Hugh McLachlan: Locking up Robin would be fair result

THE Deficit Reduction Plan has been defended by some people and attacked by others largely on the basis of its supposed "fairness" or "unfairness". This is unfortunate. That which is fair in one respect will not be fair in another.

That which is fair to one person will not be fair to another. "Fairness" is too vague, and imponderable a notion to be of much use as a measure of the worth of political policies. Furthermore, whether or not the proposals are fair they might or might not be justified.

According to the Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore: 'In difficult circumstances this (the DRP] is a fair settlement for Scotland. People with the broadest shoulders will take the biggest hit. Spending in Scotland will be reduced by less than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland'.

Much of the debate has focused on what counts as a "bigger hit". Some people argue that, to be fair, the hit should be progressive, i.e. the richer should pay a bigger proportion of their incomes and not merely a bigger absolute amount. This is highly contentious. Furthermore, whether or not the proposals are more burdensome to the poor than to the rich, they might or might not be fair.

Not all actions or policies that adversely affect the poor more than the rich are morally wrong. It matters how and why things are done, not merely what their outcomes happen to be. For instance, if Robin Hood had been prevented from robbing the rich and giving to the poor, it is the poor rather than the rich who would have suffered. It does not follow that it would have been unfair or wrong to arrest him.

Poor people pay a larger proportion of their income for, say, a pint of beer or a packet of cigarettes than richer people do. It is a necessary statistical truth. We need not think that there is anything unfair about this. Similarly, taxation on beer and on tobacco is, like indirect taxation in general, regressive. It does not follow that such taxation is thereby unfair or unjustifiable.

Any increase in the rate of taxation on beer and tobacco will hurt the poor more than the rich and any decrease will correspondingly favour them relatively more.

However, it would be absurd to say on that count that it will always be justifiable to lower such taxes and never justifiable to raise them.

Suppose that, due to an unforeseen emergency, ten additional hours of teaching per week are required to be provided immediately by a particular department in a university. How should the additional load be allocated? If, by convenient chance, there are ten members in the department, it might seem that the fairest and best thing to do is to give each person on additional hour per week.

However, this might be unfair. For instance, the allocation of teaching loads and other duties prior to the emergency might have been unfair. The fairest thing to do might be to give three additional classes to three people, and an additional hour to one of them. After all, it might seem more important to try to get a fair overall allocation of duties between the people concerned after the emergency changes than to try to get a fair allocation of the impact of the changes in duties.

There might be no fair and practical way to distribute the additional teaching. For instance, even if all ten of them are equally and fairly laden with duties, it might turn out that only six of them are free to take additional classes at the available times. No matter: if it cannot be distributed fairly, it must be distributed non-fairly and, if necessary, unfairly. That the teaching is allocated is the point. Often, expediency is more important than fairness.

It is not clear whether or why we should consider the distribution of tax liabilities in the UK before the implementation of the DRP to be fair or unfair.

As things stand, before the proposals have been implemented, people who are richer than average, pay more into the public purse and withdraw less than people who are less rich than average. It is not clear why it should be thought to be fair that those who are richer than average should be compelled to pay not only a greater additional absolute amount towards the solution of the current crisis but also a larger proportion of their income. This appears to me to be a contrived and whimsical view of "fairness".

Fairness is different from other virtues such as justice and equality. "Fair" does not seem to be a definable term. It would appear to be inherently contestable and debatable.

Furthermore, there is a difference between acting fairly and producing fair outcomes. Fair policies will not necessarily produce fair societies. Policies that are fair in their treatment of particular people might well lead to outcomes that are not fair for these or for other people. For instance, trials that are fair and just to accused people are not always fair to other people concerned such as witnesses and alleged victims. It can be the outcome of fair trials that particular people who committed particular crimes are rightly set free because the case against them was not properly established beyond reasonable doubt.It can be unfair to people who did not commit the crimes they were accused of if the verdict is "not proven" since this might seem to cast a slur upon them.

Whether or not something is considered to be fair depends on the point of view that is taken. We cannot be required by "fairness" to prefer one point of view to another. For instance, some people think it would be unfair if a couple who each earned 40,000 received child benefit while a single parent who earned around 44,000 was denied it. Other people might regard any payment of child benefit to these particular people as unfair. They might ask: why should people who have no children and earn less - in some cases very much less - than 45,000 subsidise the life styles of such higher earners who have chosen to have children?

Some people think it is unfair if any of the revenue from the oil that is deemed to lie within what would be Scottish international waters were Scotland a sovereign state presently flows to England. However, we are not forced by "fairness" to take that particular point of reference nor any other. Some people might think that it is grossly unfair that the resources of the seabed are divided between those states that have seashores. They might think that land-locked states should, in fairness, have a share of such global resources, in relation, perhaps, to their populations.

There are some things that we should not do at all if we cannot do them fairly. For instance, if we cannot try someone fairly for attempted murder or rape, we should not try them at all. There are some other things that must be done whether or not we can do them fairly. The attempt to solve the current problem of the budget deficit would seem to be of the latter sort.

If it needs to be solved soon, the Government should try to solve it soon whether or not they can do so fairly. While trying to avoid avoidable gross unfairness, they should abandon the needless and unsupportable claims that they will invariably act fairly and that they will produce fair outcomes.

At the time of a far greater emergency than we face now, Churchill offered the nation: "blood, toil, tears and sweat". Wisely, he did not mention fairness. Casualties of war and of spending cuts are not fairly picked upon.

• Hugh McLachlan is Professor of Applied Philosophy of Glasgow Caledonian University. He is also the author of Social Justice, Human Rights and Public Policy