The Google definition of ‘fairness’ has many attributes. Don't waste your time looking it up. If you are an American or have American values, you have your own definition of fairness based on your entire life history.
My co-author, Sally Rasberry, dealt with young children for many years. Each one would come to her complaining about some other child's behavior that wasn't fair. Raz would always say ‘there is no such thing as fair’.
I can't argue that point one way or the other. I am a champion of the only known fair system that humans have created.
One of the clear meanings of fair is that the person involved in distribution of goods or benefits is operating without bias, and is using an abstract, impersonal mechanism for making any division or selection.
The only term that fits that definition is commerce. The person selling an object makes no distinction between customers except whether they can pay the price. The same is true of business organizations in a truly pro-commerce environment. Non-biased productive output, meritocracy, is the only criteria for rewards.
There are people who consider the commercial world to be unfair because the distribution of incomes is far from equal. That is their problem. In that sense fairness does not apply to biology that produces small blades of grass and giant trees, small smelt and giant whales. It doesn’t apply to physics where some parts of the globe have high temperatures all year round. Others low temperatures and still others variable temperatures. It is not fair; physics and biology are not fair.
When dealing with humans. The only fair system is commerce.
This is not an original observation of mine; it came from my son. Thank you Scott.