 The problem with this arrangement, of course, is that gender and racial classifications, social class, wealth and lack thereof, are, like absence of religious belief, not good reasons for depriving people of their equal political rights or opportunities to occupy social and political positions. Knowledge of these and other facts are not morally relevant for deciding who should qualify to vote, hold office, and actively participate in governing and administering society. Rawls suggests that the reason Locke’s social contract results in this unjust outcome is that it transpires (hypothetically) under unfair conditions of a state of nature, where the parties have complete knowledge of their circumstances, characteristics and social situations. Socially powerful and wealthy parties then have access to and are able to take advantage of their knowledge of their “favorable position and exercise their threat advantage” to extract favorable terms of cooperation for themselves from those in less favorable positions (JF 16). Consequently the parties’ judgments regarding constitutional provisions are biased by their knowledge of their particular circumstances and their decisions are insufficiently impartial. 