Now it might not be obvious exactly what this has to do with fairness. The practice of giving out participation medals seems, on its face, more about an obsessive concern with promoting positive self-esteem than with promoting fairness. That, I think, is quite a fair worry. But instead of dismissing the thought that this objectionable practice is an indicator of our concern with "fairness" running amok, let’s see if we can sympathetically construct the reasoning behind this thought. I think the exercise will prove revealing.

首先，有一种普遍的直觉认为，有些人天生非常富有，而有些人天生非常贫穷，这在一定程度上是不公平的。我们说，这就是生活。生活是不公平的。除非不公平是这样的——由于抽签的盲目和愚蠢的运气——我们确实试图消除，至少一点点，不公平。这就是为什么我们倾向于要求富人比穷人缴纳更多的税。我认为，这种做法的背后是这样一种思想:每个人都有平等的权利至少过上起码体面的生活，而不受抽签运气的影响。

Now it’s even less fair, one might think, that some get a good education, while others get a lousy education. We think every kid is equally deserving of a good education. And we think that’s just a matter of basic fairness. That’s one reason why we have a system of public education at all. We’re simply unwilling to leave the quality of a person’s education to the luck of the draw, especially since education isn't some that blind nature provides. It's our doing if it's distributed in an unfair way. (That’s the theory, at least, whether it works out in practice, is another thing.)

Now the person who thinks that we are too concerned with fairness is liable to think that its just the kind of reasoning that we just applied that leads to the participation ribbons and other objectionable practices that refuse to distinguish those who are more deserving from those who are less deserving on the grounds of fairness. If every kid is equally deserving of a good education, just in virtue of being a kid, and every person is equally deserving of a minimally decent life, just in virtue of being a person, doesn’t it follow that every kid deserves a medal, just for running the race? Thus the charge arises that our fixation on fairness inevitably leads to the absurd conclusion that we should always treat people equally.

不幸的是，上述结论并不成立。要知道为什么不可以，这将有助于进行一些区分。我们需要区分不同的公平概念——公平是结果的平等;公平就是机会的平等;公平就是应得的。这些区别之所以与此相关，是因为大多数情况下，当人们抱怨太多的公平时，他们几乎总是把苹果和橘子混在一起。

这正是上述论点所要做的。它利用一种公平观念来批评另一种公平观念。它可以是完全公平的——从公平应得的意义上讲——只要比赛是公平的——从机会均等的意义上讲——只有获胜者才能获得奖牌。So it just doesn’t logically follow that if you committed to fairness, you areipso factologically committed to giving everybody a medal.

但我不想忽视这样一种担忧，即公平可能不是一切，并很快结束所有的人际关系和互动。公平论的核心假设值得我们审视。它将平等对待的承诺作为一种违约。它假定，作为默认，人们应该得到平等对待它假定，背离平等待遇必须在道德上得到合理解释。Certainly that’s what Rawls seemed to argue in his landmark book,A Theory of Justice. Rawls made essentially proposed equality as the central principle of justice. And he argued that departures from equality are justifiable only to the extent that they serve to improve the lot of the least well off.

There is certainly something deeply intuitively appealing about the idea that equal treatment is the default and departures from equal treatment need to be -- though can be -- justified. Take two employees at the same company, doing the same job, with the same level of expertise. Surely they deserve equal pay for their equal work. Unless the one is a better worker -- more dedicated, more efficient and productive -- it would be downright unfair to pay one more than the other.

What if, though, one of them was my son or my friend and I wanted to pay them just a little bit more, in order to help them make ends meet just a little bit better? I know that sounds like outright nepotism. And I know that we’ve been conditioned to think that nepotism is flat out wrong. But I’m not so sure. First of all, there's nothing obviously wrong with helping a friend or a family member in need. It's not like I harm the co-worker when I pay my son a little bit extra. I mean I could just outright give him the extra as a gift if I wanted. So why couldn't I chose to give it to him as salary instead?

此外，在一些结构相似的情况下，裙带关系不仅似乎没有错，而且似乎是道德上更可取的选择。假设有两个人淹死在海里。你只能救其中一个。其中一个溺水的人恰好是你的配偶或其他重要的人。另一个是完全陌生的人。你会保存哪一个?我想，我们中的大多数人会毫不犹豫地拯救另一半。但如果某个痴迷于公平的行善者要求你抛一个公平的硬币来决定呢?毕竟，这将给他们一个平等的被拯救的机会。或者假设他要求你公正地衡量他们的善恶。这样就能确保你救了客观上应该被救的人。 Would you do it?

My bet is that there is no chance whatsoever that you would take the do-gooder’s advice. And that suggests that considerations of fairness, no matter how construed, have their limits. Some people simply matter more to us than others do, when the chips are down. Fairness be damned!

To be sure, I wouldn't want to deny that that partiality has its limits too. I’m not willing, for example, to mount a full-throated defense of nepotism in the work place or in politics or public life generally. Plus, what if it was a black guy and a white guy drowning in that sea of mine? Would it be morally acceptable for white guy to save the white guy simply because he happens to be more partial to whites than to blacks? That seems carrying partiality a bit too far, in my opinion.

As you can see, there is an awfully lot to think about here. Chime in! Give us even more food for thought.