The Great Mental Models, Volume 1 by Shane Parrish & Rhiannon Beaubien

Author:Shane Parrish & Rhiannon Beaubien [Parrish, Shane & Beaubien, Rhiannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Intuiting the nonintuitive: One of the uses of thought experiments is to improve our ability to intuit the nonintuitive. In other words, a thought experiment allows us to verify whether our natural intuition is correct by running experiments in our deliberate, conscious minds that make a point clear.

An example of this is the famous “veil of ignorance” proposed by philosopher John Rawls in his influential book A Theory of Justice. To figure out the most fair and equitable way to structure society, he proposed that the designers of said society operate behind a veil of ignorance. This meant that they could not know who they would be in the society they were creating. If they designed the society without knowing their economic status, their ethnic background, their talents and interests, or even their gender, they would have to put in place a structure that was as fair as possible in order to guarantee the best possible outcome for themselves.[6]

Our initial intuition regarding what is fair in a society is likely to be challenged during the “veil of ignorance” thought experiment. When confronted with the question of how best to organize society, we have a general feeling that it should be “fair.” But what exactly does this mean? We can use this thought experiment to test the likely outcomes of different rules and structures to come up with an aggregate of what is most fair.

We need not be constructing the legislation of entire nations for this type of thinking to be useful. Think, for example, of a company’s human resources policies on hiring, office etiquette, or parental leave. What kind of policies would you design or support if you didn’t know what your role in the company was, or even anything about who you were?

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