The Balance of Fairness

AARON HASS Ph.D

In the final turbulent decade of white rule in South Africa, thousands of people were killed in spasms of violence. The commission was authorized by the present south African government to investigate the abuses of the previous administrations, particularly its police and military arms. In the interest of cooling racial tensions and staving off a potential military upheaval, the post apartheid constitution offered immunity from prosecution or vigil lawsuits to those who confessed their deeds, no matter how heinous they might have been. When black protestors were massacred by white police at Sharpeville, and May 10, 1994, when Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first post apartheid president.

Black south Africans wanted at least an acknowledgement of the vicious persecution they had suffered. Bishop Desmond Tutu is Chairman of the Truth Commission. In an interview conducted by an American Journalist in 1996, he was asked if he believed that he and the other on the Commission were honoring the promise of justice they had made to the victims of the repressive regimes.

          We crave dignity and we crave a fairness that produced it. James Wilson, in the Moral sense, Describes a game developed by three German economists that illustrates our natural resistance to being treated in a contrary fashion:

          Called Ultimatum, it involves two players. The first is given a sum of money – say, then dollars – that he is to divide in any way he wishes between himself and the second player must accept or reject the offer, knowing that there will be no further offers, and that the two people will never play the game again. If the second player accepts, the two player divide the money in the way the first player proposed If the second player rejects the offer, then neither player gets anything. if both players are wholly self-interested, then the first will offer the second one cent and keep 9.99 for himself, and the second player will accept the offer. After all, the second player has no choice: He either gets something or nothing, and one cent is better than nothing. The first player has no incentive to offer more than one cent, since anything more comes out of his share .

If your experience in player Ultimatum is like that of the German economist who experimented with it, it is extremely unlikely that you will act in a rationally self-interested way. If you are the first player, you will probably propose an equal division of the money or, at worst something like 70-30. If you are the second player, you will probably reject offers that lopsidedly favor the fast player, even though it means you will get nothing. People are willing to forgo money in order to ensure fairness or to punish people who act unfairly- here, the "greedy" first player.