When it comes to large groups of people, fairness is a good term for what is generally to be valued. Almost any value of the group can be conceptualized as a kind of fairness. Redistribution of money is a kind of fairness. The balance between capitalism and socialism is fairness.
As I have said in the glossary, philosophy amounts to an attempt to take global values (which I am calling “fairness”) into consideration in our everyday lives. Thus, The Good for society should be related to The Good for individuals. So the intentional family should consider both what is good for the family and what is good for society, and try to make the two fit together. One approach is to conceptualize the values of the family (communication, shared projects, relating, and fairness) as civic norms.
Before doing this, we must explain what is fair, globally. One puzzle in philosophy is whether there are any universal principles that will make things fair (universal fairness) or whether everything is up in the air, and things are fair simply because we agree on them and come to a shared understanding (communicative fairness). Communicative fairness goes beyond what we’ve previously agreed upon. Thus, if our society agrees that democracy is fair, we can communicate about our democracy (“critique” it – hence the phrase “critical theory”) and come to further agreements or insights. Communicative fairness, then, is about what’s happening now and what’s happening next. It is a dialogue or negotiation that operates upon traditions or conventions rather than replacing them.
In either case, fairness implies that mere words are not enough – good communication requires follow-up in the form of actions.
Philosophical examples
The strongest sign that fairness (and hence civic norms) are linked to global concerns is found in the sociology of philosophy. International-scale conflicts lead to philosophizing, and this in turn tend to remedy such conflict – partly by adjudicating what is fair or unfair. Thus:
The Peloponnesian War led to Socrates and Plato’s philosophies, both of whom served in the war.
The ascent of the Magadha Empire led to Buddhism, although records from that time are scarce or nonexistent [1].
The Babylonian Exile led to the Old Testament.
The Warring States Period led to Confucius and Laozi.
The Thirty Years’ War led to Descartes, who served in that war, and the Enlightenment.
The Napoleonic Wars led to Hegel and Marx.
World War Two led to critical theory.
When a war occurs, reasons for this likely include that:
- A major war is a sign that the old philosophy has failed; we must rethink everything. The old philosophy was supposed to prevent conflict by defining fairness.
- The old philosophy didn’t govern every case – in particular, it didn’t govern the war that just happened. For Descartes, religious philosophy didn’t cover the case where the church split apart into Catholic and Protestant groups. For the critical theorists, Enlightenment rationality didn’t cover the case where rationality was weaponized to make a more efficient war machine.
Philosophy often tries to be universalist: it values abstract, universal concepts that apply to all people and all cases. Merlin Donald divides religious experience into theory (philosophical religion), myth (stories), and ritual. Whereas myths treat wars as exciting, philosophy treats fairness as exciting.
Philosophy generally values universal concepts; but in the case of philosophies such as Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and postmodernism, philosophy values something like an absence of all concepts, which leads to a similar result [2]. There is a universality in the absence of universal concepts.
I would argue that the reason for the Axial Age (the philosophies of 800 BCE – 200 BCE) is simply that this is the time when war became “for serious” – for imperial conquest (empires were growing rapidly [3,4]). In prior eras, war was a game played by elites that justified their power and promoted social capital. In this era, war became a dangerous activity that could threaten elites’ power. The seriousness of war was promoted by antagonistic relationships with steppe horsemen [5], coins to pay troops [6], and more mass mobilization. In this context, universalist philosophy becomes interesting; people want to prevent warfare, instability, and disorder by understanding fairness.
“Universal” concepts of fairness don’t always work
However, the key point is that not all philosophies solve these problems with positive concepts of fairness. In the Book of Job, for instance, Job is told to allow the universe to be unfair – to accept God’s will, even though Job is being punished for being a good person. Buddhism tends to reject the caste system, but avoids replacing it with an alternative theory of who ought to get what. Taoism also declines to say what is fair and unfair, suggesting that the important things cannot be put into words. Postmodernism likewise tends to reject rational theories. And the ideas of Martin Buber (I and Thou) question whether we can ever fully define other people.
Therefore, for me it is Job, Buddhism, Taoism, postmodernism, and Buber that point the way to communicative fairness rather than universal fairness as the most central value for voluntary association. Of these, communication is central only in postmodernism and Buber – the others merely discount universal fairness, but do not suggest communication as a replacement.
Of these last two, postmodernism is more pessimistic in my view, proposing that there is no access to reality, self, or other outside of our communication itself – and that communication is full of illusions and miscommunications. Buber, in contrast, values a connection with a sacred other (Thou as opposed to It.). I prefer the more optimistic view, and I would personally recommend introducing more students to Buber’s ideas, and (since Buber is hard to read) to related concepts as explained by others. However, a drawback is that Buber is mostly writing about connections between individuals, so the connection with civic virtues or global fairness is merely implicit.
[1] Sangaralingam Ramesh writes in “The Political Economy of India’s Development: 5000 BC to 2022 AD”
[2] Chathuri Samarakoon, “Eastern influence on Postmodernism” (2025).
[3] Rein Taagepera: Size and Duration of Empires Growth-Decline Curves, 3000 to 600 B.C
[4] Turchin, Adams, and Hall: East-West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern States.
[5] Peter Turchin. “A theory for formation of large empires.” Journal of Global History 4, no. 2 (2009): 191–217.
[6] David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
Nexus State Theory 