#75 Veil of ignorance - extended

In today's idea, we invite you to work out the rules for a constructive debate or panel discussion together with your target group using a thought experiment from the 1970s.

You may be familiar with John Rawls' thought experiment "The veil of ignorance". It invites you to imagine our society without knowing our future social, economic or cultural position. On this basis, we should consider, for example, what rules we want to give ourselves for living together. The trick: in our thought experiment, we do not know in advance what more or less privileged position we will occupy in society. We will therefore probably try to invent rules that are as fair as possible for everyone.

In relation to an educational situation such as a pro-con debate or discussion group, we could also ask ourselves what rules we would like to set ourselves so that the exchange and discussion are as fair as possible. To do this, first sensitize your participants to the different resources and starting conditions with which people might enter a discussion. Think together about what could be the reason why, for example, regardless of your own preparation, the proportion of speeches is often very different or what challenges are involved in representing unpopular or minority positions. It can also be helpful to reflect on your own privileges or prejudices.

One way to motivate the veil of ignorance even more as a thought experiment could be to distribute the challenges identified to the participants via role cards and have them enter the discussion from their roles. In this way, the jointly established rules could also be tested for their effectiveness.

You can also use our social lots for this idea. Have a look here.