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I want to add something else about impartiality. Iris Young has argued that the ideal of impartiality tends strongly to ignore differences and to reduce everything to sameness. It requires us to treat everyone alike. In her words, "I argue that the ideal of impartiality in moral theory expresses a logic of identity that seeks to reduce differences to unity."

Consider the case of Rawls, since we are discussing his theory. "While Rawls insists on the plurality of selves as a necessary starting point for a conception of justice, the reasoning of the original position is nevertheless monological....The constraints on reasoning that Rawls builds into this original position in order to make it a representation of impartiality, however, rule out not only any difference among participants in the original position, but also any discussion among them." [Iris Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference , p. 101] 

In other words, the attempt to create impartiality reduces everyone to clones of the same reasoning "person" if you can call them that.

In real life, seeking impartiality eliminates more and more characteristics from consideration. In the name of fairness and impartiality, for example, we get a job requirement that applicants must be able to lift 100 pounds three feet off the floor. What could be more clear and impartial -- except, of course, for the fact that the actual differences between men and women are completely ignored. The result of this totally impartial rule will be that only men get the job in question. On the other hand, if we actually considered the differences between men and women, we might restructure the job or change the technology being used so that both men and women could do the work. But, of course, that wouldn't be impartial.