Whose Impartiality? An Experimental Study of Veiled Stakeholders, Involved Spectators and Detached Observers

Abstract

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders' case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tendWe are grateful to the two editors and two referees for constructive advice that induced major revisions of the article.

Justice Under Uncertainty

“…3 Importantly, this third-party impartiality procedure is not equivalent to the Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" (Rawls 1971), because spectators' earnings in the experiment are completely unrelated to their allocation decisions. We deliberately did not choose a "behind the veil of ignorance" approach because it has been shown that the type of uncertainty entailed by the veil of ignorance influences individuals' allocation behavior by introducing insurance purposes (Aguiar et al 2010, Schildberg-Hörisch 2010 and strategic considerations (Gerber et al 2014). there is no uncertainty for both recipients, we expect all spectators to choose the equal split. However, will this also be the case when a recipient is exposed to uncertainty?…”

The Influence of Distributive Justice on Agricultural Environmental Sustainability

“…Other studies which have considered the distributive justice preferences of individuals have typically conducted the research using students as participants [34][35][36]. Faravelli [34] finds that the selection of a particular distribution is related to the type of university course the respondent is enrolled in (i.e.…”

“…However, Konow [35] finds no evidence that personal characteristics can be used as predictors of distributive preferences. Aditionally, Aguiar et al [36] finds that the social preferences of participants do not affect individuals' decisions under impartiality conditions.…”

Justice under Uncertainty

“…We deliberately did not choose a 'behind the veil of ignorance' approach because it has been shown that the type of uncertainty entailed by the veil of ignorance influences individuals' allocation behavior by introducing insurance purposes (Aguiar et al 2010, Schildberg-Hörisch 2010 and strategic considerations (Gerber et al 2014). equal split. However, will this also be the case when a recipient is exposed to uncertainty?…”