Principle No. 4: Be Fair (Part 1)

We can learn everything we need to know about the concept of fairness by looking at how some children behave at birthday parties

by Bruce Weinstein, PhD

Thus far in our exploration of the five fundamental ethical or "life" principles, we have looked at:

• Do No Harm

• Make Things Better

• Respect Others

For the next two weeks we will examine Life Principle No. 4: Be Fair. What is fairness? Why is it so important? How can taking fairness seriously enrich our own lives?

Imagine you have a son, Larry, for whom you throw a birthday party one afternoon. Your sister brings her two boys, Curly and Moe, to the celebration. When Moe gets a bigger piece of birthday cake, Curly cries, "That's not fair." Seeing someone who appears no different than him get more cake strikes Curly as wrong, unjust, unfair.

If there's a good reason to give Curly a smaller piece (say, for example, he is overweight), it's justifiable and fair to cut different sized pieces of cake for the two boys. In fact, it's not only fair, it would be wrong to do otherwise, since one boy deserves a smaller piece (hence the term "dessert," or that which is deserved).

Now suppose that your sister explains to Curly why he's getting a smaller piece, but this reason doesn't placate the lad and he throws a temper tantrum. "All right, young man, now you won't get any," your sister tells him. "I'm taking you home, where you won't get any cake. And because you're acting so childishly, you won't be allowed to watch TV for the rest of the weekend."

Three Branches of Fairness

This response, of course, makes Curly even more upset, and his ratcheted-up tantrum is now justified. After all, he has been on the receiving end of a true injustice: Banishing him from the party and taking away his television privileges for so long seems, by any reasonable standard, an excessive punishment. It is, in short, unfair.

You feel so bad about the turn of events for Larry's special day that you decide to make up for the interruption by having your spouse run out to get the latest child-friendly video game that all the kids will enjoy.

This story introduces us to three branches of the concept of fairness. Imagine a pie chart that represents justice, divided into three equal wedges. They represent, in no particular order:

• Distributive justice, which refers to how scarce resources are made available to a group of people with varying degrees of needs, desires, and other factors. Think of this in terms of who deserves a raise, and how much.

• Retributive justice, which refers to how we punish those who violate standards of behavior. What is fair punishment if an employee does something wrong? Should the fact that the employee happens to be the son or daughter of a close friend matter in deciding this?

• Rectificatory justice, which refers to how we rectify a situation in which a person or group of persons has been treated unfairly. When coming aboard as a new manager, how should you deal with an unjust situation created or ignored by your predecessor?

Let's examine each in turn.