786

Original Position

the worlds known oil reserves. In addition, since the 1970s,

the price of oil has fluctuated dramatically, often to the
detriment of revenues of OPEC members. Given the fact
that OPEC is comprised of Third World states, its members
claim that the criticisms leveled against it are thinly disguised efforts of developed western states to maintain economic colonialism. Critics of OPEC deny this charge and
argue that the concerns they express about OPECs practices
are focused on its domination of the oil market.
With respect to concerns of global justice, OPEC has
been and continues to be enwrapped with controversy. On
the one hand, it has been portrayed by critics as a powerful
player in international markets, focused on its own interests at the expense of any globally recognized sense of a fair
distribution of an important natural resource. On the
other hand, it has been portrayed by its supporters as an
important barrier to even greater domination by developed western economies. After all, they say, OPEC is
constituted by Third World countries and economies
that now control a crucial natural resource, one which
was once controlled by the exploitation of colonial powers, powers that used that resource for their own interests.
The just distribution, in terms of who does benefit and
who should benefit from the availability of oil, remains
a crucial issue both in itself as well as in its role in international and global actions (such as political or military
policies and decisions).

Related Topics
Capitalism
Colonialism
Free Trade
Global Democracy
Global Egalitarianism
Global Justice
Global Resource Distribution
Globalization
International Organizations
Multinational Corporations
Post-Colonialism
Third World Resistance

References
Amuzegar J (2001) Managing the oil wealth: OPECs windfalls and
pitfalls. IB Tauris, London
Campbell KM, Price J (eds) (2008) The global politics of energy. The
Aspen Institute, Queenstown
Falola T, Genova A (2008) The politics of the global oil industry: an
introduction. Praeger, New York
Parra FR (2004) Oil politics: a modern history of petroleum. IB Tauris,
London
Skeet I (1991) OPEC: twenty-five years of prices and politics. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge

Original Position
ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN
Department of Philosophy, Ohio University,
Athens, OH, USA

Much of the writing about global justice that has been

published since the 1970s has either used or criticized the
central ideas of John Rawlss conceptions of domestic and
international social justice, including in particular the
original position. Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge initially developed their own cosmopolitan positions partly
by criticizing Rawlss use of the original position in justice
as fairness (JF), the conception of a just society Rawls
presented in A Theory of Justice (1971; henceforth TJ),
and arguing for a globalized original position instead (see
the entries on Law of Peoples and Political Cosmopolitanism in this encyclopedia). Michael Blake (2005)
devotes more than one-quarter of his long Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on international justice to
discussing the Law of Peoples (LP), Rawlss conception
of a just international order, and most of this discussion
involves Blakes interpretation of Rawlss contractarian
methodology, to which the original position is central.
Many criticisms of LP fail due to misinterpretations of
the original position and its use in Rawlss conceptions of
domestic and international justice.
The original position is a structure of ideas that John
Rawls uses as a theoretical device for testing the fairness
(and thus, in his view, the justice) of principles for organizing political, social, and economic cooperation. To test
principles, one carries out a kind of thought experiment.
If participants in cooperation use the original position and
refer to it in their discussions, it may lead them to agreement about justice, international as well as domestic, or so
Rawls hopes.
The original position develops the familiar idea that
terms of cooperation are unfair if some of the participants
in the cooperation have good reasons, deriving from their
fundamental interests, not to agree to them. Since people
often do agree to unfair terms despite having good reasons
not to agree, actual agreement is not an adequate criterion
of fairness. Fear and ignorance, among other factors, can
lead people to accept unfair terms; prejudice-based hostile
attitudes and possession of power over others, among
other factors, can lead people to propose or support unfair
terms. Therefore, a more adequate criterion of fairness
refers not to actual but to hypothetical agreement: the
terms to which people would agree if they all were well

Original Position

informed and rational, and if they all were on an equal

footing. Clarifying such a criterion requires listing all of
the relevant if-clauses, or the conditions they state. In JF
Rawls draws up a list of such conditions and uses it,
together with other considerations, to devise a way of
testing proposed principles of domestic social justice.
The test involves imagining rational people in a hypothetical, non-historical situation who must choose among
alternative proposed principles. Actual people who care
about fairness can use the test to clarify their own judgment, when trying to determine whether anyone would
(if well-informed and rational, if on an equal footing, etc.)
have good reasons not to agree to a proposed principle. In
LP Rawls uses a different version of the original position in
order to test proposed principles of international justice
(See below, and see the entries on Second Original
Position and Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia).
In JF Rawls analyzes social justice in terms of an
agreement on the basic terms of social cooperation made
by those engaged in it, as do the social contract theories of
Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. (See Rawls (2007) for the
differences among his own, Lockes, and Rousseaus
views. For the similarities and differences between Rawlss
and Kants views, see Bernstein 2009.) According to Rawls,
an agreement on the terms of social cooperation that is
entered into under conditions that situate free and equal
persons fairly is valid: the conditions must exclude coercion and deception, and must disallow unequal bargaining
advantages. In everyday life, agreements are made within
the context of societys basic structure and may be
distorted by it. In any society, cumulative historical developments of the basic structure inevitably give rise to
contingent bargaining advantages. These must not be
allowed to affect the agreement on the principles for
regulating these institutions, Rawls argues. Therefore he
conceives a hypothetical agreement.
In JF Rawls stipulates that each of the parties in the
imagined original position is a rational agent responsible
for the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen.
He situates all of the parties symmetrically: all have equal
rights in the procedure for reaching agreement on principles, and all have (and lack) the same knowledge. They
have relevant general knowledge, but a veil of ignorance
prevents them from knowing specifics, including the
social status or class position of the particular citizens
they each represent, and also the citizens other individual
characteristics, including race, ethnicity, sex, gender,
native endowments (strength, intelligence, etc.), and religious or secular comprehensive doctrine (moral outlook
and value system). This restriction models one of Rawlss
considered convictions, which he (explicitly) assumes is

shared by himself and his readers: the fact that we occupy

a particular social position (or have a certain skin color,
etc.) is not a good reason for us to propose, or to expect
others to accept, a conception of justice that favors the
people who are in this position (or who have the particular
characteristic). The veil of ignorance prevents the parties
from specially tailoring proposed principles and from
bargaining in the usual sense: in Rawlss words, it nullifies
the effects of the contingent natural and social advantages
that might otherwise tempt citizens to exploit them to
their own advantage (Rawls 1971).
Rawls distinguishes between three points of view:
that of the parties in the original position, that of citizens
in a well-ordered society, and (in his words) that of
ourselves of you and me who are elaborating justice as
fairness and examining it as a political conception of
justice (Rawls 1993). When Rawls speaks of you and
me, he is addressing any reader who shares his concern
that, as he says, there is no public agreement on how basic
institutions are to be arranged so as to be most appropriate
to the freedom and equality of democratic citizenship.
An especially important root of this disagreement is
citizens conflicting conceptions of freedom and equality.
Rawls aims to provide, he says, an acceptable philosophical and moral basis for the basic structure of a democratic
society, understood as excluding a caste, slave, racist,
confessional, or aristocratic state, by interpreting freedom
and equality (Rawls 2001).
The original position in JF models the freedom and
equality of citizens of a democratic society, which Rawls
views not as a fixed natural order but as structured by
values and principles, rules and procedures. A just democratic society is, in Rawlss view, a fair system of social
cooperation guided by publicly recognized rules and procedures which those cooperating accept as appropriate to
regulate their conduct. Each citizen rationally seeks to
advance his or her own good, but all do so on terms each
can accept as fair according to an agreed-upon public
standard. According to Rawls, reasonable, as distinct
from merely rational, persons are ready to propose, or
to acknowledge when proposed by others, the principles needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair
terms of cooperation (Rawls 2001). Such citizens have
the requisite mental and psychological capacities, namely,
(1) the capacity to have, revise, and rationally pursue
a conception of the good, and (2) the capacity to understand, apply, and act from (not merely in accordance with)
the principles of justice that specify the fair terms of social
cooperation. According to Rawls, having these two moral
powers (of rationality and reasonableness) to the requisite threshold degree is both necessary and sufficient for

787

788

Original Position

the status of equal citizen (Rawls 2001). Rawls regards each

citizen as a free person in two respects: (a) a citizens public
or legal identity as a free person is not affected by changes
over time in his or her determinate conception of the
good, and (b) citizens are self-authenticating sources of
valid claims, that is, they are entitled to make claims on
their institutions so as to advance their own conceptions
of the good (Rawls 2001). According to nondemocratic
views, only claims derived from members ascribed roles
in a social hierarchy justified by religious or aristocratic
values, or from their duties and obligations to society, have
weight. In developing JF, Rawls uses a political conception
of the person that is based, he says, on the way citizens are
regarded in the public political culture of a liberaldemocratic society, in its basic political texts (constitutions and declarations of human rights), and in the historical tradition of interpretation of those texts (Rawls
2001). In developing LP, however, Rawls avoids using
this liberal political conception of the person (See the
entries on Second Original Position and Law of
Peoples in this encyclopedia).
Recall the three points of view Rawls distinguishes:
(1) that of ourselves, you and me in the present,
(2) that of citizens in a just society (perhaps a future,
reformed version of ones own society), and (3) that of
the parties in the original position. In describing the
parties, we are not describing persons as we find them,
Rawls says, but instead according to how we want to
model rational representatives of free and equal citizens
(Rawls 2001). As Rawls models the parties in the original
position in JF, each is rational, all are symmetrically situated behind the veil of ignorance, each is responsible for
the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen, each
evaluates alternative principles by estimating how well
they secure the primary goods essential to realize the
higher-order interests of the citizen for whom each acts
as a trustee, and all have equal rights in the procedure for
reaching agreement and choosing a conception of justice
from the available alternatives (Rawls 1993). Thus Rawls
sets up the original position in JF to model citizens
freedom and equality. In LP, since he is developing basic
principles for a just international order, Rawls stipulates
that each of the parties in the original position is responsible for the fundamental interests of a society that
respects human rights (see the entries on Law of Peoples
and Second Original Position in this encyclopedia).
Using the original position, Rawls argues in JF for the
following principles: (1) Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic
liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same
scheme of liberties for all; and (2) social and economic

inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (a) they are to be

attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and (b) they are to
be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members
of society. Principle (2b) is the difference principle
(Rawls 2001).
Rawls says he characterizes the original position of JF
by various stipulations, each with its own reasoned backing, so that the agreement that would be reached can be
worked out deductively by reasoning from how the parties
are situated and described, the information available to
them, the alternatives open to them, and what they count
as reasons. The parties are only rational, not reasonable (in
the sense given above), but (due to the stipulations,
including the veil of ignorance and the parties task of
securing the primary goods) they are subject to reasonable
restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they can
give each other for favoring one principle or rejecting
another. The principles that would be chosen unanimously by the parties in the original position (namely,
Rawls argues, the pair he proposes) are the ones that can
best secure the fundamental interests of every citizen, if
their societys basic structure is reformed according to
these principles (Rawls 2001). Therefore, reasonable citizens of such a society would support these principles, and
people in nondemocratic or non-well-ordered democratic
societies, who are reasonable and want their society to be
a just democratic society of free and equal citizens, will
want to know which principles would be chosen by the
(rational, not reasonable) parties in the original position,
and will be ready to propose and abide by these principles.
Similarly, when developing the principles and norms
of a just international order in LP, Rawls characterizes
the original position by various stipulations. The parties
are only rational, not reasonable, but due to the veil of
ignorance and the parties task, they are subject to reasonable restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they
can offer each other when advocating or opposing principles. The principles that would be chosen unanimously by
the parties are the ones that can best secure the fundamental interests of every people and best secure basic
human rights globally, if peoples establish a Society of
Peoples based on these principles. (See the entries on
Second Original Position and Law of Peoples in this
encyclopedia).
In JF Rawls assumes that a democratic society of free
and equal citizens will be pluralistic. If all citizens are to
endorse the conception of justice freely, it must, he says, be
able to gain the support of citizens who affirm different
and opposing though reasonable comprehensive doctrines, in which case there would be an overlapping

Original Position

consensus (see Rawls (1993, 1999), as well as the entries

on Political Liberalism and Public Reason in this
encyclopedia). Rawls structures the original position and
formulates his principles and his argument so as to show
that the content of a defensible conception of justice can
be derived from certain ideas drawn from the public
political culture of a democratic society. He does not, he
emphasizes, look to the comprehensive doctrines that in
fact exist and then frame a political conception that strikes
a balance between them expressly designed to gain their
allegiance (Rawls 2001). Instead, he puts citizens comprehensive doctrines behind the veil of ignorance. This makes
it possible, he says, to find a political conception of justice
that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus and
thereby serve as a public basis of justification in a society
marked by the fact of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1993).
Similarly, in LP, Rawls does not survey the globes comprehensive doctrines and then frame a political conception that strikes a compromise among them. However, he
does develop a political conception of international justice
that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus among
reasonable peoples. (See the entry on Law of Peoples in
this encyclopedia).
Rawls stipulates in JF that the parties in the original
position are mutually disinterested (Rawls 1971). This is
another way he both models citizens as free and equal and
avoids building in assumptions about their conceptions of
the good. If each party focuses only on securing the fundamental interests of one citizen, then no citizen will be
either double-counted or discounted, and every citizens
fundamental interests will get secured. The stipulation of
mutual disinterest does not, he emphasizes, mean that
the parties or the citizens they represent are egoists, that
is, individuals with only certain kinds of interests, for
example, in wealth, prestige, and domination. Instead, he
explains, it avoids ruling out the possibility that their
spiritual aims may be opposed, in the way that the aims
of those of different religions may be opposed (Rawls
1971). Even though Rawls recognizes that citizens in society will of course have ties of sentiment and affection, and
want to advance the interests of others and to see their
ends attained, he stipulates that the parties in the original
position are not moved by affection or esteem to confer
benefits on any others, nor moved by envy or rancor to
deny benefits to any others; he stipulates mutual disinterest in order to ensure that the principles of justice do not
depend upon what he calls strong assumptions (Rawls
1971). The veil of ignorance ensures that the mutually
disinterested parties, each aiming to secure the fundamental interests of one citizen, do not know the specific values
or aims of the citizen they each represent. It forces each

party to consider how each principle might affect everyone, especially the people who would end up in the least
advantaged positions. Each partys best option is the principle(s) that will best enable the (represented) citizen to
pursue his or her goals, whatever these goals turn out to be
and whatever position the citizen turns out to occupy.
Similarly, in LP an analogous stipulation that the parties
in the original position are mutually disinterested ensures
that every peoples fundamental interests will get secured
in the Society of Peoples.
The question Rawls tries to answer in JF is the following, he says: Which principles are most appropriate
for a democratic society that not only professes but
wants to take seriously the idea that citizens are free and
equal, and tries to realize that idea in its main institutions?
He rephrases this question as follows: Once we view a
democratic society as a fair system of social cooperation
between citizens regarded as free and equal, what principles are most appropriate to it? (Rawls 2001). The principles are to specify basic rights and liberties and to
regulate fundamental social and economic inequalities,
namely, Rawls says, the differences in citizens prospects
over a complete life, as these are affected by such things as
their social class of origin, their native endowments, their
opportunities for education, and their good or ill fortune
over the course of life. These inequalities are, he says, his
primary concern in JF (Rawls 2001). After arguing for the
first principle (which ascribes equal basic liberties), Rawls
considers whether any differences in citizens life prospects
can be consistent with the idea of free and equal citizenship in a society that is seen as a fair system of cooperation,
and if so, what principles establish the legitimacy of those
differences.
This question about legitimate inequalities requires an
answer that appeals only to principles and values that each
citizen can endorse, because as participants in a constitutional democracy, they will use the coercive power of their
state to conform their societys institutions to these principles and values, thus wielding political power over one
another. No answer is immediately evident to Rawls; he
says that his convictions about principles regulating social
and economic inequalities are much less firm and assured
than his firmest considered convictions about equal basic
rights and liberties, the fair value of the political liberties
and fair equality of opportunity (Rawls 2001). Therefore,
Rawls considers the appropriate method for finding the
guidance that is needed. He proposes taking guidance
from his firmest considered convictions about the nature
of a democratic society. In order to see whether the
combined assertion of those convictions by means of the
original position will help to identify an appropriate

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Original Position

distributive principle, he stipulates that the parties assume

that the equal basic liberties and fair opportunities are
already secured, and that they then decide how to regulate
inequalities. Thus Rawls looks outside the sphere of distributive justice more narrowly construed, he says, to see
whether an appropriate distributive principle is singled
out by his firmest convictions once their essential elements
are represented in the original position (Rawls 2001). In
LP, when developing the principles of international justice,
Rawls takes guidance from his firmest convictions about
basic human rights.
Rawls does not hold that the original position is in all
cases the device most appropriate to use for answering
questions about justice; indeed, he suggests otherwise, by
showing how his specific question about principles for
a democratic society guides him in specifying and using
the original position in JF. Similarly, in LP Rawls shows
how his specific question about the fundamental principles
and norms of a reasonably just international order guides
him in setting up and using the original position at the
second level, that is, the level of relations among politically
organized groups, which are more complex and thus logically higher level than relations among individuals.
One can use the original position to guide judgment
when applying the principles of JF to constitutional
arrangements, laws, and policies, Rawls says; each question is to be considered from the point of view of the
original position, with its knowledge conditions appropriately modified for each case (Rawls 1971). Further, one can
use the original position to determine principles for
addressing injustice. The parties in the original position
of JF assume strict compliance, that is, that citizens can
and will generally comply with the chosen principles; they
assume that a just society can in due course be achieved,
and they choose principles of justice suitable for favorable
conditions (Rawls 1971). The conception of justice developed on the assumption of strict compliance belongs to
ideal theory and sets up the goal to guide social reform.
Nonideal theory, including principles for addressing
injustice, can be worked out from the point of view of
the original position, but only after the ideal is specified
(Rawls 1971). The same holds for the Law of Peoples
(Rawls 1999).
Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge criticize JFs original
position, arguing that international interdependence has
become so extensive, and international inequalities so
extreme, that principles of social justice should apply
globally; and that therefore the parties in the original
position must not represent a single societys citizens but
the population of the entire globe, all matters of national
citizenship being concealed by the veil of ignorance.

A global original position would, they contend, yield globally applicable analogues of the two principles of JF (See
the entry on Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia).
Amartya Sen (2009) criticizes Rawlss ideal theory as
transcendental and of little practical use for addressing
real-world injustices. In reply, Samuel Freeman (2010)
notes that although consequentialists (including Sen)
regard ideal theories as unnecessary, Rawls opposed
consequentialism by arguing that justice restricts permissible means for promoting good consequences. Moreover,
Freeman argues, idealizations designed to systematize our
moral convictions can clarify ideas about justice, guide
thinking about long-term or extensive reforms, and
inspire action. If Freeman and Rawls are right, the original
position can be of significant help in the effort to secure
justice both domestically and globally.

Related Topics
Contractarianism
Law of Peoples
Political Liberalism
Public Reason
Rawls, John
Second Original Position
Social Contract

References
Bernstein AR (2009) Kant, Rawls, and cosmopolitanism: toward perpetual peace and the law of peoples. Jb Recht Ethik Annu Rev Law Ethics
17:352
Blake M (2005) International justice. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/international-justice/
Cohen J (2003) For a democratic society. In: Freeman S (ed) The
Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Dworkin R (1973) The original position. Univ Chic Law Rev
40(3):500533
Freeman S (2010) A new theory of justice. New York Review of Books,
New York, pp 5860
Freeman S (2007) The burdens of public justification: constructivism,
contractualism, and publicity. Polit Philos Econ 4:543
Mandle J (2009) Rawlss A theory of justice: an introduction. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge
Nagel T (1973) Rawls on justice. Philos Rev 82(2):220234
Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York
Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge
Rawls J (2007) Lectures on the history of political philosophy. Harvard
University Press, Cambridge
Scanlon TM (2003) Rawls on justification. In: Freeman S (ed) The
Cambridge companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge