Thus, deliberating behind a veil of ignorance, people determine their rights and duties. In this hypothetical situation, which corresponds to the state of nature in social contract theory, no one knows his or her place in society his or her class position or social status his or her fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities his or her intelligence, strength, and the like or even his or her conception of the good. The principles of justice he sets forth are those that free and rational persons would accept in an initial position of equality. Rawls attempts to account for these propositions, which he believes express our intuitive convictions of the primacy of justice. Therefore in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests". "Each person" writes John Rawls, "possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.
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