Against Fairness
From the school yard to the workplace, there's no charge more damning than "You're being unfair!" Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics – Lady Justice – wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty secrets of our humanity. In "Against Fairness", polymath philosopher Stephen T. Asma drags them triumphantly back into the light. Through playful, witty, but always serious arguments and examples, he vindicates our unspoken and undeniable instinct to favor, making the case that we would all be better off if we showed our unfair tendencies a little more kindness – indeed, if we favored favoritism.
Conscious of the egalitarian feathers his argument is sure to ruffle, Asma makes his point by synthesizing a startling array of scientific findings, historical philosophies, cultural practices, analytic arguments, and a variety of personal and literary narratives to give a remarkably nuanced and thorough understanding of how fairness and favoritism fit within our moral architecture. Examining everything from the survival-enhancing biochemistry that makes our mothers love us to the motivating properties of our "affective community", he not only shows how we favor but the reasons we should. Drawing on thinkers from Confucius to Tocqueville to Nietzsche, he reveals how we have confused fairness with more noble traits, like compassion and open-mindedness. He dismantles a number of seemingly egalitarian pursuits, from classwide Valentine's Day cards to civil rights, to reveal the envy that lies at their hearts, going on to prove that we can still be kind to strangers, have no prejudice, and fight for equal opportunity at the same time we reserve the best of what we can offer for those dearest to us.
Fed up with the blue-ribbons-for-all absurdity of "fairness" today, and wary of the psychological paralysis it creates, Asma resets our moral compass with favoritism as its lodestar, providing a strikingly new and remarkably positive way to think through all our actions, big and small.
About the Author
Stephen T. Asma is Distinguished Scholar and professor of philosophy in the Department of Humanities as well as Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science, and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. He is the author of numerous books, including "Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads", "The Gods Drink Whiskey", "On Monsters", and "Against Fairness", the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews
"'Against Fairness' is a terrific book. Stephen T. Asma goes a long way toward convincing readers of a challenging argument. Engagingly written, it avoids the ponderousness that so often characterizes work in philosophy, and I would recommend it to anyone who seems excessively committed to 'fairness' as the sine qua non of just policy" – Barry Schwartz, author of "The Paradox of Choice"
"Every once in awhile a book is published whose very concept snaps your head back and elicits an internal 'Whoa! I hadn't thought of that!' 'Against Fairness' is one such book. We are all so strongly shaped by modern liberal sensibilities of fairness that the very idea that, in fact, all of us (Jesus included!) play favorites – and justly so – is jarring. But once you think about it – which Asma does with cogent arguments and ample empirical evidence – being indiscriminately fair to everyone makes no sense whatsoever. Whence then do we find morality and justice in an unfair world? Asma shows how in this important contribution to the national conversation" – Michael Shermer, author of "The Believing Brain"
