Too little
Favoritism
“My friend’s time is obviously more reasonable.”
A relationship substitutes for a relevant reason.
Fair-Mindedness
Give the other side’s reasons a hearing you would recognize as fair.
An impartial disposition to give relevant interests and evidence their due.
Fair-Mindedness is the diplomatic expression of Fairness. It does not require equal confidence in every claim or an automatic compromise. It requires giving interests and evidence their due without deciding their weight from the identity of the speaker.
Fair-Mindedness gives a more defensible way to disagree
You explain your own mistake through circumstances and someone else’s through character. Fair-Mindedness notices the different measuring instruments. It asks whether the same relevant standard survives a change of names.
Finding the balance in Fair-Mindedness
An illustrative everyday situation
Two colleagues propose different meeting times; one is your close friend.
A fitting response
Impartial consideration
“Let us compare availability and the needs of the meeting.”
You use considerations that either person could examine.
Pursued too far
Mechanical equality
“We must split the difference, even if nobody can attend.”
The appearance of balance overrides the actual purpose and evidence.
Fairness is not a point halfway between two requests. It is a defensible way of considering them.
When the situation changes
If one person has an access need, identical arrangements may not give equal opportunity to participate. A relevant difference deserves consideration rather than being dismissed as favoritism.
What Fair-Mindedness makes possible
You can describe a position accurately before rejecting it. The resulting disagreement may become sharper but less distorted: everyone can see which reason is actually being challenged.
Fair-Mindedness in ordinary life
An unfamiliar opinion
State its strongest reasonable case before explaining your objection. Do not invent a stronger claim than the person actually made.
A shared rule
Check whether you would keep the same rule if its inconvenience fell on you.
Nearby virtues, different work
Discernment
Discernment weighs the soundness of reasons. Fair-Mindedness resists letting allegiance decide that weight beforehand.
Humility
Humility acknowledges your limits. Fair-Mindedness gives another person’s relevant reasons room despite them.
Fair-Mindedness and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: False balance
It resembles impartiality by treating supported and unsupported claims as equally credible. Fairness gives evidence its due.
Counterfeit: Performative neutrality
Refusing to judge can look fair while leaving a plainly unfair arrangement untouched.
How to cultivate Fair-Mindedness
Choose a low-stakes disagreement and state the standard you are using.
Swap the names in your reasoning and see whether the standard changes.
Identify a relevant difference that equal wording might conceal.
Try it today
Fair-Mindedness does not require entertaining abuse, negotiating basic safety, or giving every assertion equal credibility. No one must endure a hostile exchange to demonstrate openness.
Consider the strongest reasonable explanation of a view you disagree with.
In a diplomatic conversation
Consider the strongest reasonable version of the other side’s position before judging it.
Questions worth returning to
Would I accept this reason from someone I disliked?
Which differences matter to this decision?
Am I avoiding judgment to preserve an image of neutrality?
Keep the practice proportionate
Fair-Mindedness does not require entertaining abuse, negotiating basic safety, or giving every assertion equal credibility. No one must endure a hostile exchange to demonstrate openness.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage?
George Eliot · Middlemarch · chapter XXIX; narrator · excerpt
The narrator questions Dorothea's single perspective on her marriage. A fair account asks which relevant viewpoint its sympathetic first telling leaves out.
nor does he put aside good words because of the man.
Confucius · Analects · XV.22; Confucius speaking · James Legge translation · excerpt
Confucius separates a useful statement from dislike of its speaker. Assess an opponent's evidence on its merits without ignoring relevant questions of credibility.
Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
Benjamin Franklin · Autobiography · Part II, plan of moral perfection; Justice · excerpt
Franklin includes omission as well as injury. Fair procedure can fail through withheld opportunities or help, not only overt hostility.
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
John Stuart Mill · On Liberty · II, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion · excerpt
Mill insists that knowing one's own argument is insufficient. Give the strongest reasonable opposing case enough attention to understand what it challenges.
a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech,
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations · I.14; on Severus · George Long translation · excerpt
Marcus recalls Severus's ideal of equal rights and speech. In a small discussion, consider whose chance to contribute is being quietly curtailed.
let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party, to say his counsel or proofs were not heard.
Francis Bacon · Essays · Of Judicature · excerpt
Bacon addresses judges who anticipate a case before hearing it. Applied to everyday disagreement, hear the relevant evidence before announcing the verdict.
For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?
Epictetus · Enchiridion · 45 · Elizabeth Carter translation · excerpt
Epictetus questions a verdict formed without understanding the act. Fairness distinguishes the evidence you have from the intention you have supplied yourself.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Choose a catalog program in its fixed sequence, or create My Virtues with your own selection and order before starting. Reading and trying the exercises never requires an account.