Tolerating a Little Unfairness to Some to Get a Greater Fairness for All

“It is not always recognized that to function best, morality should sometimes appear unfair, like most wordly outcomes. The craving for perfect fairness causes a lot of terrible problems in system function. Some systems should be made deliberately unfair to individuals because they’ll be fairer on average for all of us. Thus, there can be virtue in apparent non-fairness. I frequently cite the example of having your career over in the Navy if your ship goes aground, even if it wasn’t your fault. I say the lack of justice for one guy who wasn’t at fault is way more than made up by a greater justice for everybody when every captain of a ship always sweats blood to make sure the ship doesn’t go aground. Tolerating a little unfairness to some to get a greater fairness for all is a model I recommend to all of you.” (Charlie Munger: ‘Academic Economics’, in: Poor Charlie’s Almanack, p. 259 f.) Let's say you were a navy ship’s captain dutifully doing your job only for your vice-captain to run…

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