Justice

I am reading Michael Sandel's book Justice and last night Tita asked me about it and said I should talk about it on the blog. So here goes. Sandel's class on justice draws 1000 students at Harvard each time it is taught and this book is easily understandable, although like all good philosophy it is not casual reading. One problem in deciding what our societal institutions should do is that we reason from our particular situations. If I come from a rich family and am healthy I will look at the world differently than someone who is born poor with a disability. John Rawls, one the most famous modern philosophers, came up with a way to think about the issue more objectively. He uses the idea of a social contract but with some twists. Imagine that you make judgments behind a veil of ignorance, that is you do not know what talents you have, what your social standing is, etc. You could end up on either end of many spectrums that do not result from anything you are responsible for, but are just a matter of luck. How would you have our institutions function?