Chapter 5 

: Being fair : Another Key Anglo Value and its Cultural Underpinnings

SLIDE 2:
Today we are going to talk about the Anglo concept of “Being Fair” and its
implications.
SLIDE 3:
Fairness is one of the most important values in modern Anglo culture. It is very
common to hear or read phrases like: “That´s not fair!” Or “It´s not fair!”. It is crazy to think
how the words fair and unfair are so “universal” in English, whilst there are no equivalents in
any other European languages.
The frequency of the word fair in modern English is EXTREMELY high. The high
frequency and colloquial character of the expressions “that’s not fair!” and “it’s not fair” are
reflected in the existence of the reduced version “s’not fair!” used by children, as we can see
very often in children’s books. Not only that, but we can see it being used in scholarly works,
government publications, public administration, business, trade, and law.
It often occurs that the concept of fairness co-occurs with those of right and specially
reasonableness. As we can see in these examples of the collocation fair and reasonable:
- His view of the Chamberlain case was not only accurate but also fair and
reasonable.
- There are others with fair and reasonable claims to the job.
-
SLIDE 4:
Let´s consider the meaning of fair and not fair.
In principle, it implies doing or not doing something that is good to someone else. It can
only happen in relationship to another person and it differs from “good” or “right” in this
aspect: what one is doing is affecting someone else. For instance: In British and Australian
English (though not in U.S. English): one can do something that is unfair on another person, as
well as unfair to another person.
The words fair and unfair are also used with respect to things that simply happen to us,
without anybody “doing” anything, as in the common complaint that “life is unfair.”
Another aspect of the meaning of fair and not fair is that of doing (or not doing)
something that is bad for another person. If we compare the term “just” with “fair” we see that
the last can involve one person doing things with other, not just to others (differing from “just”):
For example:
A king could be described as just but not fair. Whilst a teacher can be described as fair
but not just. The king does not do things WITH his subjects, but the teacher does.
It is also interesting to note that rules can be described as either fair or not fair but
cannot be described as just or not just, whereas with laws, it is the other way around.
For example, the rules of the game are for people who want to play a game together. In
a sense, people who want to play together accept a set of rules as binding for them all. This is
not the case, however, with laws: whether the laws are just or unjust, they bind people subject to
them as if they were imposed on them from above.
SLIDE 5:
The link between fairness and rules shows that fairness implies a certain consensus. Let
´s take for example a game: A game is a good model of a collective activity: people enter the
game voluntarily, but within a given game, the rules are binding—otherwise, there would be no
game.
This is an essential aspect of ‘fair play’: acting according to the rules, ‘above board’—
without seeking for oneself an advantage that would be against the rules. The concept of “fair
play” makes an emphasis on what a person can and cannot do.
On the one hand, it is often assumed that “fairness” needs to be understood in terms of
equality, equity, or nondiscrimination, but that is not so. Let´s consider, for example, the
collocation fair prices. Here, the focus is not on prices being the same for everyone but rather
on prices being such that they could be judged as justifiable.
Similarly, expressions like a fair comment or a fair criticism do not refer to an equal
distribution of goods but rather to the possibility of saying things that are harmful to some
people in the speaker’s community and that are not justifiable with reference to some generally
accepted standard.
Another example could be that of a father described by his only child as “strict but fair”.
This couldn’t mean that he treats all of his kids equally, given the fact that the father only has
one kid. But it could mean, for example, that if the father sets a rule with reward if respected,
and the child respects the rule, then he continues to award the reward.
Another case is the expression of manifesting that someone or something is not fair.
This is not an absolute moral judgement but a protest, an objection or even a grievance. It
implies not that someone simply did something bad, but that he or she did it to me.
SLIDE 6:
So, having the things above in consideration, we can attempt a meaning of the word
“fair”. This definition will have three parts:
1. The first part: In the negative frame “that not fair”, “I say” expresses the speaker´s
judgment.
2. The second part displays the background assumptions behind the concept “fair”.
3. The third part justifies the speaker´s judgement.
The positive phrase “that’s fair” can be explain as: not not fair.
SLIDE 7:
Let´s move on to “Fairness”, as an anglo political philosophy.
The everyday word fair has crystallized in its meaning political and philosophical ideas
that were developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by the thinkers of the British
Enlightenment and that have become a deep part of modern Anglo consciousness.
“Fairness” is linked with a democratic conception of society, that it has its origins in
the idea of social contract, that it is linked with the idea of cooperation and mutual agreement,
and that it presupposes publicly recognized and generally accepted rules.
This idea has been developed by Rawl as it follows:
1- Social cooperation is guided by publicly recognized rules and procedures.
 2- Fair terms of cooperation specify an idea of reciprocity: all who do their part as the
recognized rules require are to benefit as specified by a public and agreed upon
standard.
3- The idea of cooperation also includes the idea of each participant´s rational
advantage, or good.
SLIDE 8:
Now, where do concepts of “fairness” and “justices” come from?
Justice is a shared concept in all European languages. Unlike ‘fairness’, which is
distinctively Anglo, ‘justice’ belongs to a common European heritage with its source in Greek
philosophy and in the Bible.
Although it is true that the English word justice has relatively close parallels in many
other European languages, these parallels do not amount to full semantic identity.
Let´s see how “justice” was used in the past, with these three examples from
Shakespeare:
- I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give: Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must
not live. (Romeo and Juliet)

- F. Peter [to Isabella]: Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.

- Isabella: Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard upon a wrong’d I’d fain have said,
a maid! O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other
object, Till you have heard me in my true complaint, And given me justice, justice,
justice! (Measure for Measure)

- Antipholous of Ephesus: Justice, most gracious duke, oh, grant me justice! Justice,
sweet prince, against that woman there she whom thou gave’st to me to be my wife
That hath abused and dishonour’d me Even in the strength and height of injury!
Beyond imagination is the wrong that she this day hath shameless thrown on me.

- Duke: Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. (Comedy of Errors)

As these examples suggest, justice refers to a society where some people have power
over other people and can make decisions that influence other people’s lives for the good or for
the bad.
In contrast to the concept of “justice”, the notion of “fairness” is related to the notion of
“rights”. It is all the more striking that in the literature fairness is often presented as a variety of
‘justice’ or a specific conception of ‘justice’.
Justice’ can be contrasted not only with ‘injustice’ but also with ‘mercy’. For example:
- And earthly power doth then show likest God
- When mercy seasons justice (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)
SLIDE 9:
 As we have seen before, the concept of fairness is exclusive of English language. But it
is so important inside its culture that most English speakers think is a universal concept. This is
a good example of how people’s native language can shape their ways of thinking and their
assumptions about what is natural and universal. Many scholars working in English simply
refuse to believe that “fairness” is not a universal human concern.
The notion of fairness is so transcendental and natural for native English speakers, that
by the time that they are in elementary school, the idea of fairness has acquired a fairly definite
meaning: people should have equal shares.
There is, though, a word for “fair” in French: juste. As in: c´est pas juste (it is not fair).
The French word juste could be compared not only with the English fair but also with the
English word right. BUT while in English one can describe office bearers in democratic
institutions as “fair” (e.g., “she is very fair”) one could not use the French word juste in such a
context: “*elle est très juste,”. So we have that The English fair and the French juste overlap in
meaning, but they do not match.
“Fairness” is essentially about rules (“social contract”) that are the same for everyone,
publicly recognized, and generally accepted. There are actually some universal moral norms and
values, but to think that “fairness” is among them is an Anglocentric illusion.

SLIDE 10:
Let´s take an historical perspective on “fairness” and “fair play”.
When did the concept of ‘fairness’ enter the English language? The question is not easy
to answer, because the words fair and unfair are attested in English from the nineth century and
because their earlier meanings and the changes in their meanings have not yet been investigated.
That is to say: (having the premise that the meaning of signs evolves ) we still don´t
know for sure what it meant back then to say the same words.
But, according to OED, the word unfair in the relevant sense entered the English
language in the eighteenth century. The OED defines this sense as follows:
“Not fair or equitable; unjust; of actions, conduct etc, specifically of (business competition)”
But, is it plausible that the word unfair was not used, in the sentences that the OED uses
as example (citing “unfair competition”), exactly in the same sense in which it was used in late
nineteenth- and twentieth century.
The range of collocations of fair was also different from what it is now. Some
collocations were common then but impossible now, like: a fair proof, a fair disclosure, and a
fair confession.
The earliest examples that sound “modern” in their use of fair are those with the phrase
fair play, attested from the end of the sixteenth century. These examples are: fair play (that had
it opposite in foul play, not unfair play) and fair confession.
Now this is totally different than in fair competition with its opposite, unfair
competition. Whilst in fair play the notion of rules was part of the meaning of the word play, in
fair competition it became part of the meaning of fair itself.
SLIDE 11:
Continuing with the colocation “Fair play”, we have that, as a model of human
interaction, it highlights the “procedural” character of the ethics of fairness. The emergence of
the concept of “fairness” reflects a shift away from absolute morality to “procedural morality.”
When analyzed by scholars, the concept of fairness is often thought of as in term of
sporting metaphors.
Jeremy Paxman, the author of The English: A Portrait of a People (1999), wrote that
“while the French Revolution invented the Citizen, the English creation is the Game. And
certainly, sport came to occupy a central role in English culture.” He also quotes a characteristic
comment by the writer Vita Sackville-West that links the English preoccupation with games and
sport with the concept of ‘fairness’.
In a way, sport—especially team sport—provides a perfect model for “fair” interaction
because the emphasis is on rules and procedures, which are blind to the individual players’
interests and which everyone voluntarily accepts.
The cultural assumptions of “fairness” as we have analyzed here reflect a specific,
historically shaped, political and social philosophy.
SLIDE 12:
“The concept of ‘fairness’ is an artifact of modern Anglo culture and one of the key
concepts that speakers of Anglo English live with and see as the best basis for social life and
interpersonal interaction.”
That is to say that the idea of “fairness” is a product of Anglo culture, a concept
transcendental for the dynamics of relationships in society.
The author Francis Fukuyama, in his book Trust, defines culture as “inherited ethical
habit.” Distinguishing “ideologies,” which are conscious, from “cultural habit” and “unwritten
moral rules.”
Following his distinction, we can say that the concept of fairness is deeply rooted as a
cultural habit, that Anglo speakers naturally use as a part of their structured view of reality.