Response

Fairness

"It's mine!"

"No! I had it first!"

"It's miiiiiiiiiine!" Cadence's normally pretty pink face burned scarlet, highlighted by streams of scalding tears. Her little blond pigtail had come undone on one side and the wild curls bounce like flames on the side of hot little head. It added a decided demoniacal whimsy to her tantrum.

"David," I began. But he cut me off--

"It's not fair!" David began to roust a vehement protest but suddenly thought better of it. Adopting instead a demure countenance, he dropped the toy and scooted away. "Stupid toy anyway," he casually mumbled.

Cadence's tears and screams ceased with startling immediacy. She sat, retrieved the toy--a small plastic model of a shark, the sort that come in a clear tube with dozens of other sea creatures--and began to swim it casually through an imaginary sea.

"It really isn't fair," I whispered to myself as I returned to the dishes and the faucet I had left running.

But I sort of think it was fair. Fairness is patently abstract. There is no objective measure of fairness. It is a concept that can only be defined from my own perspective, or yours, but never ours. We will never agree on what is fair, unless we do so for our mutual benefit respective to some other party.

For example, if we are both starving (you and I) and are presented with a slice of pizza, fairness will not lead us to sharing the slice, as you might believe it should. A neutral third party would say it is fair to share the slice, but only because that third party isn't starving. If that guy is starving, he will likely eat the slice himself--it's only fair.

You and I would agree to share the slice with one another only when faced with the possibility that the other guy would eat it himself. We aren't really sharing with one another, we are sticking it (mutually) to that other guy--it's only fair.

You might change the game a bit by substituting the slice for a whole pizza, but that's semantics. We still won't share unless it is in our own individual interest to do so--again, if a third party threatens to keep us from eating any pizza, we will choose to each eat half. Otherwise, we want the whole damn thing--it's only fair.

Maybe you keep tweaking the rules: I have kids, you don't. Does that mean I need it more (presumably to save my kids)? Or does it mean you need it more, since one pizza isn't likely to sustain an entire family for very long at all? Of course, you're lactose intolerant. The pizza will still feed you, but with nasty side effects, side effects I wouldn't face. We can do this indefinitely, but there is no real solution.

Fairness is what we (individually, not collectively) make it. What I make it.

Cadence had a point; the shark does belong to her. That is, it showed up in the toe of her stocking last Christmas. So did an octopus, two sea turtles, an electric eel, and an orca.

But that ownership is a tentative argument since I (or Santa) could have easily dropped any one of those figures into an adjacent stocking, thus changing the circumstances entirely. Nevertheless...

David was also right in that he did have it first, as long as first doesn't extend back to any point earlier than the start of that particular play session. For small children it usually doesn't. David was also right in declaring the toy stupid--though his sincerity is in doubt. He wanted the toy; he just didn't want the fight.

And I think that's what settles it most of the time. Fairness isn't a pre-existing condition. It isn't something that can be objectively determined through careful analysis of the context. Rather, fairness is determined when one party wants something badly enough to fight for it, and the other party doesn't. The victor feels the triumphant reward and names it fairness (or justice, erroneously). The loser just feels beset and labels that feeling "unfair" (or unjust, again erroneously). 

So, yeah, I guess it was unfair to David for Cadence to get the toy--but it would have been equally unfair for David to have kept it, for Cadence that is. I guess I could have taken it for myself--

But it really is a stupid toy.