Give a choice, all rational individuals would prefer to live in a world in which behaviour prefered the choice to sacrifice one to save many  While Rawls did oppose utilitarianism, he generated a hypothetical scenario that is useful, even to the utilitarian, for evaluating moral theories. Imagine that all human beings were placed in a scenario where they knew nothing about their station in the world, and know only the basic laws of reasoning and human nature. They do not know what their level of intelligence, personality traits, gender, socioeconomic status, race or religion will be, nor even when or where they will be born; they are “behind the veil of ignorance.” Every single person who will ever exist is placed in this situation at the beginning of the universe. Next, these human beings are told they will decide which rules will govern human conduct when they come to inhabit the world. In such a situation, all rational human beings would ensure that they are treated fairly no matter who they are; they will have perfect sympathy for every human being ever, because they could end up being that person. Whatever rules they come up with in this situation are the rules that are ethically correct, because these rules will never treat anyone unfairly (as that would be an irrational move). [1] So how would people in this hypothetical treat the decision whether to kill one to save five? Rational actors would agree on the rule to kill the one and save the five. After all, any given person is five times as likely to end up as a member of the five rather than as the one. Thus, behind the veil of ignorance, the rational human being would proudly prescribe “Save the five and kill the one.”  [1] Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University press, 1971, p.136