It’s fair when the participants all sincerely agree that it’s fair.
If you think you’re being unfair to somebody and he disagrees, who’s right?
There isn’t any guarantee that a fair solution is possible. If people can’t agree, then we can’t be fair. I say, fairness is a goal that we can sometimes achieve. There’s no guarantee that we could always achieve all of our goals if only we did the right things. There’s no guarantee that fairness is possible. Just, it’s a good goal to try for sometimes, and sometimes we can actually be fair or mostly fair.
People often agree that equal shares is fair. Not always. It seems like a sort of default, and we might choose to start with the default and then argue why we should deviate from it. Like, the one who found the pie in the forest might deserve a finder’s fee. The one who negotiated an agreement when it seemed unlikely might deserve a reward for that. If there’s a danger that a bear might come take the pie, then one who guards the others while they eat might deserve a reward. If one person is carrying extra weight for things he shares with the others, he might deserve extra calories etc. There can be lots of reasons to deviate from equal shares once you accept equal shares as the default.
Approaching a fair solution is an art. It’s an adventure that might not have any good ending possible, but when you don’t know it can’t be done then it’s better to try than just accept failure from the beginning. Starting out with the assumption that there is a fair approach that everybody ought to accept, and that if it doesn’t work you’ll figure out who to blame, is both backward and counterproductive.
It’s fair when the participants all sincerely agree that it’s fair.
If you think you’re being unfair to somebody and he disagrees, who’s right?
There isn’t any guarantee that a fair solution is possible. If people can’t agree, then we can’t be fair. I say, fairness is a goal that we can sometimes achieve. There’s no guarantee that we could always achieve all of our goals if only we did the right things. There’s no guarantee that fairness is possible. Just, it’s a good goal to try for sometimes, and sometimes we can actually be fair or mostly fair.
People often agree that equal shares is fair. Not always. It seems like a sort of default, and we might choose to start with the default and then argue why we should deviate from it. Like, the one who found the pie in the forest might deserve a finder’s fee. The one who negotiated an agreement when it seemed unlikely might deserve a reward for that. If there’s a danger that a bear might come take the pie, then one who guards the others while they eat might deserve a reward. If one person is carrying extra weight for things he shares with the others, he might deserve extra calories etc. There can be lots of reasons to deviate from equal shares once you accept equal shares as the default.
Approaching a fair solution is an art. It’s an adventure that might not have any good ending possible, but when you don’t know it can’t be done then it’s better to try than just accept failure from the beginning. Starting out with the assumption that there is a fair approach that everybody ought to accept, and that if it doesn’t work you’ll figure out who to blame, is both backward and counterproductive.