What the Veil Reveals
Introduction
In my early teens, I read a book by I think it was Dale Carnegie and one idea from it has stayed with me for over 40 years.
The book suggested that one should walk a mile in another person's shoes before judging (for being untruthful, immoral, wearing Crocs, or whatever). As a young, non-native English speaker, I of course recognized it as a metaphor but not as a common English expression and, therefore, I spent more time pondering the concept than I otherwise probably would have.
Just a Mile or a Lifetime
I imagined not just walking a mile in someone's shoes, but an entire life. Assuming I got swapped at birth, would I end up being the same person I am now? Unlikely; my upbringing would be different; friends, education, etc. If a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado weeks later, then the accumulation of all those differences would have to result in a completely different me.
Would I then end up resembling the person who I currently judge? Almost certainly not, if only because I inherited different genes and a different immune system from my biological parents, making me susceptible to different ailments and diseases. That alone would put me on a different path through life, and undoubtedly shape me into a completely different person. Admittedly, this is a practical, not a moral cause [1], but it does justify the following conclusion:
Differences between people are caused by different starting conditions and differing experiences in the lives that follow. In other words: they are genetic and environmental.
If Reddit had existed in the early 1980s, I'd probably have posted these thoughts on r/im14andthisisdeep.
At this point, an obvious objection arises: what about free will? A fair question. But unless free will is nothing more than a fancy random choice generator, would it, too, not be shaped by one's experiences? Upbringing, religious instruction, ethics classes and the like would be completely useless if they didn't influence the way one goes through life.
Suggesting that free will may not really exist makes many people feel highly uncomfortable. However, ignoring the argument against free will simply because it makes us uncomfortable is like saying "A bus filled with cute kittens can't possibly drive off a cliff because the consequences of that are just too horrific to consider." (Replace kittens with puppies if you're a dog person.)
None of these considerations are new, of course, but they were new to me at the time. The idea that differences in opinion, attitude, etc., between someone else and me might have an external root cause, shaped how I interact with other people.
For me it's surprising to hold a truth that I consider self-evident, and still come across people who oppose that same "truth." When handled poorly (and, of course, depending on what the subject is), this could become a source of conflict. Whenever I run into an opinion that feels obviously wrong, I try (not always successfully) to understand the assumptions underneath it before dismissing it outright.
I've been on the Internet since 1992 and, as a European, I always found the American attachment to firearms somewhat puzzling. That changed after a discussion with an American defender of gun rights on a Usenet newsgroup (Usenet is what we used before the World Wide Web, for those who weren't there).
It has been roughly thirty years, so I no longer remember his exact words, but the gist was that governments throughout history have killed far more people than private citizens with firearms. From that perspective, widespread civilian gun ownership becomes less of a problem and more of a safeguard against state power.
I did some research afterwards (using AltaVista; the Google-before-Google) and came away thinking that, whether or not I agreed with him, the position itself was internally consistent in a way I had not initially recognized. I did not suddenly become pro-gun. What changed was that I stopped treating the view as irrational by default. It was rooted in a different ordering of priorities than mine, not in a lack of logic.
I’ve never had an abundance of friends ("No kidding; you sound like someone who always breaks the ice at parties."), but curiously, the friends I do have tend to hold opinions on important issues (such as religion and politics; topics you try hard to avoid during holiday dinners with family) that I strongly disagree with. And yet, for me that does not disqualify them as friends. When we engage in discussions about those or any other subjects, I try not to refute their points of view, but instead, challenge them to see if their opinions are consistent.
Doing this well is surprisingly difficult: you have to explore and absorb their views, temporarily suspend your own, and try to "steelman" their position: building up the strongest, most bulletproof version of their argument. Only then can you look for genuine inconsistencies, ensuring you are testing their actual worldview rather than a caricature of it. When it comes to opinions, consistency is the least you can require. When views diverge sharply, it may also be the most you can ask for.
The Veil of Ignorance
I find that with a foundation of consistency, it's easier to have a certain level of respect for differing opinions. But respect does not imply immediate acceptance: I still do enjoy engaging in discussions with people who think differently than I do.
A device that I like to use in discussions is John Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance". To those who are unfamiliar with the idea, I usually explain it like this:
Imagine you are still in a womb, soon to be born. You have your current mental capacities, but know nothing else: you don't know your health, your gender, the color of your skin... Nothing. Now design the world that you would want to be born in.
When I was first confronted with this idea (watching an episode of The West Wing) and looked into it, I was in awe. It hits the abstraction sweet spot: it's abstract enough to be widely applicable, yet not so abstract that it's incomprehensible to people who are not used to thinking in abstract terms.
What also makes the Veil such a nice tool in a discussion is that it's a non-aggressive mirror: when you apply it in a discussion with someone, you're not attacking their current view; you're showing them the other side of it.
A few months ago I had a short conversation with a friend on the topic of refugees and immigration -- world-wide a very topical discussion, unfortunately. He's a really nice guy, generous with his time, but politically he tends to react more instinctively than analytically. He opposes immigration, mostly based on the preconception that refugees/immigrants are often fortune-seekers. I introduced the idea of the "Veil of Ignorance" to him much like I did, above. I asked him to design a world taking into account he might be born in a war-torn area like Gaza, Syria or Ukraine. Because of circumstances, we didn't get to flesh out this idea but based on his initial reaction I think the seed landed. I hope it germinated.
Slightly off-topic side note: when referring to refugees, the label "fortune-seeker" bothers me. When you flee a country that is at war, it's natural, not opportunistic, to flee to a place that's not just safe but also has a decent standard of living. Modesty does not drive a person to trade war for poverty.
Conclusion
Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes is not just an exercise in empathy, it’s a diagnostic tool for our own intellectual consistency. When we use tools like the Veil of Ignorance, we aren't trying to win an argument; we are simply asking, "Is the world you want to build only good because you lucked into the demographic that benefits from it?"
If we want to live in a world that is genuinely fair, we have to be willing to draft the blueprints from behind the Veil, blind to our own self-interest. And just when you think the Veil obscures all you should not see, someone comes along and stretches it a little further.
Epilogue
I was recently reminded of the Veil when I reconnected with an erudite hero of mine from my early twenties. He has since become an active member of a local chapter of the Partij voor de Dieren (the Dutch Party for the Animals; a party that promotes animal welfare).
While reading his introductory profile on their website, I realized that, without explicitly naming John Rawls, he took the Veil of Ignorance and draped it over the animal kingdom. I confess, it caught me completely off guard. I've grown accustomed to wondering "How would I feel if I were in their shoes?" but it had been strictly limited to human footwear. For the past 20 years [2] or so I've increasingly empathized with animals, but it never occurred to me to apply John Rawls' idea to them.
It was a humbling demonstration of consistency pushed to its elegant conclusion. And it left me sitting there, staring at my screen, realizing that the seed of that thought is now germinating in me, too.
[1] This is not taking into account antisocial behavior such as psychopathy. However, if we were to also take this hereditary behavior into account, it would only amplify my point.
[2] With embarrassment, I admit that until about 20 years ago, I considered battery farming "a fairly efficient way to produce food."