Why is life unfair?

Fairness is one of these enigmatic concepts stubbornly defying definition. It is easy to see why. Suppose A and B are playing a coin-tossing game: when it comes up a tail, A is given a dollar, otherwise B is given a dollar. There were ten tosses and A got $10 while B got zilch. How could it be fair that A has everything while B has nothing? Now, suppose there is an elimination tournament starting with equal stakes and winner-takes-all coin tossups; in the end, there will a single winner taking everyone’s money. The game can be fair, but the outcome is unfair.

In reality, people would always argue that not only the outcome of the game but the game itself was unfair. Fair games are expected to produce fair results. Perhaps unnaturally lucky A was a cheater who skillfully replaced the coin. The rich winner of the tournament had the advantages of being lucky and/or having otherworldly intuition. Perhaps he should be given more money, as he must be good at this game. Such rationalizing logic accurately describes the success of our financial gurus.

But that’s just the beginning. Ever tighter scrutiny will always detect hidden agendas and advantages. The two players are never the same – imagine that... I’ve heard countless times how unfair it is that children of the rich have more opportunity open to them than children of the poor. One would think that the solution of this problem is self-obvious: newborn children should be randomized at birth, so biological children of the poor would have equal opportunity to be raised in the families of the rich. Logically, this should solve the problem once and for all, but good luck selling it to the public. They want equal opportunity AND raising their own children, while it is obvious that the two things are mutually incompatible. For all this talk about the equality of opportunity, you will be told that this (equally) randomized opportunity is still unequal. Well, let me open a secret: it cannot be made equal no matter what you do. No matter how you level the field in one respect there will always be striking inequality of the outcomes. Having higher IQ is as unfair as having been born rich. If people are poor, they can be given money; if they are stupid, that is much harder to fix. The most idiotic thing one can require, in this respect, is material equality. First, it simply cannot last, even if the “game” is absolutely fair; second, it means that unfairness will find a subtler outlet, be it access to status, power, knowledge, privilege, respect, happiness, etc. By far, unequal distribution of colored pieces of paper is the most benign type of unfairness imaginable, but people are still unhappy and bitterly complaining about it.

As people themselves have no clue as to what they mean by fairness, weird rumors about this elusive condition abound. Some say that fairness is giving by desert. Some say that it is giving by need. All of that sounds great until you realize that a human being is a pit of wants. You cannot give according to one’s need, because this need is bottomless and the appetite only grows as more is given. You cannot give according to one’s desert, because everyone is deserving in his own eyes.

Perhaps for this reason people do not like to define fairness; that would obviously stand in the way of extortion in the name of fairness. However, one can define fairness so imaginatively that the latter is always possible. Hart and Rawls defined the principle of fairness

... when a number of persons engage in a just, mutually advantageous, cooperative venture according to rules and thus restrain their liberty in ways necessary to yield advantages for all, those who have submitted to these restrictions have a right to similar acquiescence on the part of those who have benefited from their submission.

Observe that their notion of fairness is conditioned on voluntary admission of mutual advantage and restraint of liberties. Naturally, most of our ventures are neither mutually advantageous nor entirely voluntary, so the principle applies to an abstraction; the sleight of hand is to identify this abstraction with ourselves. Would these imaginary persons try to get “similar acquiescence” they would learn that some people are in greater need and are more deserving than themselves. Besides, this equity may apply to anything from time spent to level of skill used to personal commitment to personal sacrifice and loyalty, and significant differences of opinion will immediately emerge. If they surpass these hurdles, there is still the question of equal division. Even in this most abstract form the problem cannot be solved. The procedure for envy-free division (=each person thinks that he receives at least a tied for largest piece) of goods for just four parties was solved only in 1997, and even this laborious procedure is not equitable (=each person’s subjective valuation of the piece that he or she receives is the same as the other person’s subjective valuation.)
http://www.ams.org/notices/200611/fea-brams.pdf
Generally, envy-free and efficient (no other allocation that is better for one person and at least as good for the other person) divisions are not equitable and vice versa. If complete fairness cannot be achieved even in this hypothetical cake-cutting division, how can it be achieved in real life? We are content with using various approximated methods (such as sealed bids or designated divider) that provide a degree of “fairness,” which is ALWAYS questionable, as our own intuitions about fairness are inherently contradictory. To get our “equal” piece of divided cake we are always ready to sacrifice fairness, which makes perfect sense as the alternative is to die of starvation.

Sometimes one is brutally reminded of this fact. Today I’ve spent an hour explaining to my son, why a Russian roulette duel is unfair to one of the players, as they exchange a single loaded gun when they miss. It is not hard to work out the probability of killing the first shooter (6/11), but the interesting thing is that intuitively the “game” does not feel unfair, perhaps because the bias is only 0.045. So we examined a modification, when A spins the cylinder and shoots at B, and B gets two shots at A and passes it to A, who gets three shots at B, etc. The probability changes to 0.524, but it is not something that one can calculate in one’s head. It is even less clear with the coin, because of dynamic instability (giving it 0.008 advantage) and unequal mass distribution. Yet such biased wagers are routinely taken in full understanding that they are unfair. The question is why.

I believe that deep down we are well aware that the pursuit of fairness is futile. Had people really wanted fairness and fairness were meaningful, we would have it long time ago. Fairness is not something we can afford. When things are unfair one can always blame one’s faults on the others. Would things be fair, who is going to be blamed for the sorry outcome?

Exactly. So it is much better to have fuzzy notions of fairness that leave plenty of room to complain about unfairness of life, and that is what we do.

Why is life unfair?