An Executive Summary of John Broome’s Fairness

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An Executive Summary of John Broome’s Fairness

In his article, “Fairness,” John Broome outlines a clear contrast between two approaches to ethics. On the one hand, there is general goodness. Another consideration is fairness. He claims that what is fair is not necessarily what is good, and what is excellent is not always what is fair (Broome, 1990, p.88). So, in order to be good, one may need to reach a different conclusion than is required to be fair. According to Broome, fairness is meeting everyone’s demands in the same manner (p. 95). As such, assertions must be proved correct in proportion to the strength of the evidence supporting them (p. 100). When it comes to the distribution of products that cannot be shared, Broome believes that weighted lotteries must be used as a stand-in to ensure that each candidate’s demands are addressed fairly. Broome discusses the challenge of dividing up resources, particularly when there aren’t enough of something for everyone. Societies must, for example, recruit individuals to join the military, select who may get medical benefits and treatment, and provide educational bursaries and opportunities. When there are enough resources (goods) to fulfill all feasible claims (p. 100), certain assigning techniques may be simple and fair to apply, especially allotting via lotteries (p. 101). As a result, both my study and analysis will be geared at addressing the question of what the requirements are for equitable distribution when resources are scarce. My executive summary, based on Broome’s theory, discusses whether society should be biased, that is, select individuals for certain reasons, and whether it is preferable to choose people at random. I find this to be, at its very core, unfair. Scholars such as Kirkpatrick and Eastwood (2015, p.84) have proposed a variety of approaches to distributing money equitably, noting lotteries to be an insensitive and blind approach to allocation of resources. My focus on distributive justice, limited resources, and related processes, as well as the weaknesses in Broome’s theory is important not only for individuals and the decisions they make in their daily lives, but also for political, social, or economic distributive fairness questions that may affect the entire world.

John Broome makes a crucial point on what it takes to be fair terming fairness as the demands that must be fulfilled in proportion to their strength. According to this concept, if two persons have equal rights to a good that may be divided, it is only fair that each person get one-half of the good (p. 92). However, it is difficult to address the demands of each person individually when it comes to things that cannot be broken down, a point that Kirkpatrick and Eastwood (2015, 90) see as a major weakness on the lotteries and allocation theory of fairness. Broome proposes using weighted lotteries instead of straight proportional rewards (p. 95). This suggests that a person’s odds of winning the lottery are proportional to the amount of money they put in. Because Broome’s concept is based on lotteries, it’s probable that he believes justice is based on random selection. Lotteries play an important role in keeping the law fair.

A lottery is a method of selecting beneficiaries and losers, a way of randomly influencing an outcome with the consequences being unknown. Random selection may be accomplished by flipping a coin, rolling dice, or plucking balls at random from an urn. This implies that neither the person conducting the allocation nor the individuals who desire the benefit know ahead of time who will receive it and who will not. Because the procedure is totally random, no one can be given preferential treatment based on particular variables when a lottery is employed. Before beginning the selection process, the allocator examines the objectives being pursued and determines the likelihood of each alternative being picked. Broome explains why persons are chosen at random in allocative decision-making, which is analogous to utilizing lotteries in this context, and proposes a very clear theory of fairness (p. 88). As a result, Broome demonstrates that lotteries are not only inexpensive and successful, but also, and most crucially, fair (p. 89), even when certain aspects of people’s lives, such as color, gender, social standing, age, degree of happiness, and so on, are not precisely equal (p. 104). Therefore, as per Broome’s position, if a benefit (or a disadvantage) cannot be divided or distributed equally, and if all possible candidates have (nearly) equal fairness claims, a decision-maker may be justified in employing a lottery to offer everyone an equal chance of receiving the benefit under specific circumstances.

Having a fairness claim, according to Broome, gives a candidate to a claim to a good and, as a consequence, the right to be treated equally in comparison to other persons who have the same fairness claim. Regardless, there is no reason to suppose those in need have a legal title to the item in question (Broome, 1990, p. 93). According to Kirkpatrick and Eastwood (2015, page 84), it is unclear what Broome means by “some claim to the good” without stating a right to it, which may make fairness arguments difficult to understand. This is because Broome does not define “claims” or explain where they originate from or what they include. It is conceivable that not all applicants may be awarded a resource, in which case their claims will be denied. As a result, it may be more reasonable to argue that fairness claims provide all candidates with the right to be treated equally and given the same weight as the other candidates (Broome, 1990, p. 98-100), but do not provide candidates with the right to the benefit itself (p. 102). Broome does not explain what it implies, and he does not appear to have the scope of his theory on this crucial concept.

Fairness in partnerships is treating everyone fairly. That would need either offering the good to everyone or to nobody. This cannot happen, especially when a product cannot be separated into bits. It is difficult to avoid being unfair when doing good for certain individuals but not others. If a few candidates are poisoned and need an antidote, but the antidote is effective for just one of them, it will not help anybody to split the antidote evenly such that everyone dies since fairness implies that everyone should get the same treatment. Therefore, we can only assure that all candidates are treated equally in some other way, such as by giving them all an equal chance of receiving the product via a random selection process (lottery). Here, Broome’s logic makes a lot of sense and is applicable to the functioning of society.  Broome’s notion that equal demands should be treated in the same manner by means of a lottery brings some justice to an unjust situation and permits some rights to be partially satisfied.

All promises other than those concerning justice, according to Broome, are referred to as “the public good.” These are all instances of “features” that may be used to compare and contrast two people. Fairness is always defined by the larger good, according to utilitarianism (p. 92), thus whomever promotes it the most should profit the most (p. 93). Claims and the public good are intricately intertwined. Nonetheless, despite each contender’s claims of neutrality, there are situations in which backing one candidate over another may take priority. This suggests a possible inconsistency between the requirements of fairness derived from claims of justice and all other conditions (Kirkpatrick and Eastwood, 2015, page 83). In contrast to the utilitarian approach, they should be considered independently of one another in allocation techniques. For example, charges of unfairness may be handled based on higher concepts such as life equality, which are much more significant than particular facts such as age or skin color. As a result, a lottery may promote justice to some extent while not materially damaging the larger good, lessening the tension between these two goals (Broome, 1990, p. 105). This is true as long as the value of justice outweighs the damage done to the greater good by not granting it to the individual best suited to promote it, and as long as all claims are (nearly) equal. Clearly, fairness is often decided by the larger good, such as when choosing a candidate for a job, and there are compelling reasons to prefer one person over another based on who would best serve the greater good. As a result, I find that Broome’s lottery system and the use of random selection is not suitable for all allocation procedures; rather, it is appropriate only when it is the correct thing to do and all claims to fairness are equal. In essence, the proportional relevance of each aspect given the circumstances determines whether to make a judgment based on fairness principles or other reasons.

In summary, John Broome’s fairness theory is an attempt to answer the three major challenges that individuals who examine fairness must face. I have endeavored to show how Broome’s definition of fairness and the concept of comparative desert are compatible, and I also defend Broome’s argument that fairness requires claims to be met in proportion to one another. Even though I argue that Broome’s theory cannot give a satisfactory solution to these challenges, I endorse his assumption that claims must be satisfied in proportion to one another. The primary issue is why we have to presume that chances are equal only when all the advantages of both options are same. It is being questioned whether fairness should always be considered while making decisions. Lotteries, according to John Broome’s opinions and ideas, are solely employed to settle disputes and make judgments, not because they are fair. This is because equal chances are only supplied when the expected benefits of all probable outcomes are equal. Even if one thinks lotteries are typically fair, Broome’s fairness theory does not explain why, leaving a gap to further this position and principle and extend the fairness debate beyond simple random events of lottery picking.

References

Broome, J. (1990). Fairness. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Vol. 91, pp. 87-101). Aristotelian Society, Wiley.

Kirkpatrick, J. R., & Eastwood, N. (2015). Broome’s Theory of Fairness and the Problem of Quantifying the Strengths of Claims. Utilitas, 27(1), 82-91.