BLIND JUSTICE - FAIRNESS TO GROUPS AND THE DO-NO-HARM PRINCIPLE

People are reluctant to harm some people in order to help others, even when the harm is less than the forgone help (the harm resulting from not acting). The present studies use hypothetical scenarios to argue t hat these judgments go against what the subjects themselves would take to be the best overall outcome. When the outcomes in question are inc ome gains and losses for two groups of farmers, subjects judge the har m they would not impose through their action to be smaller than the ha rm they would impose through inaction. Some subjects refuse to reduce cure rates for one group of AIDS patients in order to increase cure ra tes more for another group, even when group membership was unknowable to anyone, so that, from each patient's point of view, the change woul d increase the probability of cure. Likewise, they resisted a vaccine that reduced overall mortality in one group but increased deaths from side effects in another group, even when, again, group membership was unknowable. Some people apply a do-no-harm principle to groups without apparent understanding of how such a principle might be justified in terms of its consequences. The capacity for such judgments makes them vulnerable to learning principles that have no justification at all.