Executive Order 13563: A Threat to Justice?
On Tuesday, January 18, President Obama signed Executive Order 13563 – Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. ( Federal Register text |pdf )
When calculating benefits and costs of regulation, Section 1(c) states, “Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may consider (and discuss qualitatively) values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.”
How will the regulators use the new criteria of “human dignity” and “fairness” in their deliberations? Will “fairness” and the other “qualitative values” trump justice?
Most of us have heard a child scream “That’s not fair!” when a brother or sister gets, for instance, a larger portion of mashed potatoes or bigger hamburger. “Fairness,” for a child, often means an equal quantity of something. But, if the child is younger and does not play sports and the brother or sister is older and engaged in sports three hours a day, more food is required. To provide it is just treatment.
Justice is an individualist-based concept. Fairness is more of a collectivist-based notion. Regulations to protect our rights and liberties require justice, not fairness.
Justice applied to an individual requires treatment based on the individual’s content of character, character of actions, and nature of abilities. Justice applied to a business or organization requires treatment based on business activity or organizational behavior. “Fairness” inevitably leads a bureaucrat to promote regulations that “distribute” costs and benefits in a manner that violates justice.
Let us not pledge allegiance to a vague and subjective “human dignity and fairness for all.” Let us proudly pledge our allegiance to principles of “liberty and justice for all.”
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