The Veil of Ignorance

Rawls wants to impose a veil that prevents people from seeing the world as they would see it if they were located exactly where they stand. He doesn't want people to reach a contract on the basis of not knowing anything. The ignorance is knowledge of ourselves, he says. So we can know under these conditions behind the veil of ignorance the difference between being rich and being poor, being white and being black. We then see what our society looks like, but also where we stand in it. That's what utilitarian acid does. It burns through the gauze and the veil.