Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent ?

Gaël Giraud and Cécile Renouard ()
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Cécile Renouard: ESSEC Business School

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: Theories of justice in the spirit of Rawls and Harsanyi argue that fair-minded people should aspire to make choices for society as if in the original position, that is, behind a veil of ignorance that prevents them from knowing their own social positions. In this paper, we provide a fairly simple framework showing that preferences in front of the veil of ignorance (i.e., in face of everyday risky situations) can be entirely deduced from ethical preferences behind the veil. Moreover, by contrast with Kariv & Zame (2008), in many cases of interest, the converse is not true : Ethical decisions cannot be deduced from economic ones. This not only rehabilitates distributive theories of justice but even proves that standard decision theory in economic environments cannot be exonerated from ethical questioning.

Keywords: Moral preferences; business ethics; social preferences; distributional justice; theory of justice; social choice; original position; veil of ignorance; utilitarianism; maximin principle; uncertainty.; Préférences morales; éthique des affaires; préférences sociales; justice distributive; théorie de la justice; choix social; position originelle; voile d'ignorance; utilitarisme; principe du maximin. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-11
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00593973v1
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Published in 2010

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https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00593973v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent? (2011)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance transparent? (2011)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance transparent? (2011)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance transparent? (2011)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent? (2011)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent ? (2010)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent ? (2010)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent ? (2010)
Working Paper: Is the veil of ignorance transparent? (2010)
Working Paper: Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent? (2009)
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