But how are we to decide what is the most favoured interpretation? I assume, for one thing, that there is a broad measure of agreement that principles of justic should be chosen under certain conditions. To justify a particular description of the initial situation one shows that it incorporates these commonly shared presumptions. One argues from widely accepted but weak premises to mor specific conclusions. Each of the presumptions should b itself be natural and plausible; some of them may seem innocuous or even trivial. The aim of the contract approach is to establish that taken together they impose significant bounds on acceptable principles of justice. The ideal outcome would be that the conditions determine a unique set of principles but I shall be satisfied if they suffice to rank the main traditional conceptions of social justice. One should not be misled, then, by the somewhat unusual conditions which characterize the original position. The idea bere is simply to make vivid to ourselves the restrictions that it seems reasonable to impose on arguments for principles of justice, and therefore on these principles themselves. Thus it seems reasonable and generally acceptable that no one should be advantaged or dis advantaged by natural fortune or social circumstances in the choice of principles It also seems widely agreed that it should be impossible to tailor principles to the circumstances of one's own case. We should insure further that particular inclina tions and aspirations, and persons' conceptions of their good do not affect the principles adopted. The aim is to rule out those principles that it would be rational to propose for acceptance, however little the chance of success, only if one knew certain things that are irrelevant from the standpoint of justice. For example, if a man knew that he was wealthy, he might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust if he knew that he was poor, he would most likely propose the contrary principle. To represent the desired restrictions one imagines a situation in which everyone is deprived of this sort of information. One excludes the knowledge of those contingencies which sets men at odds and allows them to be guided by their prejudices. In this manner the veil of ignorance is arrived at in a natural way. This concept should cause no mind the constraints on arguments that it difficulty if we keep meant to express. At any time we can enter the original position, s to speak, simply by following a certain procedure, namely, by arguing for principles of justi accordance with these restrictions. It seems reasonable to suppose that the parties in the original position are equal That is, all have the same rights in the procedure for choosing prineiples; each can make proposals, submit reasons for their acceptance, and so on. Obviously the purpose of these conditions is to represent equality between human beings as