skillsets and goals. Some workers require additional care, and change in how they provide for the household over time. The arrangement of the house even mirrors the arrangement of our cities and resources, providing a model for the physical space our society occupies.) For our player to not to know their own position, they need to know nothing about how the world around is arranged nor how society has been historically constructed, save for what their people need and desire. Sim society starts at the moment the player hits play; there is no historical precedent on which member of the family performs which role. Likewise, the player remains ignorant to the actions of Sims in the world at large, which means that the household they construct, the society they construct, will be the first that they see. Race and gender are non-issues to the player: the virtual denizens aren't really either. They can know what the house's inhabitants require, using perfect information about how each Sim functions, what they physically need and emotionally seek, but can have no prejudice about what that is because of the second aspect: the player does not join their Sims in this world, and yet remain motivated to improve it. In the opening the player is encouraged not to create a player avatar but a family, vesting their interests not in an individuals lot but how the family performs as a whole. They feel all suffering, since any Sim that falls behind starts whining away on the player's HUD. In essence, this is equivalent to "not knowing your position in society". Instead, the player has every position in society, at once. It may even give us a clue as to how an Original Position society would function. Often all chores are divided equally among all members of the household, in a kind of "need it, do it" attitude. One Sim is hungry: then they cook, if they're complaining about the dirty plates, then they're doing it. In other words, less family, more flatmates. Essentially we could say that The Sims' Society maximizes autonomy to stay just. In Rawls' original thought experiment, this makes sense for a risk averse committee that don't know their own attributes: they don't know what they want to do, so all members of their society occupy all roles, to guarantee that they meet their own interests. Or maybe such a committee would inevitably create an underclass of painting goblins or some such similar idea.

It comes down to one thing: do we believe that all people can be compelled to help their common man? If so, then "policies" supporting the need for empathy are the only ones that matter, and society will take care of the rest. If not, then regardless of the policies, society will eventually become a class system in which the 1% (or less) rule everything and the rest will fear retribution of the troublemakers and will become complacent as long as they can survive.

It doesn't matter how just a society is, if it handles change poorly or is easily corrupted. That's why I think the most important parts of this committee are to decide on a political system - most importantly the legislature - and an educational system. That America has room for improvement in both of them is obvious I think.

Here's my two cents on this: From where i see it, assuming we go with the Rawl's premise there are two ways to achieve a comitee that resembles rawl's. First is to design a computer with that exact purpose in mind. This solution is obviously flawed with the obvious pitfalls of deciding what information we should let the computer have etc. And there is a second solution, that is to make a comitee from members of society from every class, every gender, and every interest group, in which these groups should be given the task of deciding policies for another group that has no, or the least amount of connections to each other and let every pair decide each other's policies that way they would have an incentive to not screw the other group over because the other group would be able to do the same to them. Now there are quite some flaws with this solution too because a member of one group might as well be a member of another group that has conflicting interests with the groups whose policies they decide, but imo this would be the most optimal way to create a "just" society seeing as notions of morality and equality is not something that can be taught to a being that knows only precious little of themselves and the world. Policies such as healthcare and social justice and equality should also be decided this way, while taxes and fiscal policies should be calculated by measuring the amount of money needed to achieve the policies and factoring in the average incomes and spending of every group with a logarithm that should be designed to be as cold as it can be to reduce the amount of bias for any group to generate the optimal amount of revenue. Who knows, it might work, or it won't i'm just a random dude on the internet.

We did a mock version of the original position in my ethics class last semester. We came up with various policies, voted on them, and then were given a randomized identity, which was usually something that would be considered a minority or other "less than ideal" position in society. We then repeated the process with the understanding of what the possible identities were. Unfortunately, it devolved into a more and more socialist society. The only society that is truly "just" or "fair" would be a minarchy. A society where you are free to do whatever you choose, so long as it doesn't cause physical harm to another or their property. It has a minimal government that basically only functions to protect its citizens from said harm. Anything else is unjust. To try and force the "moral" or "just" action on another (literally or figuratively by making the opposite action illegal) is the worst kind of immorality. Anything beyond what I described in the paragraph above does that. For example, in the United States, the welfare system is funded by taxes. While it is the moral obligation of those who have the means to give to the poor and needy, forcing them to by requiring them to pay taxes is a much worse offence. 99% of the services provided by the federal government are less efficient than those of the private sector anyway (look at UPS vs USPS, for example).

One of the key problems with the idea of an original position is, well, which parts of it have to be unbiased? What parts of identity need to be hidden? The person seemed to focus group affiliation as identity and skipped over goals/standards/preferences. If your position is that, say, dancing is wrong, it doesn't matter which gender/ethnicity/income level you end up in, one can safely be for it even though many would be unhappy with such a rule.

I was just reading about this for a debate today!

So glad you did a Rawls video! :D From what I recall in my political theory class, Rawls also objects to a purely-equal distribution of resources/opportunity because he didn't think there would ever be enough resources to produce enough specialists (doctors, inventors, writers, etc.) that society requires. If we split everything evenly, then no one would have enough to spend the time and effort to learn medicine, so some inequality is required. I'm don't know if I personally agree with this of course, at least not in 2017 US society (collectively we are RIDICULOUSLY wealthy), but I can see the justification for it in the past and in other societies.

A completely indifferent and practical government could be unknowingly cruel and would be doomed to be overthrown or destroyed from inexperience. A little self-interest is needed for cooperation

Elected World Leader 2020, my first act would be to create a pentavirate as a ruling body, with an, as demographically representative as possible, 499 person strong advisory body.