Several of us have been reading John Rawls and his Theory of Justice which has intrigued us as we've thought about our work in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In this work we regularly talk about how we can do a better job of supporting each person in our community and Rawls causes us to think more deeply on this issue.
In his book, Rawls asks us to consider how we might redesign a community or society from scratch and asks us to reflect on several questions:
- How would you distribute wealth and power?
- How would you make everyone equal, or not?
- How would you define fairness and equality?
He offers a process whereby decision makers could only make laws and rules from behind the Veil of Ignorance in which they would not know who they would be in this perfect society. His theory is that the rule makers would not know their natural abilities, their sex, race, nationality or individual tastes and, as a result, would create a more equitable society. He posits that in this new society everyone would have the best possible life.
As an illustration, consider a rule that some classroom teachers and families have regarding the sharing of the last cookie or last slice of pizza. The rule is: You can choose to split the last one into pieces or you can be the first to choose which piece you would like. This rule has created fairness in our house on many an occasion!
One of the questions I frequently ponder at GDS as we consider a rule or policy is, "If I did not know if this would affect me or not, would I support it?" This question allows me to mentally walk around the table and consider many different points of view before making a decision.
Although I doubt that Rawls believes that it's possible to create such a perfect society, his thoughts do tickle my thinking and make me think twice about the decisions I make and how they might affect each person or family in our community.
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