I'm wondering if there is an example where something that is fair is actually unethical? After reading about ethics, it seems that if something is fair it cannot be unethical.
Update: Fairness is impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination. Ethics is concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong.
There’s much disagreement over what is ethical, and even more disagreement over what is fair – not just over definitions for these terms, but what actions fall under definitions that are even agreed upon. But I’ll give it a shot for some common notions of “fair” and “ethical”.
A father loses his 1 year-old baby while traveling. Another person finds the baby, tries to find the original father but cannot, and then raises the baby well, lovingly, and respectably for 8 years. The original father finds the caretaker and authorities get involved. Authorities giving the child back to the original father when the caretaker wants to father the child now can be seen as fair but unethical.
An “eye-for-an-eye” justice system is arguably fair but unethical. If someone cuts another’s hand off, then the justice system cutting the perpetrator’s hand off as a punishment is arguably fair but unethical.
Another example, for many people, is reparations. Though controversial, many would see this as fair but unethical.
Given a same action, some may say it's fair and others that it's unfair. Likewise, for ethical and unethical.
What can be better ascertained is whether an action is ethical given an ethical system. Consider for example the murderer problem, where the murderer asks you where his innocent prey is. Kant's categorical imperative would mandate one to tell the truth to the murderer, while Utilitarianism would probably conclude that lying to the murderer is the path of action that maximizes happiness and thus should be ethical.
Anyway, this is actually a linguistic problem. The difference (if any) between "right action", "fair action" and "ethical action" depends on how you define each of them.
Not seldom will those terms be used without being defined, and rather being adjusted by each person to its own unsystematic set of beliefs. For example, in the Euthypro dialogue he hastes to say if an action is pious or not, but via his Socratic method Socrates finds out that Eutyphro can't even define piety consistently in the first place.
Fairness becomes unethical when one tries to create fairness by causing harm to those who have an advantage while not providing any benefit.
Example 1: Bob has two legs, but Charlie has only one leg. This situation is clearly unfair, because it gives Bob an unfair advantage over Charlie. One way to remove that unfair advantage of Bob would be to amputate one of his legs. But would it be ethical to cripple a healthy person just to create a fair situation? I don't think so, because the utilitarian net gain is clearly negative.
Note that this is not the case if causing the harm actually is beneficial for someone.
Example 2: Bob has two working kidneys. Charlie has no working kidney. Removing one of Bob's kidney and transplanting it into Charlie does cause some harm to Bob, but considerably improves Charlie's quality of life. The utilitarian net gain will most likely be positive. That makes the procedure both fair and ethical.
However, most schools of medical ethics would only agree that this procedure is ethical as long as both Bob and Charlie consent to the procedure. So most medical practitioners would consider a medical procedure performed without consent unethical, no matter how much fairness it could create.
Example 3: Charlie has only one leg, giving him an unfair disadvantage. Doctors propose to perform a procedure which gives Charlie a prosthetic leg which would reduce that unfair disadvantage. But Charlie refuses the procedure for personal reasons.
Even if the doctors can't understand why Charlie would refuse the procedure, it would be unethical to perform the procedure against the explicit will of the patient.
You have helpfully sought to explain your terms:
Fairness is impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination. Ethics is concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong.
It would be useful to know how you distinguish the fair from the just. The terms 'fair' and 'just' are sometimes used interchangeably but this is not the case for you since, by your account of fairness, justice is not identical with but an element in or a component of fairness.
A natural context for fairness is the distribution of a good. Suppose we say, then, that fairness in the distribution of a good involves the impartiality of treating like cases equally, different cases differently, and different cases differently in proportion to the extent of their difference. Justice could then be introduced to supply the criterion to be used in determining when, for any given purpose, cases are alike or different.
For instance, we might decide that cases are alike or different on the basis of need or desert. Fairness would then be a matter of treating like cases of need equally or like cases of desert equally, different cases differently, and different cases differently in proportion to the extent of their difference.
So much for fairness. Whether any such distribution is morally good or bad, morally right or wrong, depends on your ethical theory. Suppose, for example, that one adopts a teleological ethical theory according to which the good ought to be distributed in whatever way maximises overall benefit.
There is no a priori guarantee that a fair distribution will yield a distribution that maximises overall benefit. An unfair distribution might maximise overall pleasure or happiness.
I am not recommeding any such ethical theory - or indeed any ethical theory - but simply want to describe a situation in which, depending on how one understands fairness and which ethical theory one adopts, the fair can fail to be the morally good or right - that it can be, in your language, 'actually unethical'.
References
J. Broome, 'Fairness', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1990 - 1991, New Series, Vol. 91 (1990 - 1991), pp. 87-101.
H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (London 1961), p.156.
M.N.L. Nathan, 'A Difficulty about Justice', Mind , Apr., 1971, New Series, Vol. 80, No. 318 (Apr., 1971), pp. 227-237.
Something can certainly be fair and unethical. The Italian, Naples-based Gomorra has strict rules of conduct and their moral system (ethics) includes that lying is good. Especially against to the Carabinieri. If this keeps a fellow member out of jail then you can become even a hero. So it would be very unethical to be fair.
I can't comment on the first answer, so I do it here. Everyone can define his own good and bad. Of course. How else could it be? A lying person can be fair in lying. A murderer can be good while murdering. The same holds for a person who tells the truth. She can be viscious.
So the answer is wrong. It presupposes an absolute notion of good and bad. being fair or not fair. There is simply no universal arbitrer on that.
So, ethics is certainly concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. But no universal notion of such exists. What is your wrong and right is anothers right and wrong. Pretending this not to be so testifies of a moral superiority feeling that is even worse than the most abject crime comiited. In fact, the most abject crimes have this feeling of moral superiority at their base. These unshakable moral grounds are walked by people who want the non-morally-conforming banned from their ground because of the fear that an eventual non-moral earthquake might let them fall on the hard steal bottom they are walking on.
A typical real example is handling of triage of injured people (deciding with limited resources whom to treat and whom to leave dying). Fairness principles like egalitarianism or utilitarianism exist for those situations, but they are conflicting with each other and have ethical doubts raised against them.
What is considered fair is determined by the rules of a game. What is considered ethical is determined by a set of values.
A frequent example nowadays...
Ethical: Guarantee that everyone has access to food, water, shelter, and medical care.
Fair: Don't make anyone pay taxes, ever, no matter what.
These are clearly in conflict. Taxes are unfair to the people who have more money, but we all have to pay them anyway (because we live in a society).
The first point is also fair as it is a more equal distribution of benefits to everyone.
