Otherwise, I agree with David - Rawls does assume majority rule for epistemic (and practical) reasons, although it’s presumably qualified by both a Supreme Court and the prospect of civil disobedience. I don’t really think it’s worth getting further into the details of his argument here though.

Original positions can be constructed in many different ways, and so there’s no general answer to what would be accepted. Without committing myself to Rawls’s own seminal version, it’s valuable to ask what implications it has for majority rule. As I read Rawls, he argues that the two principles would be selected in the original position, but that institutional arrangements such as majority rule are to be decided at a later stage in the theory. At the constitutional stage, where the veil of ignorance is partially “lifted,” the parties choose institutions with an eye to which ones would best promote justice according to the two principles. Rawls argues that there is a strong case for majoritarian elements on this epistemic basis, although he seems to endorse many important limits. He says, at p. 120 (revised edition), only that “…the majority principle must as a practical necessity be relied upon to some degree.”. (He does conceive of it as epistemic, not just instrumental, since he seems to have in mind people addressing a common topic.)

So, in the Rawlsian version of an original position, democratic decision procedures are not determined by treating political power as a primary good to be distributed in one way or another. Whether or not I have Rawls’s view right here, I think the impact of different power distributions on the justice of the resulting decisions swamps the issue of the value to an individual of having that tiny share of political power. Rawls seems to take a similar position in relegation of the question of majority rule to the constitutional stage.

Thanks, once again, for the detailed reply. The only point that I find myself uncertain about is your claim that ‘influence at the highest equal level sounds, to me, too close to majority rule itself to provide any independent argument for it’.

Consider the principle: each primary good ought to be distributed in a way that is to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged. This principle is one that free and equal parties situated under fair conditions would accept (let’s suppose). I think that provides the independent argument for the principle, an argument that has nothing to do with majority rule.

If we decide that political power is a primary good, then we have a prima facie case for majority rule since, absent further information, this looks to be the system that maximizes the political power of the least-advantaged. But if we add new facts, the principle might justify something other than majority rule. Suppose we have a permanent minority who would always lose out under a majority rule system. Our principle might, in this case, require something like a super-majority or even offer a veto to the minority (this might be a decision taken at the constitutional stage, once the veil has been lifted a little). Given the right facts, the principle will thus justify majority rule, but given other facts, it will justify a different procedure. So the principle being invoked is justified by an original position-type argument, and it does not necessarily justify majority rule, so I don’t see why it is too close to majority rule to provide an independent argument.