A house owner learns that his house will be taken away from him under an eminent domain claim by the state which wants a developer to build a casino on the land. “That’s not fair!” he says.
Is similar to one of fubarobfusco’s examples:
Someone uses a position of power to take something that isn’t theirs; especially when the victim can’t do anything about it. A boy’s visiting grandmother gives him $50 to buy a video game for his birthday; but as soon as the grandmother has left, the boy’s mother takes the money away and uses it to buy liquor for herself.
There is a subtle, but important difference. Many people (here and elsewhere) would consider the exercise of eminent domain powers by the state to be ethical and correct application of state powers for the betterment of society—a few suffer but for the greater good.
Yes, and if the example had involved a road or other public works project, as opposed to immediately selling the land to a developer, your objection would have been appropriate.
Oh, but the developer will provide jobs, and serve as an attractor for other businesses, and generally lift the area economically, and pay taxes into state coffers, and there will be gallivanting unicorns under the rainbows, and the people will look at the project and say “This is good”.
So whether that example fits with the first set depends on whether the state’s claim that the project is good is true, and thus whether this example it is perceived as fitting with them depends on whether the perceiver believes the claim. Similarly, the Lamborghini example fits if one accepts the Marxist theory about the origin of income inequality.
Now we come to your example of the two girls. It’s hard to make it an example of “fraud or abuse of power” (although it might be possible with enough SJ-style rhetoric about how beauty is an oppressive social construct). Notice that it is similar to the Lamborghini example otherwise, in particular it seems like the kind of thing that fits in the category whose archetypical member is the Lamborghini example.
So we can now reconstruct a history of the meaning of “unfair”. Originally, i.e., about a century ago, it meant basically “fraud, cheating, or abuse of power”. As Marxism became popular it expanded to include income inequalities, which fit that definition according to Marxist theory. Later as differences of income became one of the archetypical examples of “unfairness” and as the theory underlying its inclusion became less well-known, more things such as the two girls example came to be included in the category. See the history of verbs meaning “to be” in Romance Languages for another (less mind-killing) example of how semantic drift can produce these kinds of Frankencategories.
I think it’s simpler, without getting Marxism involved. The key word is “entitlement”. If you feel entitled to something, then if you don’t have it, someone is cheating you out of your right—it’s unfair! Doesn’t really matter who, too—nowadays people point at the universe and shout “Unfair!” :-/
Nickpick: Your third example:
Is similar to one of fubarobfusco’s examples:
There is a subtle, but important difference. Many people (here and elsewhere) would consider the exercise of eminent domain powers by the state to be ethical and correct application of state powers for the betterment of society—a few suffer but for the greater good.
Yes, and if the example had involved a road or other public works project, as opposed to immediately selling the land to a developer, your objection would have been appropriate.
Oh, but the developer will provide jobs, and serve as an attractor for other businesses, and generally lift the area economically, and pay taxes into state coffers, and there will be gallivanting unicorns under the rainbows, and the people will look at the project and say “This is good”.
If you believe what the state will tell you.
So whether that example fits with the first set depends on whether the state’s claim that the project is good is true, and thus whether this example it is perceived as fitting with them depends on whether the perceiver believes the claim. Similarly, the Lamborghini example fits if one accepts the Marxist theory about the origin of income inequality.
Now we come to your example of the two girls. It’s hard to make it an example of “fraud or abuse of power” (although it might be possible with enough SJ-style rhetoric about how beauty is an oppressive social construct). Notice that it is similar to the Lamborghini example otherwise, in particular it seems like the kind of thing that fits in the category whose archetypical member is the Lamborghini example.
So we can now reconstruct a history of the meaning of “unfair”. Originally, i.e., about a century ago, it meant basically “fraud, cheating, or abuse of power”. As Marxism became popular it expanded to include income inequalities, which fit that definition according to Marxist theory. Later as differences of income became one of the archetypical examples of “unfairness” and as the theory underlying its inclusion became less well-known, more things such as the two girls example came to be included in the category. See the history of verbs meaning “to be” in Romance Languages for another (less mind-killing) example of how semantic drift can produce these kinds of Frankencategories.
I think it’s simpler, without getting Marxism involved. The key word is “entitlement”. If you feel entitled to something, then if you don’t have it, someone is cheating you out of your right—it’s unfair! Doesn’t really matter who, too—nowadays people point at the universe and shout “Unfair!” :-/