Very interesting. I wasn't aware of Rawls before. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

One observation. Various spiritual traditions (especially New-Agey ones?) say that we do know what life we are going to have when we are born, we choose our parents etc. Rather, our souls know this; we (our egos) forget during the process of incarnation. This may have something to do with past karma. Also creating the optimum situation for fulfilling the planned project for the new incarnation.

If this is true, that would shoot a few holes through his hypothesis, which seems based on a more physicalist understanding.