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Is the Veil of Ignorance Transparent?

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Author Info

  • Giraud, Gaël

    () (CNRS, Paris School of Economics)

  • Renouard, Cécile

    () (ESSEC Business School)

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 society. In this paper, we provide a framework showing that preferences in front of the veil of ignorance (i.e., in face of every day risky situations) are entirely determined by 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 separated from ethical questioning.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School in its series ESSEC Working Papers with number DR 09016.

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Length: 21 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-09016

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Postal: ESSEC Research Center, BP 105, 95021 Cergy, France
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Web page: http://www.essec.edu/
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Related research

Keywords: Business Ethics; Distributional Justice; Maximin Principle; Moral Preferences; Original Position; Social Choice; Social Preferences; Theory of Justice; Utilitarianism; Veil of Ignorance;

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  1. Baroni, Michel & Barthélémy, Fabrice & Mokrane, Mahdi, 2005. "A PCA Factor Repeat Sales Index (1973-2001) To Forecast Apartment Prices in Paris (France)," ESSEC Working Papers DR 05002, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
  2. Radu Vranceanu & Claire Naiditch, 2009. "Remittances as a Social Status Signaling Device," Post-Print hal-00551869, HAL.
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