What is Impartiality?
by Chaa-du
What is impartiality? It is a word most of us have heard and many of us believe we know its meaning. But, do we really? An easy answer is that it is another way of saying “open minded”.
That itself is a term that when asked, very many claim to be. But, do we really have an understanding of these terms open minded and impartial?
Most have a vague idea of their meaning and based on that, expectations. We expect people in certain positions should be impartial. Judges, police, teachers, etc. These positions ideally should be carried out with impartiality. As I asked at the beginning though, just what is impartiality? It is the willingness to hear and listen to all sides of an argument without prejudging any information heard. There is no bias or exclusion of any point of view. All information is deemed to be worthy of consideration. So, based on the definition of impartiality we likely should expect judges, police, teachers and even more to be impartial. As a matter of fact, would it not be ideal if we all tried to be impartial?
* For more information, please check out CHaa-du's "Becoming an Impartialist" book