Veil of ignorance

The veil of ignorance is a concept introduced by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. Essentially, he imagines representatives negotiating a social contract, with the requirement that they do not know how well they will be endowed in that contract - including such attributes as intelligence, beauty and energy. It is a philosophical idea related of method of two people dividing a cake: one cuts, the other chooses first.

The veil of ignorance is part of the long tradition of thinking in terms of a social contract. See John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson and The Federalist Papers for examples of this tradition.