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 that these judgments go against what the subjects themselves would take to be the best overall outcome. When the outcomes in question are income gains and losses for two groups of farmers, subjects judge the harm they would not impose through their action to be smaller than the harm they would impose through inaction. Some subjects refuse to reduce cure rates for one group of AIDS patients in order to increase cure rates more for another group, even when group membership was unknowable to anyone, so that, from each patient's point of view, the change would 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.     

Do-no-harm in coalition formation: Why losses inhibit exclusion and promote fairness cognitions

Previous research on coalition formation has established that people will not hesitate to exclude others in order to maximize their payoff. The authors propose that this view is too narrow and that the decision to exclude depends on the valence of the payoff. Consistent with a “do-no-harm” hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that participants were more reluctant to exclude in order to minimize their losses than to maximize their gains. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and showed that participants were most affected by payoff valence when they were disposed to consider the viewpoint of others. Additional analyses revealed that participants were more motivated by fairness (Experiment 1) and that fairness was more cognitively accessible (Experiment 2) when payoffs were negative rather than positive.