the worlds known oil reserves. In addition, since the 1970s,

the price of oil has fluctuated dramatically, often to the

detriment of revenues of OPEC members. Given the fact

that OPEC is comprised of ThirdWorld states, its members

claim that the criticisms leveled against it are thinly dis-

guised efforts of developed western states to maintain eco-

nomic colonialism. Critics of OPEC deny this charge andargue that the concerns they express aboutOPECs practices

are focused on its domination of the oil market.

With respect to concerns of global justice, OPEC has

been and continues to be enwrapped with controversy. On

the one hand, it has been portrayed by critics as a powerful

player in international markets, focused on its own inter-

ests at the expense of any globally recognized sense of a fair

distribution of an important natural resource. On theother hand, it has been portrayed by its supporters as an

important barrier to even greater domination by devel-

oped western economies. After all, they say, OPEC is

constituted by Third World countries and economies

that now control a crucial natural resource, one which

was once controlled by the exploitation of colonial pow-

ers, powers that used that resource for their own interests.

The just distribution, in terms of who does benefit andwho should benefit from the availability of oil, remains

a crucial issue both in itself as well as in its role in inter-

national and global actions (such as political or military

policies and decisions).

Related TopicsCapitalismColonialism Free TradeGlobal DemocracyGlobal EgalitarianismGlobal JusticeGlobal Resource DistributionGlobalization International OrganizationsMultinational CorporationsPost-ColonialismThird World Resistance

ReferencesAmuzegar J (2001) Managing the oil wealth: OPECs windfalls and

pitfalls. IB Tauris, London

Campbell KM, Price J (eds) (2008) The global politics of energy. The

Aspen Institute, Queenstown

Falola T, Genova A (2008) The politics of the global oil industry: an

introduction. Praeger, New York

Parra FR (2004) Oil politics: a modern history of petroleum. IB Tauris,

London

Skeet I (1991) OPEC: twenty-five years of prices and politics. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge

Original Position

ALYSSA R. BERNSTEIN

Department of Philosophy, Ohio University,

Athens, OH, USA

Much of the writing about global justice that has been

published since the 1970s has either used or criticized the

central ideas of John Rawlss conceptions of domestic and

international social justice, including in particular theoriginal position. Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge ini-

tially developed their own cosmopolitan positions partly

by criticizing Rawlss use of the original position in justice

as fairness (JF), the conception of a just society Rawls

presented in A Theory of Justice (1971; henceforth TJ),

and arguing for a globalized original position instead (see

the entries on Law of Peoples and Political Cosmo-politanism in this encyclopedia). Michael Blake (2005)devotes more than one-quarter of his long Stanford Ency-

clopedia of Philosophy article on international justice to

discussing the Law of Peoples (LP), Rawlss conception

of a just international order, and most of this discussion

involves Blakes interpretation of Rawlss contractarian

methodology, to which the original position is central.

Many criticisms of LP fail due to misinterpretations of

the original position and its use in Rawlss conceptions ofdomestic and international justice.

The original position is a structure of ideas that John

Rawls uses as a theoretical device for testing the fairness

(and thus, in his view, the justice) of principles for orga-

nizing political, social, and economic cooperation. To test

principles, one carries out a kind of thought experiment.

If participants in cooperation use the original position and

refer to it in their discussions, it may lead them to agree-ment about justice, international as well as domestic, or so

Rawls hopes.

The original position develops the familiar idea that

terms of cooperation are unfair if some of the participants

in the cooperation have good reasons, deriving from their

fundamental interests, not to agree to them. Since people

often do agree to unfair terms despite having good reasons

not to agree, actual agreement is not an adequate criterionof fairness. Fear and ignorance, among other factors, can

lead people to accept unfair terms; prejudice-based hostile

attitudes and possession of power over others, among

other factors, can lead people to propose or support unfair

terms. Therefore, a more adequate criterion of fairness

refers not to actual but to hypothetical agreement: the

terms to which people would agree if they all were well

786 O Original Position

informed and rational, and if they all were on an equal

footing. Clarifying such a criterion requires listing all of

the relevant if-clauses, or the conditions they state. In JF

Rawls draws up a list of such conditions and uses it,

together with other considerations, to devise a way of

testing proposed principles of domestic social justice.

The test involves imagining rational people in a hypothet-

ical, non-historical situation who must choose amongalternative proposed principles. Actual people who care

about fairness can use the test to clarify their own judg-

ment, when trying to determine whether anyone would

(if well-informed and rational, if on an equal footing, etc.)

have good reasons not to agree to a proposed principle. In

LP Rawls uses a different version of the original position in

order to test proposed principles of international justice

(See below, and see the entries on Second OriginalPosition and Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia).

In JF Rawls analyzes social justice in terms of an

agreement on the basic terms of social cooperation made

by those engaged in it, as do the social contract theories of

Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. (See Rawls (2007) for the

differences among his own, Lockes, and Rousseaus

views. For the similarities and differences between Rawlss

and Kants views, see Bernstein 2009.) According to Rawls,an agreement on the terms of social cooperation that is

entered into under conditions that situate free and equal

persons fairly is valid: the conditions must exclude coer-

cion and deception, andmust disallow unequal bargaining

advantages. In everyday life, agreements are made within

the context of societys basic structure and may be

distorted by it. In any society, cumulative historical devel-

opments of the basic structure inevitably give rise tocontingent bargaining advantages. These must not be

allowed to affect the agreement on the principles for

regulating these institutions, Rawls argues. Therefore he

conceives a hypothetical agreement.

In JF Rawls stipulates that each of the parties in the

imagined original position is a rational agent responsible

for the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen.

He situates all of the parties symmetrically: all have equalrights in the procedure for reaching agreement on princi-

ples, and all have (and lack) the same knowledge. They

have relevant general knowledge, but a veil of ignorance

prevents them from knowing specifics, including the

social status or class position of the particular citizens

they each represent, and also the citizens other individual

characteristics, including race, ethnicity, sex, gender,

native endowments (strength, intelligence, etc.), and reli-gious or secular comprehensive doctrine (moral outlook

and value system). This restriction models one of Rawlss

considered convictions, which he (explicitly) assumes is

shared by himself and his readers: the fact that we occupy

a particular social position (or have a certain skin color,

etc.) is not a good reason for us to propose, or to expect

others to accept, a conception of justice that favors the

people who are in this position (or who have the particular

characteristic). The veil of ignorance prevents the parties

from specially tailoring proposed principles and from

bargaining in the usual sense: in Rawlss words, it nullifiesthe effects of the contingent natural and social advantages

that might otherwise tempt citizens to exploit them to

their own advantage (Rawls 1971).

Rawls distinguishes between three points of view:

that of the parties in the original position, that of citizens

in a well-ordered society, and (in his words) that of

ourselves of you and me who are elaborating justice as

fairness and examining it as a political conception ofjustice (Rawls 1993). When Rawls speaks of you and

me, he is addressing any reader who shares his concern

that, as he says, there is no public agreement on how basic

institutions are to be arranged so as to bemost appropriate

to the freedom and equality of democratic citizenship.

An especially important root of this disagreement is

citizens conflicting conceptions of freedom and equality.

Rawls aims to provide, he says, an acceptable philosoph-ical and moral basis for the basic structure of a democratic

society, understood as excluding a caste, slave, racist,

confessional, or aristocratic state, by interpreting freedom

and equality (Rawls 2001).

The original position in JF models the freedom and

equality of citizens of a democratic society, which Rawls

views not as a fixed natural order but as structured by

values and principles, rules and procedures. A just demo-cratic society is, in Rawlss view, a fair system of social

cooperation guided by publicly recognized rules and pro-

cedures which those cooperating accept as appropriate to

regulate their conduct. Each citizen rationally seeks to

advance his or her own good, but all do so on terms each

can accept as fair according to an agreed-upon public

standard. According to Rawls, reasonable, as distinct

from merely rational, persons are ready to propose, orto acknowledge when proposed by others, the princi-

ples needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair

terms of cooperation (Rawls 2001). Such citizens have

the requisite mental and psychological capacities, namely,

(1) the capacity to have, revise, and rationally pursue

a conception of the good, and (2) the capacity to under-

stand, apply, and act from (not merely in accordance with)

the principles of justice that specify the fair terms of socialcooperation. According to Rawls, having these two moral

powers (of rationality and reasonableness) to the requi-

site threshold degree is both necessary and sufficient for

Original Position O 787

O

the status of equal citizen (Rawls 2001). Rawls regards each

citizen as a free person in two respects: (a) a citizens public

or legal identity as a free person is not affected by changes

over time in his or her determinate conception of the

good, and (b) citizens are self-authenticating sources of

valid claims, that is, they are entitled to make claims on

their institutions so as to advance their own conceptionsof the good (Rawls 2001). According to nondemocratic

views, only claims derived from members ascribed roles

in a social hierarchy justified by religious or aristocratic

values, or from their duties and obligations to society, have

weight. In developing JF, Rawls uses a political conception

of the person that is based, he says, on the way citizens are

regarded in the public political culture of a liberal-

democratic society, in its basic political texts (constitu-tions and declarations of human rights), and in the his-

torical tradition of interpretation of those texts (Rawls

2001). In developing LP, however, Rawls avoids using

this liberal political conception of the person (See the

entries on Second Original Position and Law ofPeoples in this encyclopedia).

Recall the three points of view Rawls distinguishes:

(1) that of ourselves, you and me in the present,(2) that of citizens in a just society (perhaps a future,

reformed version of ones own society), and (3) that of

the parties in the original position. In describing the

parties, we are not describing persons as we find them,

Rawls says, but instead according to how we want to

model rational representatives of free and equal citizens

(Rawls 2001). As Rawls models the parties in the original

position in JF, each is rational, all are symmetrically situ-ated behind the veil of ignorance, each is responsible for

the fundamental interests of a free and equal citizen, each

evaluates alternative principles by estimating how well

they secure the primary goods essential to realize the

higher-order interests of the citizen for whom each acts

as a trustee, and all have equal rights in the procedure for

reaching agreement and choosing a conception of justice

from the available alternatives (Rawls 1993). Thus Rawlssets up the original position in JF to model citizens

freedom and equality. In LP, since he is developing basic

principles for a just international order, Rawls stipulates

that each of the parties in the original position is respon-

sible for the fundamental interests of a society that

respects human rights (see the entries on Law of Peoplesand Second Original Position in this encyclopedia).

Using the original position, Rawls argues in JF for thefollowing principles: (1) Each person has the same inde-

feasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic

liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same

scheme of liberties for all; and (2) social and economic

inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: (a) they are to be

attached to offices and positions open to all under condi-

tions of fair equality of opportunity; and (b) they are to

be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members

of society. Principle (2b) is the difference principle

(Rawls 2001).

Rawls says he characterizes the original position of JFby various stipulations, each with its own reasoned back-

ing, so that the agreement that would be reached can be

worked out deductively by reasoning from how the parties

are situated and described, the information available to

them, the alternatives open to them, and what they count

as reasons. The parties are only rational, not reasonable (in

the sense given above), but (due to the stipulations,

including the veil of ignorance and the parties task ofsecuring the primary goods) they are subject to reasonable

restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they can

give each other for favoring one principle or rejecting

another. The principles that would be chosen unani-

mously by the parties in the original position (namely,

Rawls argues, the pair he proposes) are the ones that can

best secure the fundamental interests of every citizen, if

their societys basic structure is reformed according tothese principles (Rawls 2001). Therefore, reasonable citi-

zens of such a society would support these principles, and

people in nondemocratic or non-well-ordered democratic

societies, who are reasonable and want their society to be

a just democratic society of free and equal citizens, will

want to know which principles would be chosen by the

(rational, not reasonable) parties in the original position,

and will be ready to propose and abide by these principles.Similarly, when developing the principles and norms

of a just international order in LP, Rawls characterizes

the original position by various stipulations. The parties

are only rational, not reasonable, but due to the veil of

ignorance and the parties task, they are subject to reason-

able restrictions (imposed by Rawls) on the reasons they

can offer each other when advocating or opposing princi-

ples. The principles that would be chosen unanimously bythe parties are the ones that can best secure the funda-

mental interests of every people and best secure basic

human rights globally, if peoples establish a Society of

Peoples based on these principles. (See the entries on

Second Original Position and Law of Peoples in thisencyclopedia).

In JF Rawls assumes that a democratic society of free

and equal citizens will be pluralistic. If all citizens are toendorse the conception of justice freely, it must, he says, be

able to gain the support of citizens who affirm different

and opposing though reasonable comprehensive doc-

trines, in which case there would be an overlapping

788 O Original Position

consensus (see Rawls (1993, 1999), as well as the entries

on Political Liberalism and Public Reason in thisencyclopedia). Rawls structures the original position and

formulates his principles and his argument so as to show

that the content of a defensible conception of justice can

be derived from certain ideas drawn from the public

political culture of a democratic society. He does not, he

emphasizes, look to the comprehensive doctrines that infact exist and then frame a political conception that strikes

a balance between them expressly designed to gain their

allegiance (Rawls 2001). Instead, he puts citizens compre-

hensive doctrines behind the veil of ignorance. This makes

it possible, he says, to find a political conception of justice

that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus and

thereby serve as a public basis of justification in a society

marked by the fact of reasonable pluralism (Rawls 1993).Similarly, in LP, Rawls does not survey the globes com-

prehensive doctrines and then frame a political concep-

tion that strikes a compromise among them. However, he

does develop a political conception of international justice

that can be the focus of an overlapping consensus among

reasonable peoples. (See the entry on Law of Peoples inthis encyclopedia).

Rawls stipulates in JF that the parties in the originalposition are mutually disinterested (Rawls 1971). This is

another way he both models citizens as free and equal and

avoids building in assumptions about their conceptions of

the good. If each party focuses only on securing the fun-

damental interests of one citizen, then no citizen will be

either double-counted or discounted, and every citizens

fundamental interests will get secured. The stipulation of

mutual disinterest does not, he emphasizes, mean thatthe parties or the citizens they represent are egoists, that

is, individuals with only certain kinds of interests, for

example, in wealth, prestige, and domination. Instead, he

explains, it avoids ruling out the possibility that their

spiritual aims may be opposed, in the way that the aims

of those of different religions may be opposed (Rawls

1971). Even though Rawls recognizes that citizens in soci-

ety will of course have ties of sentiment and affection, andwant to advance the interests of others and to see their

ends attained, he stipulates that the parties in the original

position are not moved by affection or esteem to confer

benefits on any others, nor moved by envy or rancor to

deny benefits to any others; he stipulates mutual disinter-

est in order to ensure that the principles of justice do not

depend upon what he calls strong assumptions (Rawls

1971). The veil of ignorance ensures that the mutuallydisinterested parties, each aiming to secure the fundamen-

tal interests of one citizen, do not know the specific values

or aims of the citizen they each represent. It forces each

party to consider how each principle might affect every-

one, especially the people who would end up in the least

advantaged positions. Each partys best option is the prin-

ciple(s) that will best enable the (represented) citizen to

pursue his or her goals, whatever these goals turn out to be

and whatever position the citizen turns out to occupy.

Similarly, in LP an analogous stipulation that the parties

in the original position are mutually disinterested ensuresthat every peoples fundamental interests will get secured

in the Society of Peoples.

The question Rawls tries to answer in JF is the follow-

ing, he says: Which principles are most appropriate

for a democratic society that not only professes but

wants to take seriously the idea that citizens are free and

equal, and tries to realize that idea in its main institutions?

He rephrases this question as follows: Once we view ademocratic society as a fair system of social cooperation

between citizens regarded as free and equal, what princi-

ples are most appropriate to it? (Rawls 2001). The prin-

ciples are to specify basic rights and liberties and to

regulate fundamental social and economic inequalities,

namely, Rawls says, the differences in citizens prospects

over a complete life, as these are affected by such things as

their social class of origin, their native endowments, theiropportunities for education, and their good or ill fortune

over the course of life. These inequalities are, he says, his

primary concern in JF (Rawls 2001). After arguing for the

first principle (which ascribes equal basic liberties), Rawls

considers whether any differences in citizens life prospects

can be consistent with the idea of free and equal citizen-

ship in a society that is seen as a fair system of cooperation,

and if so, what principles establish the legitimacy of thosedifferences.

This question about legitimate inequalities requires an

answer that appeals only to principles and values that each

citizen can endorse, because as participants in a constitu-

tional democracy, they will use the coercive power of their

state to conform their societys institutions to these prin-

ciples and values, thus wielding political power over one

another. No answer is immediately evident to Rawls; hesays that his convictions about principles regulating social

and economic inequalities are much less firm and assured

than his firmest considered convictions about equal basic

rights and liberties, the fair value of the political liberties

and fair equality of opportunity (Rawls 2001). Therefore,

Rawls considers the appropriate method for finding the

guidance that is needed. He proposes taking guidance

from his firmest considered convictions about the natureof a democratic society. In order to see whether the

combined assertion of those convictions by means of the

original position will help to identify an appropriate

Original Position O 789

O

distributive principle, he stipulates that the parties assume

that the equal basic liberties and fair opportunities are

already secured, and that they then decide how to regulate

inequalities. Thus Rawls looks outside the sphere of dis-

tributive justice more narrowly construed, he says, to see

whether an appropriate distributive principle is singled

out by his firmest convictions once their essential elementsare represented in the original position (Rawls 2001). In

LP, when developing the principles of international justice,

Rawls takes guidance from his firmest convictions about

basic human rights.

Rawls does not hold that the original position is in all

cases the device most appropriate to use for answering

questions about justice; indeed, he suggests otherwise, by

showing how his specific question about principles fora democratic society guides him in specifying and using

the original position in JF. Similarly, in LP Rawls shows

how his specific question about the fundamental principles

and norms of a reasonably just international order guides

him in setting up and using the original position at the

second level, that is, the level of relations among politically

organized groups, which are more complex and thus logi-

cally higher level than relations among individuals.One can use the original position to guide judgment

when applying the principles of JF to constitutional

arrangements, laws, and policies, Rawls says; each ques-

tion is to be considered from the point of view of the

original position, with its knowledge conditions appropri-

ately modified for each case (Rawls 1971). Further, one can

use the original position to determine principles for

addressing injustice. The parties in the original positionof JF assume strict compliance, that is, that citizens can

and will generally comply with the chosen principles; they

assume that a just society can in due course be achieved,

and they choose principles of justice suitable for favorable

conditions (Rawls 1971). The conception of justice devel-

oped on the assumption of strict compliance belongs to

ideal theory and sets up the goal to guide social reform.

Nonideal theory, including principles for addressinginjustice, can be worked out from the point of view of

the original position, but only after the ideal is specified

(Rawls 1971). The same holds for the Law of Peoples

(Rawls 1999).

Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge criticize JFs original

position, arguing that international interdependence has

become so extensive, and international inequalities so

extreme, that principles of social justice should applyglobally; and that therefore the parties in the original

position must not represent a single societys citizens but

the population of the entire globe, all matters of national

citizenship being concealed by the veil of ignorance.

A global original position would, they contend, yield glob-

ally applicable analogues of the two principles of JF (See

the entry on Law of Peoples in this encyclopedia).Amartya Sen (2009) criticizes Rawlss ideal theory as

transcendental and of little practical use for addressing

real-world injustices. In reply, Samuel Freeman (2010)

notes that although consequentialists (including Sen)regard ideal theories as unnecessary, Rawls opposed

consequentialism by arguing that justice restricts permis-

sible means for promoting good consequences. Moreover,

Freeman argues, idealizations designed to systematize our

moral convictions can clarify ideas about justice, guide

thinking about long-term or extensive reforms, and

inspire action. If Freeman and Rawls are right, the original

position can be of significant help in the effort to securejustice both domestically and globally.

Related TopicsContractarianism Law of PeoplesPolitical LiberalismPublic ReasonRawls, John Second Original Position Social Contract

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Cambridge

Dworkin R (1973) The original position. Univ Chic Law Rev

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Freeman S (2010) A new theory of justice. New York Review of Books,

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Nagel T (1973) Rawls on justice. Philos Rev 82(2):220234

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Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York

Rawls J (1999) The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Rawls J (2001) Justice as fairness: a restatement. Harvard University Press,

Cambridge

Rawls J (2007) Lectures on the history of political philosophy. Harvard

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Scanlon TM (2003) Rawls on justification. In: Freeman S (ed) The

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790 O Original Position