Veil of Ignorance Lesson Plan and Classroom Activity
A free 45-minute lesson on John Rawls’s veil of ignorance. Students design a society, get born into it as a random citizen, and find out whether their own laws protected them. It runs in the browser on iPads and Chromebooks, with no login.
- Level
- Grades 9–12
- Time
- 45 minutes
- Devices
- 1:1 or projector
- Subjects
- Civics, ethics, ToK
Learning objectives
By the end of the lesson, students can:
- Explain the original position and the veil of ignorance in their own words.
- Apply Rawls’s maximin idea (judge a society by its worst-off member) to a concrete set of policies.
- Compare it with a utilitarian standard (the highest average) and say when the two disagree.
- Defend a policy choice using reasons that do not depend on their own position.
45-minute lesson structure
- 0–5 min
Hook
Ask: "You are about to be born into a country, but you don’t know as whom. Rich or poor, healthy or sick. What one law would you want in place?" Collect three or four answers on the board without discussing them yet.
- 5–10 min
Introduce Rawls
Explain the original position and the veil of ignorance in two sentences: people choosing rules for a society without knowing their place in it. The rules they would pick there are, for Rawls, the fair ones. Leave the difference principle for the debrief.
- 10–20 min
Round 1: design and spin
Students open the simulator, choose five laws (taxation, healthcare, education, automation, housing), then spin the Wheel of Fate. They are born as one of 16 citizens, from a tech founder to a child in foster care, and see how that life went under their own laws. They record the result on the worksheet.
- 20–25 min
Inspect the whole society
On the results screen, students look at all 16 citizens and the four scores: Rawlsian (the worst-off citizen), utilitarian (the average), egalitarian (equality) and libertarian (freedom). Most societies do well on one score and badly on another. Students note which.
- 25–32 min
Round 2: challenge a classmate
Each student taps "Challenge" to copy a link to their society and sends it to a partner, who plays inside it. Partners compare: whose world protected the other person better?
- 32–45 min
Debrief
Run the discussion questions below. Close by returning to the board: did anyone change the law they picked in the first five minutes, and why?
Running it 1:1 (iPads, Chromebooks)
Post the link thynkiq.com/experiments/veil-of-ignorance in your LMS or on the board. Each student plays on their own device. Sound effects are short and can be muted from the device. Nothing is saved to an account, so a refresh starts over.
Running it on a projector
Take a class vote on each of the five laws and enter the winners. Before you spin, ask students to predict who will be worst off. Spin two or three times so the class sees several lives inside the same society.
Using challenge links to compare societies
After a round, the “Challenge” button copies a link that encodes the student’s five laws. Whoever opens it skips the drafting step and is born straight into that society. Some ways to use it:
- Partner swap: students exchange links and play each other’s world.
- Class constitution: build the class’s voted society once, copy the link, and post it so every student is born into the same world.
- Homework: students send a link to a family member and report back on whether that person survived.
Discussion questions
- Before you spun the wheel, which citizen were you designing the society for? Be honest.
- Did the citizen you were born as do better or worse than you expected? What does that tell you about the laws you chose?
- Rawls says a fair society maximises the position of its worst-off member. Your society scored highest on which lens? Would Rawls approve?
- A utilitarian would choose the rules with the highest average wellbeing, even if a few people do badly. When is that the right call?
- Which of the five laws had the biggest effect on the worst-off citizens? Was that the one you expected?
- Is it realistic to imagine not knowing who you are? What does the thought experiment leave out?
- After playing your partner’s challenge: whose world would you rather be born into blind, and why?
- Pick a real policy debate in the news. What would you choose about it from behind the veil?
The four scores, briefly
The results screen scores each society four ways. They are a quick way to show students that “fair” has more than one definition.
- Rawlsian
- Wellbeing of the worst-off citizen. This is Rawls’s maximin rule.
- Utilitarian
- Average wellbeing across all 16 citizens, as in Bentham, Mill and Harsanyi.
- Egalitarian
- How evenly wealth is spread (based on the Gini coefficient).
- Libertarian
- How free citizens are from regulation and taxation, as in Nozick.
Printable student worksheet
ThynkIQ · thynkiq.com/experiments/veil-of-ignorance
Behind the Veil of Ignorance: Student Worksheet
Name: ______________________ Class: ________ Date: ________
Part 1. Before you play
If you could guarantee one law in the society you’ll be born into, what would it be, and why?
Part 2. Your constitution (Round 1)
| Law | Option you chose | Who does it help most? |
|---|---|---|
| Wealth & Taxation | ||
| Healthcare System | ||
| Education System | ||
| Automation & AI | ||
| Housing Rights |
Part 3. Your rebirth
I was born as: ____________________________ Wellbeing: _____ / 100 Thriving / Coping / Struggling / Collapse (circle one)
Scores for my society:
Rawlsian: _____ Utilitarian: _____ Egalitarian: _____ Libertarian: _____
Part 4. Your partner’s world (Round 2)
Partner’s name: __________________ I was born as: __________________ Wellbeing: _____ / 100
Part 5. Reflect
Whose society would you rather be born into without knowing who you’d be? Use one of the four scores in your answer.
Did you change your answer to Part 1? Explain what changed your mind, or why it didn’t.
Extend the unit
Classroom questions
What age group is this veil of ignorance activity for?
It is written for high-school students (grades 9–12, ages 14–18): civics, government, ethics, philosophy and IB Theory of Knowledge. It also works in introductory university seminars. The simulator itself has no mature content.
Do students need accounts or an app?
No. The simulator runs in any modern browser, including school iPads and Chromebooks. There is no login, and students do not have to enter a name. The only optional text field is a nickname on challenge links.
How long does one round of the simulator take?
About 2 minutes to choose the laws and spin, plus 3–5 minutes to look over the results. Two rounds and a 15-minute discussion fit into a 45-minute lesson.
Can I run it on one projector instead of student devices?
Yes. Run it as a whole-class vote: students vote on each of the five laws, you enter the winning option, then spin the wheel in front of the class. Spin two or three times so students see different citizens born into the same society.
What is the veil of ignorance in simple terms?
It is a thought experiment by philosopher John Rawls. You choose the rules for a society without knowing who you will be in it: rich or poor, healthy or sick, which gender or race. Because you could end up anywhere, you have reason to pick rules that are fair to everyone.
Used this in class? We’d like to hear what worked and what didn’t. Send us a note.