@cshentrup you are asking people to conduct a thought experiment in which they don't know anyone's identities. when they do know identities, they value their own houses over other people's surgeries all the time. i like your (harsanyi’s, rawls') hypothetical! i think it encourages people to be better, to not privilege people by their identities. but none of us lives up to it, and the market system you admire signally weights welfare by purchasing power. it is not incontestable.