Quotes About Fairness

That's what's so striking about the title of Kushner's book: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. How is that fair? Well, the answer to that is that there are no good people.

from each according to his ability to each according to his need"

Why should his sexual preference preclude his being voted into Hall of Fame? You don't know much about baseball, do you, doc?

Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper.

The basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. Equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights.

Is the fact that other people are not doing their fair share a sufficient reason for allowing a child to die when you could easily rescue that child? I think the answer is clear: No. The others have, by refusing to help with the rescue, made themselves irrelevant. They might as well be so many rocks. According to the fair-share view, in fact, it would be better for the children if they were rocks, because then you would be obliged to wade back into the pond to save another child.

the argument is really about equality rather than about rights.

The extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups.

In short, if the demand for equality were based on the actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop demanding equality.

instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact.

In other words, the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being.

It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern for others and our readiness to consider their interests ought not to depend on what they are like or on what abilities they may possess.

but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights.

They talk about this thing in the head; what do they call it? ["Intellect," whispered someone nearby.] That's it. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?3

El principio de la igualdad de los seres humanos no es una descripción de una supuesta igualdad real entre ellos: es una norma relativa a cómo deberíamos tratar a los seres humanos

you're not paid back for the bad you do nor the good you do. It all comes out uneven at the end. Haven't I learned that by now, if I've learned anything?

It might not be fair, but no one's to blame.

There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty and Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.

social justice" in practice is just a rationale for the taking of one person's achievements, and giving them to others who are favored by the party in power.

you for or against the equality of human beings?

That theme is individual freedom. The economic redistribution that progressives demand is not "fairness," as they maintain. Socialism is theft and a war on individual freedom.

Thus, the proclaimed goal of affirmative action advocates is to level the playing field. It is defined this way to highlight the left's claim that traditional civil rights solutions have failed to achieve real equality, by which is meant equality of results. Traditional civil rights solutions were focused on the fairness of the institutional process, the elimination of legal barriers to political power and individual opportunity.

If the white majority is racist how can a government it dominates be counted on to redress racial grievances? The question is absurd because the premise is absurd. In fact it is America's white racial majority that ended slavery, outlawed discrimination, funded massive welfare programs for inner-city blacks, and created the very affirmative action policies that are allegedly necessary to force them to be fair.

We have to be willing to live at the same standard by which we judge.