论无知之幕和社会契约的作用

On the Role of Veil of Ignorance and Social Contract

罗尔斯为公平正义提供了三种证成方法:社会契约论、理性选择论与融贯论。这三种方法都与原初状态密不可分,原初状态中最关键的又是无知之幕的假设。人们由于混淆了"应得"、"不应得"和"非应得"的概念,导致了对无知之幕假设的误解,将其与运气均等主义错误地等同起来。澄清无知之幕与应得以及多元主义的关系之后,我们会发现,公平正义的证成实际上在于其融贯论。原初状态与无知之幕的作用在于模拟一种契约式的审思来理解那些表面无害、广为我们接受的道德前提所具有的逻辑蕴涵。社会契约与理性选择在此中只是作为思考的平台、理性的显示装置发挥作用,而与公平正义的证成无关。

Rawls suggests three approaches to justify justice as fairness, social contract theory, ration- al choice theory and theory of coherence. These approaches are closely related to original position whose essential hypothesis is the veil of ignorance. Because of the confusion of ＂desert, un-desert and non-desert, we conflate the veil of ignorance with luck egalitarianism. After clarification of the relation between the veil of ignorance and desert and pluralism, it is not hard to see that the real justification for justice as fairness is his theory of coherence. And the role of the original position and the veil of ig- norance is just to simulate a kind of deliberation of contract and to understand the logical implications of those moral premises which are apparently innoxious and widely accepted. So the role of social con- tract and rational choice has nothing to do with justification for justice as fairness and they are just im- portant devices for articulating rationality.