Is Fairness in the Eye of the Beholder? An Impartial Spectator Analysis of Justice

James Konow ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: A popular sentiment is that fairness is inexorably subjective and incapable of being determined by objective standards. This study, on the other hand, seeks to establish evidence on unbiased justice and to propose and demonstrate a general approach for measuring impartial views empirically. Most normative justice theories associate impartiality with limited information and with consensus, i.e., a high level of agreement about what is right. In both the normative and positive literature, information is usually seen as the raw material for self-serving bias and disagreement. In contrast, this paper proposes a type of impartiality that is associated with a high level of information. The crucial distinction is the emphasis here on the views of impartial spectators, rather than implicated stakeholders. I describe the quasi-spectator method, i.e., an empirical means to approximate the views of impartial spectators that is based on a direct relationship between information and consensus, whereby consensus refers to the level of agreement among actual evaluators of real world situations. Results of surveys provide evidence on quasi-spectator views and support this approach as a means to elicit moral preferences. By establishing a relationship between consensus and impartiality, this paper seeks to help lay an empirical foundation for welfare analysis, social choice theory and practical policy applications.

Keywords: Justice; fairness; impartial spectator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 D61 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Social Choice and Welfare 1.33(2009): pp. 101-127

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/2730/1/MPRA_paper_2730.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is fairness in the eye of the beholder? An impartial spectator analysis of justice (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:2730

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().