Impartiality

thumb|None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. ~ Henry David Thoreau Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring benefit to one person over another for improper reasons. Quotes [T]he frenzy of impartiality, like any other frenzy, leads to injustice. Julien Benda, Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), pp. 187–188 We should not pretend to be what we are not. The pretence of the impartial investigation of truth, with the resolve to make the established religion the result, indeed the measure and control of truth, is intolerable and such a philosophy, tied to the established religion like a dog to a chain, is only the vexatious caricature of the highest and noblest endeavor of mankind. Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Philosophy in the Universities,” Parerga and Paralipomena, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 143 To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us. John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 106 None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) See also Objectivity External links