Robert Folger
Tulane University

Morality includes fairness as a notable virtue. This chapter contrasts fairness-
as-morality (ethical conduct) with the fairness of social and organizational
studies. The fairness that those disciplines portray only faintly resembles
fairness-as-morality. Their legacy -- an anorexic fairness -- instead reduces
fairness to selfishness. Despite noble efforts to break the stranglehold of
economic rationality and self-interest maximization, their version of fairness
remains closer to greed and envy than to the moral virtue that can sustain
the commonweal.

What makes justice as virtue a management topic? If "justice is the first virtue
of social institutions" ( Rawls, 1971, p. 3), the morality of fairness applies in
an organizational context: "while management must satisfy many interests,
including those of the shareholders, there is often very little to guard the
interests of the public, and even those of the corporation itself, from the
self-interest of the managers" ( Wilbur, 1997, p. 576). Imagine a totally selfish
person as CEO of a large corporation, able to wield power with impunity
and with potentially devastating impact. Using externally imposed sanctions
to curtail this person's power would require monitoring and guaranteeing
punishment severe enough to deter malevolent intent. We might not want
to rely exclusively on laws, courts, and the police as countervailing forces.

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