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OverviewFrom 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. Watch an animated book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjPhTQ9zi5Q Full Product DetailsAuthor: Stephen T. AsmaPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.60cm Weight: 0.286kg ISBN: 9780226702124ISBN 10: 022670212 Pages: 224 Publication Date: 03 July 2020 Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , General , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 Even Jesus Had a Favorite Saints and Favorites Fairness, Tribes, and Nephews Two Classic Cases of Favoritism 2 To Thy Own Tribe Be True: Biological Favoritism Moral Gravity The Biochemistry of Favoritism Humans Are Wired for Favoritism A Healthy Addiction Flexible Favoritism Kin Selection Rational or Emotional Motives Conflicting Brain Systems Facts and Values 3 In Praise of Exceptions Building the Grid of Impartiality Going Off the Grid Friendship and Favoritism Reasonable Favoritism 4 “But, Dad, That’s Not Fair!” The Fusion of Feelings and Ideas Sowing the Seeds of Confusion: Sharing Sowing the Seeds of Confusion: Open Minds Envy and Fairness Excellence, Fairness, and Favoritism 5 The Circle of Favors: Global Perspectives Chinese Favoritism Face Culture Indian Favoritism Disentangling Nepotism and Corruption Disentangling Tribalism and Tragedy 6 “Your People Shall Be My People?” Minorities, Majorities, and Favoritism Affirmative Action and Favoritism The Finite Stretch Feeling the Stones with Your Feet 7 Because You’re Mine, I Walk the Line The Virtues of Favoritism You Can’t Love Humanity. You Can Only Love People The Future of Favoritism The Archbishop and the Chambermaid Notes IndexReviewsMr. Asma offers a rightly critical diagnosis of our obsession with egalitarianism. --Meghan Clyne Wall Street Journal Asma refreshingly outlines the moral virtues that come with favoritism: loyalty, generosity, and gratitude. While it might strike some as cruel or outdated to accept that we tend to care more about those close to us, Asma shows that this outlook is actually conducive to the moral virtues that utilitarians struggle to justify. --Reason Matthew Feeney This is one of those books that I found myself agreeing with one moment and arguing with the next, nodding my head up and down, or shaking it left to right like some kind of dashboard ornament--the bobble-headed armchair philosopher. --Zsuzsi Gartner the Globe and Mail Asma's philosophical take on reevaluating what is considered to be 'fair' addresses the topic of fairness in a refreshing way, eschewing the culture of rewarding everyone for favoritism. --AirTalk with Larry Mantle, 89.3 KPCC Asma realizes, with a sigh, 'that I will be seen as some conservative Ayn Randian and my book read as a social-Darwinist screed, ' merely for telling his son that it's not possible for everyone in a race to win it. But that will miss his main point, Asma continues: he's not arguing for a Little Red Hen merit-based fairness over a prizes-for-all equal-shares fairness; he's arguing for a favouritism that flies in the face of both concepts, one that privileges our tribes (by blood or affiliation). --Brian Bethune Maclean's 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 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. -- (04/25/2012) Mr. Asma offers a rightly critical diagnosis of our obsession with egalitarianism. --Meghan Clyne Wall Street Journal This is one of those books that I found myself agreeing with one moment and arguing with the next, nodding my head up and down, or shaking it left to right like some kind of dashboard ornament--the bobble-headed armchair philosopher. --Zsuzsi Gartner the Globe and Mail Asma's philosophical take on reevaluating what is considered to be 'fair' addresses the topic of fairness in a refreshing way, eschewing the culture of rewarding everyone for favoritism. --AirTalk with Larry Mantle, 89.3 KPCC Asma refreshingly outlines the moral virtues that come with favoritism: loyalty, generosity, and gratitude. While it might strike some as cruel or outdated to accept that we tend to care more about those close to us, Asma shows that this outlook is actually conducive to the moral virtues that utilitarians struggle to justify. --Reason Matthew Feeney Asma realizes, with a sigh, 'that I will be seen as some conservative Ayn Randian and my book read as a social-Darwinist screed, ' merely for telling his son that it's not possible for everyone in a race to win it. But that will miss his main point, Asma continues: he's not arguing for a Little Red Hen merit-based fairness over a prizes-for-all equal-shares fairness; he's arguing for a favouritism that flies in the face of both concepts, one that privileges our tribes (by blood or affiliation). --Brian Bethune Maclean's 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 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. -- (04/25/2012) Author InformationStephen T. Asma is professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago as well as a senior fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science, and Culture. He is the author of many books, most recently The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition and The Evolution of Imagination, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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