Editing Original position (section)

== History ==
The concept of the veil of ignorance has been in use by other names for centuries by philosophers such as [[John Stuart Mill]] and [[Immanuel Kant]] whose work discussed the concept of the [[social contract]], [[Adam Smith]] with his "impartial spectator", or the [[ideal observer theory]]. [[John Harsanyi]] was the first to mathematically formalize the concept,<ref name="Cardinal2" /><ref name=":0" /> using it to  an argument in favor of [[utilitarianism]] rather than an argument for a social contract (as [[Rational choice theory|rational]] agents consider [[Expected value|expected]] outcomes, not [[Minimax|worst-case outcomes]]).<ref name="SEP2">{{cite web |last1=Freeman |first1=Samuel |date=2016 |title=Original Position |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ |access-date=13 September 2017 |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref> The usage of the term by John Rawls was developed in his 1971 book ''[[A Theory of Justice]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rawls |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/theoryofjustice00rawlrich |title=A Theory of Justice |publisher=[[Belknap Press]] |year=1971 |isbn=0-674-00078-1 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name=restate />

Modern work tends to focus on the different [[Decision theory|decision theories]] that might describe the choice of the decision-maker "behind the veil".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mongin |first=Ph. |year=2001 |title=The Impartial Observer Theorem of Social Ethics |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/MONTIO-4 |journal=Economics and Philosophy |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=147–179 |doi=10.1017/S0266267101000219 |s2cid=17352285}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gajdos |first1=Th. |last2=Kandil |first2=F. |year=2008 |title=The Ignorant Observer |url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00177374/file/observateur15.pdf |journal=[[Social Choice and Welfare]] |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=193–232 |doi=10.1007/s00355-007-0274-8 |s2cid=11230946}}</ref> In addition, Michael Moehler has shown that, from a moral point of view, decision theory is not necessarily central to veil of ignorance arguments, but the precise moral ideals that are assumed to model the veil. From a moral point of view, there is not one veil of ignorance but many different versions of it.<ref>Moehler, Michael (2018), ''[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/minimal-morality-9780198785927 Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory]''. Oxford University Press.</ref>