Proportionality-to-rights accounts of fairness are empirically empty because rights themselves are unconstrained.

Evidence

Crucially, since what people consider to be a right or entitlement can vary (no principled limit or restriction on what can fall under this category is offered), the claim that a fair distribution will be proportional to the rights of participants is empty. It has no real predictive force since in any given scenario subjects can take radically different views of the rights in question. Of course, it may well be correct to say that what a particular person deems fair will be proportional to what rights she accords to relevant persons. However, since the mere idea of a right or entitlement implies that certain responses are fair or morally fitting, this sounds more like a virtual truism than a claim of any empirical significance. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 468

Categorization

• QUESTION: Connects to the reader’s analytical project: the fumi-e ritual aims to destroy ‘rights’ claims by forcing visible apostasy — this passage flags how manipulable the rights category is, which is exactly why a public ritual could target it.
• XREF: Mirrors the reader’s Baumard-et-al. partner-choice framework: if rights are that elastic, then ostracism-based enforcement (Big Gods, fumi-e) becomes the real mechanism rather than any fixed sense of fairness. — connects to: Rights to the product of contribution vanish when the input itself is unfairly acquired. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 155; Apparent justifications that deny freedom are empty countersense, leaving only unjustified preferences. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 199; Rights-based judicialization leaves the most marginalized groups without meaningful redress. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 374
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely sharp philosophical objection: ‘fair = proportional to rights’ is a tautology unless rights are independently fixed, which the account never does. The emptiness argument is dense and lasting.

Related

• Rights to the product of contribution vanish when the input itself is unfairly acquired. (similarity 0.80)
• People disagree persistently about what makes inequality fair (similarity 0.79)
• Deriving fairness from bargaining power threatens to reduce moral norms to mere bargaining. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Rights to the product of contribution vanish when the input itself is unfairly acquired. #corroborates (0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 155