What is justice? We often hear that justice must prevail, that something is just while something else is not. We want to live in a just society, with a fair court and equitable authority. The question of what justice is was posed by Plato in his book “The Republic,” but he never found an answer. In fact, it may be impossible to find one.
As soon as you meet someone who claims to know what fairness is, try presenting them with a problem about fairly distributing the cost of using an elevator in a building. Split it evenly? “Just take and divide”? No, that’s not fair. People pay equally only because any more equitable (ding) method of accounting for elevator usage automatically makes the transaction more expensive and complicated.
Okay, but if we disregard transaction costs, how should we divide it fairly? By floors? That doesn’t work either. By the number of trips? But what if someone has a lot of guests? Should they run downstairs every time to hand them the smart card with the deposit? What if some people travel alone while others regularly transport pianos? And how do we account for passengers who hop on along the way? Maybe a truly fair solution is possible, but it won’t be considered fair just because “everything was accounted for equally”; it will be fair because all parties involved agree on the proposed distribution mechanism. Wait! So, fairness isn’t about “some specific way,” but rather “in a way that makes everyone happy.”
Of course! There’s no point in trying to understand what justice is. The meaning of the word “justice,” which we want to define, is easiest to find in how we use the word. We only use it in conjunction with the word “feeling.” We have a “sense of justice.” In other words, it’s simply an emotion. Moreover, the emotion of justice is not only present in humans but also in other sufficiently intelligent animals, from dogs to geese. The sense of justice is a necessary tool for the interaction of social animals that organize themselves into hierarchical/reputational groups.
Justice is an intrinsic neurochemical reinforcement system within us that signals “good” when we are satisfied with the outcome of a deal or transaction. For each of us personally. For some, a court ruling will seem just, while for others it will not. There is no universal justice, just as there is no universal beauty. Yes, there is an “average expected” assessment of what is beautiful and what is not, what is delicious and what is disgusting. However, taste, the sense of beauty, and the sense of justice are unique to each individual.
Without understanding what “justice” means to us, we cannot talk about reputation. Reputation is also a feeling. It is the feeling of anticipating the outcome of a deal. Will it be fair or not? Will we experience a sense of justice from the deal or not? Will cortisol or dopamine be released in us from the anticipation of the deal? That is what reputation is. Similarly, the sense of reputation is ingrained in us. Without the existence of reputation, hierarchical groups could not exist. A pack leader maintains their leadership not because they fights everyone every day – they wouldn’t have the strength for that. They maintain their leadership because every other member of the pack can predict the outcome of a transaction with the leader called “fight.” The leader has a reputation, and they uphold it as best as they can.
Now let’s talk about disposable forks. Which fork is better: silver or plastic? Those who don’t rush to answer might reasonably point out that it depends on the purpose. If it’s for a picnic, then a plastic fork is better. If it’s for a candlelit dinner, then a silver fork is the way to go. The same applies to the question of which fork is of higher quality. But what does quality mean? One could certainly write a few more paragraphs and arrive at what has already been established. However, we can simply quote the ISO 9000 text – the quality assurance standard. Others have already made a valid definition: “Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics meets requirements.” In other words, we set requirements and wait to see if something meets them. So, like with reputation, we are talking about our expectations. In short, quality is about meeting expectations.
And once again, we can return to feelings. Is it fair to sell a plastic fork for more than a silver one? It seems that, in general, the answer is no. But both forks are of good quality and meet our expectations. Perhaps price should also be included in our list of expectations. But then, there’s no such thing as “expensive and high-quality.” If it’s expensive, then it’s not high-quality 🙂 High quality is when the price is fair. In other words, we’ve come back to an emotional assessment.
However, if reputation is the feeling of anticipation regarding the outcome of a deal, then it closely relates to the concepts of quality and fairness. Essentially, we are talking about the same thing. And while quality has been successfully formalized, there’s nothing stopping us from formalizing reputation as well. It seems that initial steps in this direction are already being taken. We observe “karma points,” we see “likes” on social media… but something is still missing. What’s lacking is a simple fact – karma and likes are not always used to assess expectations from a deal. In fact, it’s often the opposite. We read someone’s comment and only then look at the writer’s karma. On the other hand, we tend to pay more attention to what others liked. What’s the point of spending time reading through an entire feed if we can focus only on the “starred” articles? What’s the point of buying a movie ticket if all we hear about that film are negative reviews? And what if it’s an art-house film “for a niche audience”? Can we then rely on the number of “likes” next to the title of that film?
Here’s another question: we asked a person to fix our toilet, and they did it poorly – the result didn’t meet our expectations: they charged a lot, broke something in the process, or took too long, which also means they spent more of your resources than anticipated. Or the toilet broke down half an hour later, and it turns out you paid not for 10 years of toilet service, but for 30 minutes. Does this person now have a bad reputation in our eyes? Yes. But on the other hand, this wasn’t a plumber; it was an excellent dentist. How does your “minus” in this person’s karma help others gauge their expectations when dealing with them as a dentist? Can reputation even be measured in simple pluses? It turns out that reputation, if we’re not talking about a “feeling” but rather a kind of digital reputation, should be multidimensional. The crowd that rushes in to give “likes” to “kittens and boobs” does absolutely nothing to help an intellectual in search of good “smart” reading material. Social media, as we can see now, is sliding into a deep crisis. They were created for a different internet, one that existed 10-15 years ago – an internet of educated people who understood the value of information. Now, however, the internet belongs to every kid with a smartphone, and that kid or girl has an opinion that carries the same weight as Stephen Hawking’s. In other words, systems where “likes” are one-dimensional and equal stop informing people about the usefulness of material specifically for them. I wonder who will be the first to come up with a system of multidimensional and “weighted,” yet user-friendly, digital reputation? That person will change our world and make it fair and high-quality.
But why? First of all, it’s beautiful (with a touch of humor). Why do we like the very idea of digitizing reputation? What underlies our desire to be able to assess the outcome of a deal before it takes place? We have two reasons for this.
The first reason is biological. We are hierarchical animals who have become accustomed to relying on reputation in our relationships with other people and organizations. However, we currently do not live in reputation-based communities. A person cannot keep track of the number of entities that exceeds Dunbar’s number. Meanwhile, our “reputational memory” has been filled by politicians and brands. We build relationships with people not based on reputation, but on universal rules known as “politeness” or “cultural level.”
And we suffer because of this. We don’t feel safe. We are forced to seek protection from those we know or think we know. After all, reputation, like “recognition,” is purely a biological function. If we see the same face a thousand times, we will think we know it, especially since that “face” hasn’t done anything bad to us personally—our biological nature doesn’t remember a personal transaction with a “face” that ended “unfairly” for us. We can trust the face. Is the face bad? No… the nobles are bad, but the face is good. These are emotions—the basic drivers of our animal behavior. And the result disappoints us.
In an anonymous community, the one who has a better chance of gaining power is often a cunning scoundrel, capable of ignoring the instinctive limitations that are ingrained in each of us. This is someone who can disregard morality—the system of behavioral responses designed to maintain reputation within a group. But what’s the point of maintaining that reputation if everyone around you is a stranger and you won’t see that person again tomorrow? Steal, kill, catch the geese! The world, in reality, doesn’t hold together because the police protect our peace, but because people, in their majority, simply aren’t capable of bad deeds. And those who are, in one way or another, usually rationalize their behavior, making it seem honest and fair, at least in their own eyes. The existence of some electronic crutch for our brains, capable of tracking and remembering the reputation of everyone—that’s the dream cherished by all those trying to make something happen in this direction. There would be no politicians who are thieves, nor just thieves. No deceitful salespeople. No rude drivers. No neighborly monsters. It would be a paradise on earth. No, really.
The second reason we strongly desire a digital reputation—as a crutch for our minds—is the changes happening in what is called a “post-industrial” economy. This is a service economy. Services, unlike goods, have one unpleasant characteristic: you cannot assess the quality of a service before you purchase it. With a regular product, you can touch it, weigh it, or try it out, but you can’t do that with a service. We have to trust our hairdresser, doctor, or lawyer. We either buy a pig in a poke or rely on someone else’s assessment, meaning we depend on recommendations. In a market where you cannot evaluate a product before buying it, a collapse is inevitable. This was demonstrated by George Akerlof in his paper on the “market for lemons.” Quality suppliers will simply leave the market, and consumers, left alone with fraudsters, will refuse to make transactions. Recommendations are too narrow a stream of the information we need. Moreover, we often cannot assess the reputation of the recommender themselves. What can someone who has only ever stayed at a five-star hotel in Egypt tell us about its quality? Yes, they will praise that hotel. Their experience there will likely exceed their expectations. But in reality, we will never know how good that hotel is if we only listen to that one recommender. And what if they are giving recommendations insincerely and have some ulterior motive?
And that’s why we dream of a fair system where service providers can earn a reputation, and consumers can make use of that information. However, as mentioned earlier, as long as digital reputation remains “one-dimensional,” not connected to the outcomes of transactions and lacking “weight,” it will be difficult to utilize such systems effectively.