 It is on this basis that Sen distinguishes between what he calls ‘open’ and ‘closed’ impartiality. The distinction “turns on whether or not the exercise of impartial assessment is confined … to a fixed group.” Since the contractors behind the veil of ignorance are aware that they are part of a certain society (and do not see themselves in any sense as representing the world as a whole), the veil of ignorance represents an impartial system only in the closed sense. Therefore, Sen complains that “As a device of structured political analysis, the procedure is not geared to addressing the need to overcome group prejudices” (Sen 2002, 446). By contrast, open impartiality, which Sen finds recommended in the works of Adam Smith (see Smith 1759), demands “that the viewpoints of others, whether or not belonging to some group of which one is specifically a member, receive adequate attention.” Sen applies this distinction to John Rawls’s view of justice as grounded in a contract devised by hypothetical contractors under a veil of ignorance, writing that: