Sometimes fairness means protecting a person from consequences; sometimes fairness means allowing consequences to teach.

Sometimes the fair thing is to absorb a cost on someone’s behalf, because the consequence would be out of proportion to the mistake or would fall on someone who could not have known better. Sometimes the fair thing is to step back and let a result arrive, because shielding them would teach a lesson far more damaging than the cost itself. Neither is a general policy.

When you are deciding, ask what the person will learn either way and whether the consequence is proportionate to what they did. Protection given repeatedly stops being protection. A consequence allowed once, with warmth, is often the more generous act.