Fairness vs. Fairness

With a hat tip to evangelical outpost, I present this quote from P. J. O’Rourke in the LA Times.

The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there’s the tenth: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

Now please, please go read the whole article before you comment on how I used it. There is absolutely no way I could get the flavor while staying within the bounds of fair use. The article is funny, and if you read closely, you’ll find some truths lurking in it, just waiting to jump out and bite you. But above all, it’s quite humorous.

Nonetheless, I’m grabbing a sentence that involves equivocation in the use of the term “fairness” that is all too prevalent in our society. Being humor challenged, I’m going to deal with it seriously. I hear or see “fairness” used in two substantially different ways.

First is the fairness of approach. For example, in a game, a “fair” game is one in which the umpires ruled impartially, the rules were followed, and generally cheating was prevented. That’s fairness of opportunity or potential. In politics, we might be talking about the opportunity to make money. The government doesn’t deny me the opportunity to start a business or to take a job. I’m not blocked for some irrelevant reason, such as gender or age. That doesn’t guarantee me the ability to sell my idea and acquire or borrow the capital to put it into action. It doesn’t make me succeed at the resulting business. But all else being equal I am not prevented from access. (Note that there are move controversial points in economics than in sports because the possibilities are more complex, but that’s not my topic.)

The second is a fairness of results. In this case we assume that people should win a certain amount and lose a certain amount. We usually find this amongst young children who think a game is fair when they win, or when they’re a little older they think it’s fair when they win the appropriate percentage of the time. In politics we’d look at the idea that everyone should receive either similar incomes, or incomes that are rated on some scale of non-economic value of their work. Why, for example, is a doctor rated as less valuable than many entertainers, and a school teacher less than either? This view of fairness results in some sense of moral outrage at economic inequalities, and often in an attempt to directly address those inequalities rather than looking at opportunities that lie behind them.

The 10th commandment would certainly stand against fairness in this second sense, but I would suggest that this second type of fairness is a muddled concept, incapable of being resolved into clear thinking. The reason an entertainer gets more money is that more people want his or her services and are willing to pay more for it. (Note that each individual pays less to the entertainer than they do to the doctor, though the total income for the latter is less. Should the doctor learn how to serve patients in the millions he would likely get very rich!)

But in the first sense, fairness of opportunity, the 10th commandment creates no problems. I think it’s unfortunate that in discussion these two senses are so rarely sorted out. In social policy, the line may not be so clear at the edges, but it is certainly a distinction that needs to be made.