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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Cogito who wrote (93631)11/5/2008 7:35:04 AM
From: Lane3   of 541602
 
I keep wanting to object to the classification of "fairness" as an emotion.

If you look up "fairness" in a thesaurus, you won't find that concept as a main entry. The main entry for fairness, the essential concept, is justice. "Not fair" is a schoolyard whine that sounds neurotic in adults. Fairness is a judgment applied subjectively and often emotionally to such weighty problems as the last cookie and mommy parking spaces.

If one wants to promote something along the lines of fairness for governance, then at least frame it as justice. Governance has always included a role for justice, which has gravitas and standards. Fairness assessment has no center of gravity. It more often than not has no gravity at all. What does fairness mean when applied to income tax? Fuzz. OTOH, if you endeavor to apply justice to income tax, you're forced to be a serious about it. Justice includes such weighty matters as incarceration and death for murderers so it's harder to be flip when claiming injustice. It's harder to make nonsense or trivial claims.

I would not have framed fairness as an emotion had neolib not done so before me. I agree that it's not technically an emotion. But the assessment of it often is based on something as trivial as hurt feelings or jealousy and it reeks of bias.

Speaking of weighty, yes, I am aware that nobody cares about this issue this particular morning. But I subscribe to the notion that "if you haven't written it down, you haven't thought it through." So I'm writing it down.
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