I think you'll find that children understand the difference, even toddlers, and that their reaction will be much less outraged when the reason is "fair."
Perhaps those toddlers understand at some level that, when they don't get what they want but there's a good reason, that they're not in a fairness paradigm but rather in a utility paradigm. If something is obviously utilitarian, then fairness is irrelevant.
virtually every decision made by those in charge of promoting the public good necessarily considers both efficiency and fairness.
You continue to assert and reassert that it's about fairness. Reassertion isn't a persuasive argument. It isn't an argument, at all. I've pointed out where something you've deemed to be fairness based is IMO something other than fairness and you've offered no counter.
If you don't agree, try to think of a public policy decision that doesn't require some degree of "fairness" analysis?
We have some established law that sets up standards of fairness. First principles, if you will. Like your "one man, one vote." The stuff that's in the Constitution as extended by discrimination law. But for contemporary public policy issues, I'm hard pressed to think of places where fairness IS an appropriate determinant. Acid rain downwind is a fairness question. Laws pertaining to use of the commons, in general, are. I can't think of anything else offhand.
Now people, being the flawed and neurotic creatures that we are, may opt, consciously or not, to impose an unfairness frame on most anything. But that doesn't make it apt.
P.S. I just remembered an incident regarding fairness. It occurred at either DOL or EPA one of those times when Congress didn't pass budget authorizations timely. Some of the agency's programs were funded but there were delays in authorizing others. After due consideration, a decision was made by the agency to pay those employees whose programs were authorized and furlough the rest. There really wasn't any other alternative. The furloughed employees were livid, of course, to be losing pay. The bizarre part was that they thought that, if they couldn't be paid, no one else should either. That would make it fair. I was stunned. That struck me as almost as mindless as the notion that only the disabled should use handicapped toilet stalls. |
