We tend to associate the word "fair" with pleasant unspoilt activities; to wish someone fair skies is to wish them a time free of storms, fair play is a game played by the rules and the aims of fair trade are supposed to stop growers being squeezed by price gouging.
When it comes to multiple choices the range excellent/good/fair/poor/none has become the standard. Fair is neither good nor poor but somewhere in between, on which the board of Cellestis have apparently found agreement.
--
Initially "reasonable" also presses the right buttons; a reasonable person is one who has sound judgement, good sense and who is fair. But soon we somehow end up at the same point, someone who is reasonable is also fair. This has all the hallmarks of a reductio ad absurdum argument, a reasonable man is neither good nor poor but somewhere in between.
In recent times the concepts of fairness, reason and justice have become mingled. John Rawls wrote that justice was fairness and that, as individuals, if we adhere to mutually acceptable regulatory principles we will all get an equal share of the cake.
This conjecture has been evaluated and found to be wanting; as Justice Kenneth Hayne remarked
[A]ttractive as concepts of fairness and justice may be in appellate courts, in law reform commissions, in the academy and among legislators, in many cases they are of little use, if they are of any use at all, to the practitioners and trial judges who must apply the law to concrete facts arising from real life activities.'--
We now have the situation where the board of Cellestis has recommended that shareholders sell their shares on terms that, by many definitions, are not good for the shareholder.
