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• # Probably42

  

  • 137 posts
   

  December 5, 2017 10:10 AM GMT

  We all comment a lot on what we regard as fair in life but what is fair? How do we define fair so that we can all agree and measure how fair things are?

• Geoff Osborne

  

  • 24 posts
   

  December 6, 2017 9:29 AM GMT

  A good question! The dichotomy as I see it is between fairness of opportunity (the right wing view) and fairness of outcome (the left wing view). In a race for 6 year-olds is it fair that they all start at the same place or is it fair that they all get the same prize? Personally I think fairness is too often used as a smokescreen for a more considered debate. Anyone who claims that it's not fair should be asked to explain themselves.

   

  
  This post was edited by Geoff Osborne at December 6, 2017 11:37 AM GMT
• Richard Owen

  

  • 4 posts
   

  January 13, 2018 5:11 PM GMT

  Is it even possible to measure fairness generally? as each claim of "unfairness" could only be assessed within the parameters of the claim, the assessor(s) would also be biased and opinionated, so who would be qualified in any particular case? This is also problematical in the case of defining reasonable, appropriate, ethical, average, statistics etc...