Providing a Philosophical Critique and Guidance of Fairness Metrics

TL;DR

This paper offers a comprehensive overview of fairness in computer science and philosophy, aiming to guide practitioners in understanding and applying fairness metrics through philosophical insights and current algorithmic fairness concepts.

Contribution

It provides a philosophical critique and practical guidance on fairness metrics, bridging philosophical thought and computer science applications.

Findings

Highlights philosophical foundations of fairness

Proposes guidelines for metric fairness

Connects philosophical ideas with algorithmic fairness

Abstract

In this project, I seek to present a summarization and unpacking of themes of fairness both in the field of computer science and philosophy. This is motivated by an increased dependence on notions of fairness in computer science and the millennia of thought on the subject in the field of philosophy. It is my hope that this acts as a crash course in $\textit{fairness philosophy}$ for the everyday computer scientist and specifically roboticist. This paper will consider current state-of-the-art ideas in computer science, specifically algorithmic fairness, as well as attempt to lay out a rough set of guidelines for metric fairness. Throughout the discussion of philosophy, we will return to a thought experiment posed by Cynthia Dwork on the question of randomness.