This article argues that the decision problem in the original position should be characterized as a decision problem under uncertainty even when it is assumed that the denizens of the original position know that they have an equal chance of ending up in any given individual’s place. It supports this claim by arguing that (a) the continuity axiom of decision theory does not hold between all of t...

Nehring (2004) proposes an interesting methodology to extend the utilitarian criterion defined under complete information to an interim social welfare ordering allowing to compare acts. The first axiom defining his approach, called “State Independence,” requires the interim social welfare ordering to be consistent with ex-post utilitarian comparisons: if it is commonly known that the act f sele...