MAJOR 3&4

HUL 258
NAME: KANISHK JAIN
Entry No: 2018ME20689

3) Explain the ‘veil of ignorance’ concept of John Rawls.

John rawls attempted to describe how society should look at the idea of justice. He used veil of
ignorance as a way to describe functioning and formation of basic structures and institutions in a just
society. He believed that while taking a decision for society, one should be unaware of facts like
caste, race, gender to avoid discrimination. The veil of ignorance emphasizes on ignoring general
facts like gender, wealth, race, strengths, powers and weakness too. After ignoring them, we could
form rules that governs a just society and are acceptable to all individuals living in that society.The
viel is necessary to ensure that that no one thinks or get tempted to think for their personal benefit
rather thinks for the benefit of society as a whole. The reason for ignoring these facts is that John
thinks these facts are all arbitrary and people have them by luck rather than earning or deserving
them. This viel also hides facts about society and your view of good like political and moral beliefs.
His idea of justice was not the perfect one and was critisized by various philosophers as it narrowed
the possible outcome. Also this can’t be applied in real world scenario as everyone has biasedness in
their mind of their own personal concerns and values.

4) Write a note on Karl Marx's concept of Alienation.

Karl Marx described alienation as a result of lack of sense of control over the social world. People
feels themselves as isolated or alien in the society. Marx mainly focused on economic alienation as it
affects mind and action. He believed that alienation can lead to devaluation of human beings and
dehumanization due to exploitation. He argued that worker neither receives satisfaction from his
work nor the final product which prevents him from using his creative powers. Main source of
alienation is division of labour. Worker doesn’t own anything nor the rights or power, he is just a
minute part of process which makes him feel unimportant and meaningless creature. Profit
produced by him is also not given to him. His talent and hardwork are used by someone else to make
money and push him into a state of misery and idiocy.