Implementing Fairness

Abstract

We tend to think of fairness primarily in connection with social policy, because it is through social policies (education, housing, health and social security) that societies attempt to improve the lives of their least-advantaged citizens. In the analytic sense though, the problem of fairness is at the heart of all public policy, precisely because it is through public policy that governments distribute our collective goods, and, when sacrifice is called for, our collective burdens as well (Vanderheiden, 2004). So responding to climate change ends up being about fairness as well as reducing emissions, because without attention to fairness, the costs of change will impact more heavily on the poor than on the rich.