. The only flaw I find in it is the inability of the human creature to leave behind his or her prejudices to think in this way. This sort of thinking that Rawls proposes is "outside of the box" for most of us as human beings. This shortcoming is shared with the idea of the state of nature in other political philosophers as well (such as Hobbes or Locke). An important aspect to the Original Position (and one that addresses some of our prominent human traits and short-comings) is the idea of the Veil of Ignorance. This is a very necessary idea that allows Rawls's philosophy to really work. The Veil of Ignorance basically deals with Rawls's belief that part of our human nature is egotist and it is mostly concerned and acts out of our own rational self interests. Rawls, unlike many idealistic writers, seems to me very rational in tackling this problem. Many utopian writers seem to either want to gloss over problems with human nature and believe people are all simply inherently good (thereby bypassing having to tackle these sort of thorny issues). With the Veil, Rawls recognizes and deals in a very rational way with self interest. The Veil of Ignorance is essentially a creation that Rawls comes up with and applies to the person in the Original Position. The person in the Original Position, under the Veil, is not aware of where they will end up in the society (hence the name "veil of ignorance"). In the society that results from the Original Position, the person may end up being a professional athlete, a brain surgeon, a tree surgeon, a clerk, or even mentally ill and incapable of doing work and dependent solely upon the society to take care of them. By adding this element to his state of nature, Rawls strips away our self interest. Human beings, he argues, tend to have a plan for their "perfect" societies. In this case, they can have no plan because they do not know where they will end up in society. I think a good illustrative example of th...