Too little
Partiality: you disregard the refund slips because they weaken the accusation. Your preferred story decides which facts count.
Fairness
Examine a plausible innocent explanation with the same care you give an explanation involving wrongdoing.
An impartial disposition to give relevant interests and evidence their due.
Fairness gives relevant evidence and interests their due, including a plausible account that weakens your suspicion. It asks the same serious question of a favored explanation and an unwelcome one. This is an impartial disposition toward the matter, not a duty to pretend that all explanations are equally supported.
Try a practice
An account worth examining
At a volunteer stall, the till total is lower than expected. You begin a list headed “Possible wrongdoing.” Then someone points to a stack of unsigned refund slips. Your pencil reluctantly discovers a second heading. You examine the refunds with the same care you had planned for the accusation.
An invented illustrative scene.
Fairness gives…
Fairness gives the concern a just basis. It protects both the people affected by a genuine problem and the people an unsupported account might blame.
What Fairness makes possible
You can distinguish a discrepancy from a conclusion about a person. If the refunds explain the difference, that matters; if they explain only part, the remaining question deserves attention too.
Fairness: finding the balance
A fitting response
Even examination: you check whether the refunds explain the same amount and timing as the discrepancy. The innocent account receives serious scrutiny.
Pursued too far
False equivalence: you give an unsupported reassurance the same weight as a well-established record. Impartiality becomes indifference to evidential differences.
Fairness is not the arithmetic of equal airtime. It asks which differences between accounts are relevant and why.
Fairness in ordinary life
A favored team’s explanation
Imagine two departments with similar discrepancies. One is staffed by people the observer admires. Fairness does not require assuming equal wrongdoing; it requires that friendship not supply the explanation that evidence must establish. A plausible innocent account deserves the same examination in either department. This is an invented descriptive example, not a disclosure assignment.
A missed deadline
Consider a changed instruction when assessing whether someone neglected the task.
A disputed credit
Examine contributions by a friend and a newcomer with the same relevant standard.
Nearby virtues, different work
Discernment
Discernment assesses what evidence establishes; Fairness gives competing interests and evidence impartial consideration.
Humility
Humility admits a limit in your knowledge; Fairness resists making your favored person or explanation an exception.
Fairness and its counterfeits
Generous explanations for your group and suspicious ones for everyone else reveal partisan loyalty, a counterfeit of Fairness. The same relevant inquiry must reach the favored account too.
Both-sides performance counterfeits Fairness by making unequal evidence look equal. An impartial examination can reach an uneven conclusion; symmetry of presentation does not establish justice.
How to cultivate Fairness
- State the strongest plausible innocent account before evaluating it.
- Check whether you demand the same evidence from explanations you prefer.
- Consider what each affected person could reasonably need corrected.
Try it today
Use a fictional missing-item story. Give the most plausible innocent explanation the same careful examination as the explanation involving wrongdoing.
Note which fact supports or weakens each account. You may finish with uncertainty; the exercise does not require choosing an accusation.
Do not question suspects or test other people for this exercise. Fairness does not require contact with a threatening person or abandonment of appropriate safeguards.
Questions worth returning to
- Am I giving the inconvenient account a real examination?
- What would make unequal treatment justified here?
Keep the practice proportionate
Do not question suspects or test other people for this exercise. Fairness does not require contact with a threatening person or abandonment of appropriate safeguards.
These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.
About these practicesQuotations and further reading
Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.
… Now I will not say that the archdeacon is strictly correct in stigmatising John Bold as a demagogue, for I hardly know how extreme must be a man's opinions before he can be justly so called; but Bold is a strong reformer. …
Anthony Trollope · The Warden
(zero-based); exact span 535–756
Narrator (fictional satire) · 1855 novel; preserved Gutenberg 619 digital editionTrollope’s narrator hesitates over Grantly’s labeling of Bold as a demagogue. The fictional aside makes a classification itself available for scrutiny, rather than allowing a disfavored critic to be dismissed by a label.
At times of social disturbance the law-abiding citizen is naturally so anxious for peace and order, his sympathies are so justly and inevitably on the side making for the restoration of law, that it is difficult for him to see the situation fairly. …
Jane Addams · Democracy and Social Ethics
(zero-based); exact span 0–248
Jane Addams · 1902 work; preserved current Project Gutenberg digital edition; first-print collation not assertedAddams notices a worthy preference for order obstructing fair perception. At the refund stall, an observer’s wish for a tidy explanation cannot decide in advance which account deserves attention; the historical social argument is not a verdict on every dispute.
… I know I have represented the facts absolutely truthfully and fairly. …
Henrik Ibsen · An Enemy of the People
(zero-based); exact span 76–145
Dr. Stockmann, fictional dialogue · 1882 play; R. Farquharson Sharp English translation, preserved Gutenberg 2446 digital edition
R. Farquharson Sharp English translationDr Stockmann declares his own fairness inside an angry accusation against his brother. His assurance cannot independently establish impartiality; the page asks whether competing explanations receive the same evidential care.
… In the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his philosophy. …
John Stuart Mill · Autobiography
(zero-based); exact span 2013–2162
John Stuart Mill · 1873 work; preserved Gutenberg 10378 digital editionMill says he sought both Bentham’s merits and deficiencies. Examining an account fairly can identify genuine strengths and genuine errors without making them equal in number.
The best corrective of intolerance in disposition, is increase of wisdom and enlarged experience of life. …
Samuel Smiles · Character
(zero-based); exact span 0–105
Samuel Smiles · 1871 work; preserved Gutenberg 2541 digital editionSmiles links enlarged experience and wisdom with correction of intolerance. An innocent account deserves serious attention beyond the narrow pattern that first raised suspicion.
… When Dr Grantly talks of unbelieving enemies, he does not mean to imply want of belief in the doctrines of the church, but an equally dangerous scepticism as to its purity in money matters.
Anthony Trollope · The Warden
(zero-based); exact span 883–1072
Narrator (fictional satire) · 1855 novel; preserved Gutenberg 619 digital editionTrollope’s narrator exposes Grantly’s slide from financial criticism to religious hostility. The satire shows a partial defense treating disagreement with an institution as evidence against its critic.
… People no longer seriously think that speculative error is bound up with moral iniquity, or that mistaken thinking is either the result or the cause of wicked living. …
John Morley · On Compromise
(zero-based); exact span 133–299
John Morley · 1874 work; preserved Gutenberg 11557 digital editionMorley separates mistaken thinking from moral iniquity. A discrepancy or wrong interpretation need not establish wicked intent; the evidence must support the stronger claim separately.
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Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.