IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/ecnphi/v24y2008i02p233-257_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Veil Of Ignorance Violates Priority

Author

Listed:
  • Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.
  • Roemer, John E.

Abstract

The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by appending information permitting objective comparisons among persons. In order to do so, we introduce the concept of objective empathy. We show that the veil-of-ignorance conception of John Harsanyi, so completed, and Ronald Dworkin's, when modelled formally, recommend wealth allocations in conflict with the prominently espoused view that priority should be given to the less able in wealth allocation. We finally argue that the veil of ignorance should be rejected as a tool for discovering what justice requires.

Suggested Citation

  • Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Roemer, John E., 2008. "The Veil Of Ignorance Violates Priority," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 233-257, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:24:y:2008:i:02:p:233-257_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S026626710800182X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Scott L. Newbert & Michael D. Stouder, 2011. "Justice in entrepreneurial organizations," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(5), pages 453-465, April.
    2. Matthew D Adler & Nils Holtug, 2019. "Prioritarianism: A response to critics," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 18(2), pages 101-144, May.
    3. Abatemarco, Antonio & Stroffolini, Francesca, 2017. "The Economics of Justice as Fairness," EconStor Preprints 176843, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Thijs De Coninck & Frederik Van De Putte, 2023. "Original position arguments and social choice under ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 275-298, February.
    5. Biung-Ghi Ju & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, 2023. "Taxation behind the veil of ignorance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(1), pages 165-181, January.
    6. John E. Roemer & Alain Trannoy, 2013. "Equality of Opportunity," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1921, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. Che-Yuan Liang, 2017. "Optimal inequality behind the veil of ignorance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 431-455, October.
    8. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2023. "Entitlements to continued life and the evaluation of population health," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 27(3), pages 561-579, September.
    9. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Roberto Veneziani, 2017. "Social welfare, justice and distribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(3), pages 415-421, December.
    10. Moreno-Terneroy , Juan D & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2015. "The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health," DaCHE discussion papers 2015:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:24:y:2008:i:02:p:233-257_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/eap .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.