The Phenomenology of Fairness

Introduction

There is a delightful Irish movie, called “Waking Ned Devine,” in which an elderly man dies of a heart attack when he learns from watching a televised drawing that he has won the national lottery.  Two of his close friends, after discovering his body with the winning ticket still clutched in his hand, conspire to keep his death a secret (he has no family) while one of them poses as the dead man in order to collect the lottery winnings.  Technically it’s a fraud, of course.  But, like so many fictional (and real-life) stories, the question of fairness, and our attitude toward it, puts a very different spin on the story.

In the movie, Ned’s two friends begin to have second thoughts about what they are doing – and so does the audience — when they learn that the jackpot is actually £6 million pounds.  After some soul searching, they decide that the money should be shared equally among all of the 52 members of their small (poor) Irish village, Tulaigh Mhor.  That’s what Ned would have wanted, they conclude.  In a curious way, their new plan to share the money with their needy community, rather than hoarding it for themselves, makes the scheme seem less reprehensible.

The problem is that all 52 members of the community must be willing to go along with the plan, because a representative from the lottery will be coming to the village to verify the dead man’s identity. And, unfortunately, there is one hold-out – a mean-spirited miser (nicknamed “the witch”), who drives about in a motorized wheelchair, though she is perfectly able to walk, and who is notorious for insulting and offending people.  She withholds her approval and demands £1 million pounds as her share.  Otherwise, she threatens to report the scheme to the authorities and collect a reward amounting to 10% of the winnings.  The townsfolk refuse to give in to her “blackmail,” and she is in the very act of calling the lottery headquarters from a public pay phone on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea when the village priest, returning from a trip, swerves his car to avoid an accident with an oncoming car and knocks the phone booth off the cliff. (Was this the hand of God?)

Now, the point of this story is that the villagers (and most of the audience, I  surmise) view this outcome as a happy ending – despite the fact that it entailed both a fraud and a person who was accidentally killed.  How can this be?  Our legal tradition says we should condemn and bemoan these acts, while neo-classical economic theory (not to mention neo-Darwinian “selfish-gene” theory) says we should admire the miser for using her economic leverage to get as much as she can for herself.  This sort of thing happens in free markets every day, after all. The answer is that something else is going on here that modifies our attitude toward our legal and economic (and evolutionary) theories.  It is called a “sense of fairness,” or a “sense of justice.”

The Phenomenon of Fairness

I think it would be fair to say that fairness fell out of favor (excuse all those “f” words) in vast areas of the academic world during the heyday of neo-classical economics and neo-Darwinian theory. And our politics seemed to mirror this trend with its “greed is good” ethics. But now fairness is back in vogue, even in theory.   Indeed, there is a rapidly accumulating body of scientific evidence suggesting that a sense of fairness is a deeply-rooted aspect of human nature, as Darwin himself suggested.  In political scientist James Q. Wilson=s (1993) characterization, most humans do have a Amoral sense@– including especially a sense of fairness toward others — though there are obviously individual variations in this respect as in all others in humankind, and in nature as well (see also the citations in Corning 2004).  We are not as a rule concerned exclusively with our own personal interests and Arights@.

As an example, consider the classic story about “The Little Red Hen” — one of the all-time best-selling children’s books. The Red Hen works hard and is frugal. One day she finds some grains of wheat and decides to plant them. She asks her friends (a dog, a cat and a pig, in one version of the story) “who will help me plant these seeds?” Well, her friends all have more important things to do, so she plants them herself. And so it goes at each successive stage in the process — tending and weeding the garden, harvesting the wheat, threshing the grain, grinding the flour and baking the bread. At each step the Red Hen asks for help, but her friends are always too busy. Yet, when it finally comes time to eat the bread, her friends are more than willing to help; they’re eager to do so. By then, of course, it’s too late. A Marxian philosopher, or a well-trained defense lawyer, might object that the Red Hen should not have eaten all the bread herself, but many generations of children, unburdened by the teachings of our moral philosophers and legal scholars, seem to have gotten the point on their own.  And that’s the point. We seem (most of us) to have a bias in favor of fairness and equity – call it “social justice.”

In general, our sense of fairness appears to be a joint product of both nature and nurture.  The Anorm of fairness,@ as it has been called, first appears at a very early age.  It involves, in essence, recognition of Aentitlements@ that apply to others as well as to one self.  Simple decision-rules like equal shares, taking turns or drawing straws work well enough with young children.  But, as a child develops, the content of the sense of fairness changes and deepens, as a rule, and more complex criteria are added — age, merit, need, even social relationships and “we-they” distinctions.  Needless to say, the content of what is viewed as fair is also influenced by the values, customs, rules and practices of a given society — what others believe is fair.  Of course, we also have a propensity for rationalizing unfairness away when it suits our interests.  Nevertheless, as a rule, fairness has a strong, if imperfect, pull on our conduct, though (again) there are always individual differences that must be accounted for.

Let me briefly elaborate. The evidence that a norm of fairness and reciprocity is a universal aspect of human nature can fairly be called robust.  Indeed, it is found in virtually every society (albeit with variations), and the few pathological exceptions seem to prove the rule.  Fairness is a day-in, day-out issue in any society.  There is also a large experimental literature on this phenomenon in psychology, game theory and experimental economics.  Most noteworthy, perhaps, are the so-called Aultimatum games,@ which have demonstrated repeatedly that people are willing to share with others in ways that do not reflect their own narrow self-interest but reflect instead a sense of fairness.  Equally important, it appears that people are far more willing to invest in policing fairness and punishing deviants than classical economic theory predicts.  Particularly significant is the work on Astrong reciprocity,@ which highlights altruistic punishment behaviors.  The neo-classical model of a rational, calculating Homo economicus is a caricature that obscures a more complex reality (again, see the citations in Corning 2004).

There are even some rudimentary examples of a sense of fairness in other species — the most conspicuous of which are sharing behaviors and reciprocity (see especially de Waal 1996, 1997, 2001).  Finally, the accumulating psychological evidence of a sense of fairness has been given an evolutionary underpinning with the resurgence of Agroup selection theory@ in evolutionary biology, most notably in the work of biologist David Sloan Wilson and his colleague, Elliott Sober (e.g., Sober and Wilson 1998).  Our “social instincts,” as Darwin called them, may well be a part of our evolved human nature(s), and not merely a cultural overlay.

Begging the Question

But this begs the question.  In fact, it begs several questions.  One obvious question is how and why such a norm could have evolved in humankind?  What selective advantage would have accrued to our ancestors for engaging in such behaviors?  And how could such supposedly “altruistic” (even empathetic) actions have overcome our presumed evolutionary “bias” toward self-serving behaviors?  Equally important, what is the relationship between nature and nurture in shaping the phenotype of fairness?  How deeply does the sense of fairness run in the human psyche, and how much is it molded and conditioned by socialization, cultural norms/rules and the immediate social context?

Finally, there is the question of what does “fairness” (and the more formal term “justice”) really mean?   Fairness has the ring of a moral absolute, like “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not steal” — though even these Biblical commandments have their ambiguities.  For instance, in many ethical systems (including our own) it’s OK to kill an enemy combatant, just as it’s OK (in some circles at least) for a Robin Hood or a Zorro to steal from the rich and give it to the poor.  In contrast, the subject of fairness/justice involves an ethical morass. Our intuitions about it tend to be highly subjective, partisan and variable – and thus a source of endless dispute.  Indeed, the concept has been debated ever since Plato’s Republic.  Plato, you may remember, characterized social justice as “giving every man his due,” though that hardly put an end to the matter.  How do you determine what a person is “due”?  Plato devoted much of his great dialogue to exploring just this question. (Aristotle, Plato’s most famous student, spoke of “proportionate equality.”)

I will explore these questions further below.  But first, let us consider (very briefly) the evolutionary origins of fairness.  As I argue in depth elsewhere (Corning 2003a,c, 2004), the likely context of human evolution was a challenging, hazardous and often changing environment, one which would have favored a survival strategy that relied on close cooperation in small face-to-face groups characterized by continuing relationships and a high degree of functional interdependence.  I call it a “collective survival enterprise.”  In this context, reciprocity, mutualism and social harmony would have been selectively favored, while social discord and conflict could be disadvantageous for the group as a whole.  In other words, selection for a predisposition to fairness might not have entailed altruism but “enlightened self-interest”; it would likely have been mutually beneficial in terms of the overarching objectives of the group.

Maynard Smith and Szathmary (1995) developed a suggestive metaphor that I like to use as an illustration of this point.  When two oarsmen in a rowboat each have one opposing oar, as in a two-person rowing configuration, there is a functional interdependency (a combination of labor) that gives each oarsman a stake in the well-being of the “team.”  If either oarsman slacks off (for whatever reason) the boat will go in circles.  Another way of putting it is that functional group selection may transcend, though it certainly does not negate, individual and kin selection.  (Indeed, neo-classical economic theory and selfish-gene theory are generally myopic about the reality of economic interdependence in complex human societies.)

All this may seem to imply that fairness is a unitary trait, like hair color or skin color.  However, I would argue that this is not the case.  Rather, I would propose that fairness is a value judgment we attach to a class of behaviors (specifically, our conduct toward others) that are derived from a broader and more complex suite of evolved behavioral dispositions.  I would propose that fairness behaviors have three psychological underpinnings.  One is an evolved concern for our “reputation” and our standing in our social group or society (what Darwin called “the praise and blame of others”).  We are in part motivated to behave in ways that our society defines as “fair” (whatever that may be) out of concern for being perceived as fair by others.  (Recent theoretical and experimental work on “reputational” influences is highly suggestive in this regard.)

In addition, we have a well developed predisposition – an evolved bias – for identifying with various collective (group) interests and goals, which is variously described as team spirit, patriotism, organizational loyalty, etc., and this is very often accompanied by actions that can only be called group-serving. (Voluntary acts of heroism on the battlefield are, of course, the most dramatic examples.)  Thus, many acts of fairness toward others may derive from concerns for the well-being of our group/organization/society.  Finally, empathy and reciprocal altruism (sensu Robert Trivers) may also play a role in acts that we might characterize as exhibiting a sense of fairness.  We may, for example, pay a contractor not exclusively on the basis of what is best for our own immediate self interest (as little as possible) but with an eye to their needs as well, with the expectation that this will be repaid at some later time.

How To Test This Hypothesis

All this may seem to be highly speculative, but it is also eminently testable.  Modern personality assessment instruments, such as those which are routinely used by business firms in personnel and team development programs, provide well-validated research tools that could readily be correlated with behavioral performance in various fairness tests, such as the ultimatum games.  If an individual’s propensity to act “fairly” is in fact shaped, at least in part, by such underlying psychological predispositions, this should be strongly correlated with the relevant behavioral outcomes.

The same basic paradigm could also be used to address the third question that I posed above, namely, what is the relationship between nature and nurture in shaping the phenotype of fairness?  For instance, the experimental design described above could be modified in various ways to test for the independent influence of various “environmental treatments” on the outcome — peer pressures, group identifications and empathy.  Though this would entail a complex experimental paradigm with some unique validation problems, the results could shed much light on the influence of both nature and nurture, and the interactions between them, in the fairness phenotype.  Indeed, one could even envision a “thought experiment” in which twin pairs are the subjects, using the classic research “strategy” of behavioral genetics, to tease out the heritable component .

What is Fairness?

Of course, all of these theoretical claims and experimental speculations have sidestepped the most important question of all – what is “fairness”?  How do you know it when you see it?  And why is it so hard to define it in any definitive, all-purpose way?  The answer that I would propose is that fairness is not some absolute principle, and there is no unambiguous measure of fairness.  The reason is that fairness involves a value judgment that we can make only in the context of a specific set of social relationships.  It refers to a certain quality, or property, of a given relationship in a particular situation, and each instance must be judged in its own terms (or perhaps in terms of some precedent, or a decision rule, for a broad class of similar situations).  Fairness is a social value.

But if fairness is “relative” this does not mean that it is (by and large) an illusion, or a rationalization used to justify individual self-interests (as some cynics believe).  Remember the character Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic, who asserted that social justice is nothing more than “the interest of the stronger.” On the contrary, fairness, by definition, must take account of the interests and needs of all the parties to a relationship.  Fairness is quintessentially about reconciling and compromising between different, often competing or conflicting interests.  It represents a middle-ground, where it is possible to replace coercion and zero-sum logic with the willing consent of the affected parties.  Indeed, Plato and Aristotle, and many other theorists since, have insisted that social justice (fairness) is the basic prerequisite for a harmonious group or society.  It is also an implicit core value of any democratic political system.  (There is, in fact, a substantial theoretical literature in economics on fair dealing. Again see Corning 2004)

In this light, it is not at all surprising that fairness is a vortex of ongoing debate in any dynamic set of social, economic or political relationships.   Nor is it surprising that many of our perceptions of fairness/unfairness are colored by evolved cultural practices that have been developed over time to deal with various potential conflict situations; call it the learning curve of fairness.   Some of these practices are so familiar that we take them for granted – first come first served; equal shares; a lottery (equal, random chances); equity or proportionality; and various handicap principles (like senior discounts or allowing families with children to board an airliner ahead of others).  Other fairness principles are emergent and are evolving as we speak – allowing women to vote in various countries or granting women and minorities equal pay for equal work, etc.  Several other aspects of fairness should also be briefly noted:

• The concept can legitimately be divided into two broad classes – procedural fairness and fairness in the end-results, or the outcomes.  The former include such well-established principles as due process, impartial juries, a “level playing-field,” and “fair play,” while the latter includes issues relating to such things as pay scales, progressive taxation, entitlement programs, etc.

• Fairness is commonly associated with economic issues, but this is not always the case.  This was illustrated in the science fiction movie Contact, where Jodie Foster plays a young astronomer (Ellie Arroway) who devotes here life (and ultimately sacrifices her academic career) to the dogged search for extraterrestrial intelligence.  Her nemesis and active opponent in this enterprise is a former mentor who has risen, with consummate political skills, to become head of the National Science Foundation.  When Arroway finally succeeds in making contact, the NSF director, David Drumlin, contrives to have her work classified “secret” and steps forward to claim public credit for it.  Of course, such things never happen in the real world! (However, there is a happy ending to the movie – fairness triumphs.)

• Fairness is not always an individual matter; there is also a “macro-level” aspect to it.  Organized groups, organizations, business firms and even governments often act collectively as “individuals” in ways that impact on other groups or various individuals.  Accordingly, it is quite legitimate to judge the fairness of these corporate actions.

• Fairness tends to be very ethnocentric, as we all know.  For instance, it was not too long ago that many people considered it perfectly OK to enslave the members of other races, or nationalities. Or to engage in blatant discrimination.  But ethnocentrism is also proving to be pliable.  Those who are considered part of a group, or society, is not a rigidly fixed rule, as the American experience (among others) has demonstrated.  Indeed, former enemies can become allies who are treated very differently over time.

• Justice and fairness overlap, but the former term has a strong legal/juridical cast to it (going back to its role in Greek and Roman jurisprudence) and implies a role for third-party arbiters, while the latter is more closely identified with how the primary actors themselves view the matter.  (As an aside, John Rawls’s 1972 treatise on justice as fairness defined fairness in narrow economic terms as being realized when the poor get a proportionately larger share of economic “progress”  — which implies only a redistribution of future wealth.  But what if the tide goes out, and the poor find that their boats are sinking?)

• This leads to a final point about the phenomenology of fairness.  Although the term can rightly be viewed as an umbrella that, in many cases, has no fixed value (it is context dependent, like the value of money), there is at least one important exception.  Contrary to the neo-classical economic assertion that all human tastes and preferences are relative, the fact is that we all have an array of some 14 broad categories of “basic needs” – absolute requisites for survival and reproduction.  (For a detailed exposition, see Corning 2000.) These needs are not negotiable.  If they are not fully satisfied, a person’s health and possibly their life may be at serious risk.  Accordingly, an economic system in which some members possess great wealth (a surplus beyond the provision for their basic needs) while others are in a state of serious deprivation, amounts to a zero-sum game with life-and-death consequences.  In a complex, interdependent society with an elaborate division of labor, I would argue that the claim of basic needs transcends other fairness claims, such as “merit” or property rights.  (This point is argued in more detail in Corning 2003b, 2003c.)

Conclusion

Why does fairness matter?  Why are we off-put – most of us – by self-serving claims like “the end justifies the means,”  “winner take all,” “anything goes,”  “survival of the fittest,” “all’s fair in love and war,”   etc.  Or by evidence of fraud, or of cheating. It matters in the end because fairness is the golden thread that binds a viable society together, while the alternatives lead to exploitation, civil disorder, bloodshed and tyranny.  It was Plato, after all, who first pointed out (and Aristotle was his second) that extremes of wealth and poverty are the greatest source of social conflict in any organized society.  It is a lesson that subsequent generations have often forgotten, to their regret.  Maybe at last we can learn (and remember) something from this sad history.  Fairness must be elevated to a sacred right. Otherwise, as Santayana warned, we may be forced once again to repeat our past mistakes.

 

References

Corning, P. A. (2003a) Nature’s Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind. New York, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Corning, P.A. (2003b) “Evolutionary Ethics:  An Idea Whose Time Has Come? An Overview and Affirmation.” Politics and the Life Sciences 22: 50-58.

Corning, P.A. (2003c) “Fair Shares:  Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, Or the Biological Basis of Social Justice.”  Politics and the Life Sciences 22(2): 12-32

Corning, P. A. (2004) “The Evolution of Politics,” in F. M. Wuketits and C. Antweiler eds., Handbook of Evolution (Vol. I, pp. 191-252). Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH.

de Waal, F. B.M. (1996) Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.    Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

de Waal, F.B.M.  (1997) Bonobo:  The Forgotten Ape.    Berkeley: University of California Press.

de Waal, F.B.M., Ed. (2001) Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution.    Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Maynard Smith, J., and E. Szathmáry. (1995) The Major Transitions in Evolution.    Oxford: Freeman Press

Rawls, J. (1972) “A Theory of Justice.”    Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Sober E., and D.S. Wilson (1998) Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

Wilson, J.Q. (1993) The Moral Sense.  New York:  The Free Press.