Fairness

The words fair and ethical are closely related. On the surface a business transaction may not meet the ideal of being fair, but it still might be, in some sense, ethical, The litmus test here questions whether there is there a tendency of a business to be fair? Take for example the constant competitive pressures on a supermarket. In order to market their products supermarkets almost universally lead their buyers to false expectations. What seems unfair is a traditional practice (see customary ethics and the learning curve). The pricing of a product might be confusingly labeled or concealed from view. There might be a special on pears but the supermarket might be trying to unload a bad batch of fruit. What the buyer expects and what they actually get do not actually match. These practices are not totally fair but they are customarily considered ethical because shopping by nature is an acquired skill requiring considerable discernment and experience.

Non-business people do not appreciate the pressures many business people operate under. Business is sometimes a situation when one must swim with sharks and fend off predatory clients and vendors frequently. Thus, when a customer cites them for being unfair in a moralistic way it tends to leave the business person speechless, unable to communicate the realities of retail business, to the customer. There is a point where there is a disconnect between the buying public and businessmen and women.

Misrepresentation by accident or intension would be unfair; or claiming ignorance when the truth was otherwise. A car dealer would know from the feedback of its customers if the many cars it sold were actually on average good cars. They would know the degree of fairness a sale represented. An unfair sale might be as follows. You buy a used car and it is represented as being in good condition. Soon after you buy the car the engine stops working. The engine had never been worked on, a fact that would have been known if a mechanic had inspected the car prior to its sale. Those who sell used cars many times do not want to know the details of the mechanical condition of the cars they sell. They will authoritatively assert that the car is in good shape but they have no technical knowledge to back up their assertion that the car is in fact in good condition. But the fact of the matter is that being a successful used car dealer is all about knowing the minute details of what you are buying. If one did not know they would soon be out of business.

Fairness & Equity