Against Fairness

by Asma, Stephen T.

  Modern sensibilities will balk at the implied (and explicit) patriarchy in Aristotle’s description of unequal but legitimate powers. But Aristotle is not simple. He acknowledges that while I owe much to my father, I don’t owe him preference in absolutely everything. We should render to each person what is appropriate and befitting.

  If Aristotle was Euthyphro and his father had committed manslaughter, then I suspect he’d shelter him (out of feeling and duty). But if, like Frank Calabrese Jr., his father (mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr.) was a vile abuser of everyone (including his sons), then Aristotle would probably find it reasonable, fitting, and appropriate to turn evidence against him.25 There are no inflexible, universal rules in favoritism, but that doesn’t make it less ethical or less reasonable.

  Finding the right thing to do, when competing claims are on you, is not like geometry, but it is like medicine and other practical sciences (e.g., engineering). A good doctor does not diagnose simply by applying universal rules to particular cases, nor does she treat all bodies alike. Clinical knowledge is acquired by taking a case history. Philosopher Stephen Toulmin characterizes some typical questions in a patient’s case history: “To what extent is a patient’s condition a result of earlier diseases, accidents, or other misadventures? To what extent must we explain it, rather, by the patient’s family background, upbringing, and experience in life? And what pointers do we need to attend to, if we are to see just what the patient’s problem is, and how it can best be remedied?”26

  These techniques are concerned with the particulars of the patient. Health, like the good, is not an abstraction that exists independently of patients or people—the actual contingent history of the person will explain the condition and perhaps even suggest the medical way forward. Applied science like medicine is a good analogy with ethics, because the more particular detail we get—or the more concrete complexity—the more likely we are to resolve decisions wisely. As Toulmin puts it, “Set against any fully described problem, abstract principles do not measure up.”27

  Remember the fictional nepotism case from earlier. I’m a tavern owner who preferentially hires his brother the musician. Contrary to the egalitarian interpretation of this favoritism as unethical, I argued that brothers also have legitimate ethical claims on each other and we should really understand these cases as tensions between two competing virtues or goods. But now, even if we grant that two goods are competing, we still need to know how to solve these cases when they come along. Should I always give preferential treatment to my brother? The answer is unclear, even for a fan of favoritism like myself. But the resolution will not come from the application of a grid or even a theory about favoritism. Aristotle reminds us that “we must not expect more precision than the subject matter admits.”28 Answers, if there are any, will emerge slowly as a consequence of the details of the case. Watch your own ethical convictions shift, for example, as I add new detail to the brother case.

  Let’s say that I, the tavern owner, hire my brother Ned’s mediocre band, rather than other more competent musical groups in town. I even pay Ned’s band extra, because Ned needs financial help. Now, let me adjust the case slightly from the earlier one. Let’s say I discreetly pay Ned $150 for the gig, but the other three musicians only get $100 each. This looks bad, right? But not if I keep adding details. The other three musicians in the group are all members of wealthy families, and each of them is living sweetly off their trust funds. They only play music as a hobby and don’t need the money. Ned, on the other hand, is not just broke—his daughter needs medical attention. Moreover, Ned dragged the heavy PA speakers and amps from his home, and the other musicians made use of this equipment. I don’t know if we feel comfortable now saying that Ned deserves the extra $50. But we’re more inclined to accept the favoritism as reasonable.

  However, I can also complicate this new inclination by adding other details. Ned has a cocaine problem, and it’s doubtful that his money will make it home to help his daughter, who he regularly neglects while on his drug benders. My goal here is not to get our moral intuitions flip-flopping, but to show how we can navigate the ethics of favoritism without some theoretical algorithm. The details of the case become crucial.

  Here’s another: In the spring of 2011, the owner of a media company mobilized his organization to buy a smaller television production company. He was accused of overpaying for the acquisition because his daughter was the owner of the purchased company. Is this a reasonable form of nepotism? Is it different than the case of the tavern-owning brother? It probably doesn’t raise your dander much, until I add the following details. The father was billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and he was trying to buy his daughter’s company, Shine Group, for $675 million—$320 million of which would go to his daughter Elisabeth.

  Now, since Murdoch is the head of a public company and has responsibility to his shareholders, it might be argued that his case is incomparable with my private tavern owner nepotism. Yes and no. Yes, Murdoch has been entrusted with other people’s investment money, and as such they have claims on him. But he still has to weigh his “fatherhood duties” toward his daughter against his management duties toward non-relations (and even strangers). It’s still no contest, given the disproportionate moral gravity of one’s child. Public be damned, if one’s daughter can profit. That is the legitimate operating principle of favoritism. However, here is a case, I would argue, where a favoritism operating principle breaks down. Murdoch’s daughter is so obscenely advantaged and recklessly compensated in this case, that it seems off the map of decency itself.

  Adding more contextual details to the case puts it in a different light than our earlier case. The staggering excesses of the wealth involved here really do change the ethical flavor of the nepotism. What’s the difference between the two cases? It’s not just the difference in monetary amounts, but the meaning of those amounts. There are different stakes in these cases, because the extra $50 actually improves the life (albeit modestly) of Ned the musician and has negligible negative impact on the other parties involved. Whereas, $320 million is absurdly over the threshold of an improved life, and the concentration of that much surplus has a substantial negative impact on the other parties involved. Not to mention the fact that Rupert has no need to inflate the bid for his daughter’s company, if the accurate bid is more than she can ever spend in a lifetime of Roman-style debauchery.

  The modest nepotism of the brothers seems reasonable, touching, and even a little sad. The nepotism of the Murdochs seems troubling by comparison. But, the grid-lovers will protest and accuse me of being inconsistent in my judgment. To which I respond, yes … I’m fine with inconsistency here. The two cases of nepotism are not ethically commutable or interchangeable.

  Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC?–AD 65) emphasized how giving favors is an art, not a science. “The wise man will compare all things with one another; for the very same object becomes greater or smaller, according to the time, the place, and the cause. Often the riches that are spent in profusion upon a palace cannot accomplish as much as a thousand denarii given at the right time… . Often the gift is small, but the consequences great.”29

  Making decisions about favors is not easy. The ethical status of preferential treatment is complex, but we’re not totally lost without an abstract grid of fairness.30 We are left to “feel our way” through a dim territory, but at least practical reason gives us room for history, for exceptions, for hierarchies—for favorites.

  4

  “But, Dad, That’s Not Fair!”

  “But, Dad, that’s not fair! Why does Keaton get to kill zombies, and I can’t?”

  “Well, because you’re too young to kill zombies. Your cousin Keaton is older than you, so that’s why he can do it. You’ll get nightmares.”

  “That’s sooo not fair!”

  “Next year, after your birthday, I’ll let you kill zombies.”

  It’s not exactly Little House on the Prairie, but this is a real conversation between my seven-year-old so
n and me. Age ratings on zombie-killing video games are just one of modern life’s great injustices, according to my son.

  Every parent has heard the F-word, fairness, intoned ad nauseam by their negotiating kids. My own son was an eloquent voice for egalitarianism, even before he could tie his shoes or tell time. Of course, it’s not exactly universal equality that he and other kids are lobbying for, but something much more self-interested.

  Kids learn early on that an honest declaration of “I’m not getting what I want” holds little persuasion for parents. So they quickly learn to mask their egocentric frustrations with the language of fairness. An appeal to an objective standard of fairness will at least buy some bargaining time for further negotiations. This is not entirely duplicitous on the part of the child, who is often legitimately confused and cannot easily distinguish his private sufferings from larger and more objective social imbalances.

  In this chapter I want to consider the development of fairness in children. We’ve examined the social construction of the broad value grid of impartiality, but now we’ll see how the grid is writ small on the hearts and minds of Western kids. I’ll consider the kind of nurturing that instills fairness in our children—the kind that helped instill it in us. And like the last chapter—where I tried to celebrate some of the values and exceptions that fall outside the grid—here, too, I’ll highlight some of the losses, or compromised values, in modern childhood education. As we’ll discover, the mastery of an official language of fairness is booming in America, but the natural mother tongue of bias is still our original dialect.

  We are such masters of lip service to fairness that we frequently believe our own pretenses. I will show that most of what we teach kids about fairness is actually about other ethical customs, important norms like open-minded tolerance and generosity. These have become conflated with fairness in American education and ideology. Moreover, in addition to seeing too much inside the concept of fairness, I will argue that we also see too little—in the sense that we frequently fail to recognize the darker emotional underbelly (envy) inside our outraged cries for fairness.

  The Fusion of Feelings and Ideas

  Plato suggested that all human beings contain some horrible ingredients—desires and appetites that should not be pursued. Way before Freud, Plato described the “unlawful” pleasures and appetites. “Every one appears to have them,” he explains, “but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them—either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them.” When asked for clarification, Plato (through his mouthpiece Socrates) describes the bad appetites as those that wake up in our dreams, “when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no conceivable folly or shame … a man may not be ready to commit.”1

  Most of us readily recognize this frightening character in ourselves. If we never actually act on our low impulses, then at least we recognize this cretin in our wish-fulfillment fantasies.

  Whether you agree with Plato here, or the more modern version of the Freudian id, it is well agreed that chaining up or at least disciplining these inner beasties is a major function of socialization and education. In fact, that’s why the Republic—which many people assume to be a political work—is largely concerned with citizen education. How do you create good character, when so many corrupting influences live inside and outside you?

  Rationalists, like Plato, usually suggest that good character (the healthy psyche or soul) comes when a young person’s rational faculty finally tames their lower selfish appetites. One of the main jobs of education and culture generally is to help young people master this internal hierarchy. But even rationalists recognize that reason can’t do the job alone (it’s pretty unpersuasive on its own), and each individual must enlist the help of their thumos (emotion or spirited passion). An idea alone or a rational calculation cannot inspire an addict to stop his drug of choice, but feelings of self-loathing, resolution, fear, or determination can override the negative behavior.

  Similarly, you can’t just tell a kid about the Kantian categorical imperative (or some other rational system of ethics) and expect him to start sharing and acting selflessly. Emotions are much better triggers for guiding behavior.

  When I was being raised as a devout Catholic, I feared the fires of hell, and this certainly helped shape my early morality. As an adult lapsed Catholic, I had to think up something else to scare my son into submission, and thankfully Santa Claus was a perfect carrot and stick. Ethical kids aren’t born; they’re made—and with great effort. This is because Hesiod’s old saying is true, right from the start of a kid’s life. “Vice in abundance is easy to get; the road is smooth and begins beside you, but the gods have put sweat between us and virtue.”2

  Two points are important here. One is that, despite Hesiod’s daunting truth, building an ethical kid does not have to start from scratch. We don’t have to import or install feelings into a kid. Nature already gives us the affective head start that I talked about in chapter 2—feelings of empathy and attachment. The job of educating character is to cultivate seed-like ethical feelings into full fruiting sentiments. And the second point to underscore is that ethical feelings and ideologies are already completely mixed and intermingled in the earliest narratives that we tell our kids. Emotions of fear and love, as well as appetites or desires for pleasure or comfort, permeate the early God stories I heard—stories cajoling me to “be a good boy.” The same is true of the Santa deceptions that we parents perpetrate on our kids.3 All this is to say that kids need to be motivated to be good, and in our culture that also means they have to be motivated to be fair.

  Our ability to feel the suffering or deprivation of another person is part of our instinctual equipment, and we see rudimentary versions of this sympathy in other primates. It starts as a simple, almost mechanical, emotional contagion. Babies often cry, for example, when they perceive another crying baby. Emotions are highly contagious for mammals, and we observe that anger, joy, and fear (among others) can spread rapidly through a group, even when there’s no cognitive awareness of what’s going on. Mammal bodies can read other mammal bodies.

  The recent discovery of “mirror neurons” suggests that our social brains are so sensitive to the feelings and actions of others, that my same neural pain pathways light up or activate when I see you undergoing some painful experience. I literally feel a little taste of your pain, just by witnessing it. The subjective wince that I feel at your suffering is neurologically underwritten by automatic brain processing.4

  There is a “shared manifold” of feelings or even an “emotional atmosphere” that humans share with one another. It’s not mystical or spooky; it’s just an under-recognized perceptual ability. This seems crucial for the development of our more sophisticated feelings of empathy and our eventual sense of justice. It’s only because I can feel your pain that I can recognize some forms of injustice.

  Fig. 12. Our ability to feel the suffering of another person is part of our instinctual equipment, and we see rudimentary versions of this sympathy in other primates. It starts as a simple, almost mechanical, emotional contagion. Babies cry, for example, when they perceive another crying baby. Drawing by Stephen Asma.

  Child psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) didn’t know about mirror neurons, but he knew that a child’s empathic instincts help her construct moral rules through the social interaction of play.5 Both Freud and sociologist Émile Durkheim saw children as passive recipients of external moral rules and regulations, but Piaget crawled around on the floor with kids and discovered that they actively shape their own sense of justice—they role-play and take the perspective of others, all the while gauging their relevant empathic feelings. As a child matures, she can feel directly and indirectly (in the course of game play)
that some actions hurt and some are pleasurable, and a Golden Rule notion of justice organically emerges. A sense of fairness emerges, according to Piaget, as children engage in cooperative decision making and problem solving. This led him to recommend greater cooperative interpersonal activities in early childhood education.

  Kids learn about fairness in their nuclear families by practicing sharing behaviors, and children in larger families probably learn a bit more of it than those in single-child families. We also, however, tell certain kinds of cultural stories and make certain educational moves that try to shape this organic emotional atmosphere. Contemporary stories in books, television shows, songs, movies, and eventually school all converge to inculcate the grid of impartiality.

  Sowing the Seeds of Confusion: Sharing

  Long-running television shows like Sesame Street (forty years), Mister Roger’s Neighborhood (thirty-one seasons), The Wonderful World of Disney (forty-four years, first as Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color), and Romper Room (forty-one years) have helped shape a couple generations of young American egalitarians. The future wave of long-running morality plays will probably include Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, Barney, and SpongeBob SquarePants, among others.

  As a kid I consumed a lot of this stuff. As a father, I have ingested several more courses of this diet, and I can say that much of it is absolutely wonderful. I’m not a conservative critic of pop culture. Not only are there smart, intelligent stories, but great life lessons about pride, caring, selfishness, love, anger management, and justice.