If lumping fairness with (liberty; rationality; tolerance) sounds odd, please note that fairness to me is subtler than crude egalitarianism. Credit where credit is due. Ability rather than ancestry as qualification for high office. Opportunity for upward mobility. Respect for differing priorities. Willingness to forego getting all I want so that everybody has a shot at getting all they need, w/o trying to impose the same wants/needs categories on everybody.
Downloaded from Clipart Kid, the image of David and Goliath trash talking illustrates a subtlety of fairness. It may look unfair that Goliath is the only one with armor and heavy weapons. Should David have them too? No, he would still be a scrawny youth, just encumbered by all that stuff. Let David have what suits David’s (not Goliath’s) skills and will not interfere with Plan B:
If my shots miss, run like Hell!
Deciding what is fair and then doing it can be a lot of work, as the endless stream of affirmative action lawsuits illustrates. Dunno how that story will end. I do know a true story about the difficulties of being fair in the real world that has a happy ending. I blogged about it in 2015, before I had a responsive theme. My post would have been unintelligible to anybody surfing on a phone or tablet (Harrumph!) rather than a real computer. Now that I have a responsive theme and a renewed urge to defend Enlightenment values (thanks to the current dismal state of US politics), I have revised that post in many small ways, partly to make it more explicit about fairness. The WordPress previewer assures me that it is indeed intelligible on all 3 platforms. Here is the link:
Mellow Curmudgeon 