Who wants a leader who is fair-minded?

[coberst]

Who wants a leader who is fair-minded?

 

Is your lawyer fair-minded? Is your big brother fair-minded when you need help? Is your politician fair-minded? Do you want a fair-minded politician as your advocate? In an adversarial capitalistic society like the US do I lose if my advocate is fair-minded?

 

What does fair-minded mean? Webster says fair-minded is marked by honesty—impartiality. Do I want my advocate to be impartial and honest? Will I not be a complete loser when I go into a contest to get my share; won’t I come out as a complete loser if ‘my main man’ is impartial?

 

I think I need an advocate who is more partial than the next guy if I am to ‘get my share’; in fact I want the most unfair-minded SOB in the country to be my advocate! Some very important person, probably that baseball manager—I forget his name, said “impartial guys finish last”.

 

I am inclined to think that evil equals fair-minded. Perhaps that is what Bush meant when he warned us against the ‘axis of evil’. Also Reagan probably meant that Russia was “A fair-minded empire”.

[jackson33]

Who wants a leader who is fair-minded?

 

Is your lawyer fair-minded? Is your big brother fair-minded when you need help? Is your politician fair-minded? Do you want a fair-minded politician as your advocate? In an adversarial capitalistic society like the US do I lose if my advocate is fair-minded?

 

What does fair-minded mean? Webster says fair-minded is marked by honesty—impartiality. Do I want my advocate to be impartial and honest? Will I not be a complete loser when I go into a contest to get my share; won’t I come out as a complete loser if ‘my main man’ is impartial?

 

I think I need an advocate who is more partial than the next guy if I am to ‘get my share’; in fact I want the most unfair-minded SOB in the country to be my advocate! Some very important person, probably that baseball manager—I forget his name, said “impartial guys finish last”.

 

I am inclined to think that evil equals fair-minded. Perhaps that is what Bush meant when he warned us against the ‘axis of evil’. Also Reagan probably meant that Russia was “A fair-minded empire”.

 

personally i have wondered why any one would want to lead the US, when in fact their efforts are at best 60-40 in acceptance. the idea of patriotism may be, since most every person to achieve the job "President of the US" has studied History. certainly its not the pay. as to fare minded or the meanest SOB; maybe its a combination or if you prefer, one side or the other can stand out as needed. the decisions made by head of family, a warehouse manager, a major cooperation, a state or even a country require actions most wish were not required.

[Kriminal99]

Fair mindedness or war, take your pick

 

The first step is to determine what is is meant by fair minded.

 

Let us say that our president is not fair-minded, and neither is the president of the nearby nation. Soon the world runs out of oil, and in a body of water between these 2 nations lies a new source. What happens with 2 ignorant and selfish leaders? War of course. Lots of people die. This is the opposite of "fair mindedness". Very simple.

 

It is best to look at it like there are only 2 basic states of interaction between any 2 capable people or groups of people. Either they are fighting, or they are not and they listen to each other's viewpoint's and honestly try to understand them and come to an agreement in hopes of fighting. No matter what the situation is, noone really wins fighting rather it just makes everyone miserable. Casualties or blows are taken on both sides.

 

Lesser forms of war only breed lesser forms of misery on all sides

 

Hiding behind laws or peace agreements, and then fighting using tactics that don't directly violate the laws or peace treaties is just as bad. It still makes both sides miserable, and the person who loses is always going to want to escalate to more direct means of fighting and cast aside the laws or agreements. And morally speaking, there is nothing wrong with them doing so (assuming the weren't the ones who started the fighting)

 

Fairness is about maintaining this agreement against fighting of any kind. When you both make an honest effort to come to an agreement there is no need to fight. When you so much as raise your voice over your opponent in a debate you have used force to try and get your way. If you are going to use force to try and get your way, then your opponent is going to use force. You can't agree that it is ok to use force, but then limit it to only certain kinds of force. If the person cared little enough about their own viewpoint to agree to that, they wouldn't be fighting with you to begin with.

 

What some intellectuals do not understand

 

So to provide an image for you that might help you understand this line of thinking, imagine someone like Bill O'reily. Now lets say I go on his show and we get into an argument. The whole debate he yells over me, uses unconnected metaphors, rolls his eyes and waggles his little fingers. At the end of the debate, I am in the middle of giving a really strong argument and he disconnects my mic and says my claims are rediculous. So I pull out a magnum and blow his brains out. Have I done something wrong? I say no, it was defense of my beliefs.

 

Many weasly and immature intellectuals do not agree or understand with this line of reasoning. They might react to such behavior as though it were totally unjustified and try to convince others that their opponent is a criminal or crazy regardless of how many "strictly legal" yet immoral acts they commited against the person. Their lack of understanding basically amounts to a naive fear of death. That is, they could be of the mindset to totally destroy their opponents life, and yet would not kill that person and expect that person to not kill them either just because death itself is some horrible thing that is a million times worse than anything that could happen to you in life. But for many people, if you have nothing to loose then death is meaningless therefore they readily would kill someone who ruined their life.

 

And for others, their beleifs are always worth more than their life. Therefore they feel totally justified in killing someone who uses force to squelch their beliefs, because they know they are ready to die for those beliefs. This is obviously the case with Islamic terrorists. We go on and on about the war on terror, but to be perfectly honest about it, if someone really wants to kill you so bad that they are willing to give their own life to do it, there is no way to stop them is there? If you need a reason to always be fairminded, then you need not look any further than this.

[IDMclean]

I would not confuse Fair with Impartial. They are similar, though that is incidental.

 

Fairness is the measure of equal probability of players in the game meeting there objective.

 

Now when I talk about fairness I am generally talking about some kind of fairness in reference to a specific game. In this case we are talking about the games of society, liberty and life. In which fairness of liberty is the measure of the liberty of all players in the game.

 

If we acknowledge that other countries are players, and that all players deserve liberty then we must acknowledge limitations to procedures we can take to accomplish our own goals that are prohibited by the rules that we ourselves have laid out and expect of ourselves to live.

 

So I acknowledge several very important rules. One I am a person, and as a person I believe that I am entitled "life, liberty and justice". I would even acknowledge the last part of that "for all"; This arises from the ethic of reciprocity.

 

If I am a person, and other people are persons also.

as a person I am entitled to life, liberty, and justice

Then they, the people, are likewise entitled to these rights and privillages.

 

A leader who fails to play by the rules, is a damn dirty cheat. I don't know about but I don't trust a cheater to play any game fair-like. If the leader will cheat while playing games with other people, then the leader is not above cheating even their own people.

 

Same thing applies to presidentals and CEOs. If they embezzle one way, they are likely to embezzle another. For what truely is the difference between one set of people and another?

 

I would prefer a leader whom I know, with reasonable certainty, to be a fair player than a leader whom I know, with reasonable certainty, to be a cheater. Just like when picking people for a team to compete one generally picks those who one knows to win games rather those one knows to lose games.

[coberst]

Kickassclown

 

I think you are exactly on the mark.

 

 

Within the Enlightenment Rousseau’s voice appeared as the first great voice directed at Newtonianism’s objective science. This voice directed attention from an objective science wherein sapiens were relegated to a neutral role to one wherein wo/man was central in a subjective value science. This was to be a science that directly advances human well being.

 

We move from consideration of a concept of science that alienated men and women, to one that gave us a new vision of science; a value science. Science guided by an ideal-type paradigm that could garner allegiance faced a formidable task. “How can we get agreement on unfinished data, when the data refer to changing society and man himself? When man is the subject matter of his science, he is reluctant to act on any but the most supremely compelling theory.”

 

The concept of alienation holds up for view the bind placed on women and men when society itself imprisons their free human energies. Alienation is the only concept that can help us comprehend the need for a liberating social change. This is “the guardian of sacred subjectivity in a mechanical, objective world.”

 

The first imperative for comprehending Becker’s ideas regarding a science of man is to agree that alienation is a value problem. “All fact is two faced”, as Dewey would say “it is cosmos examined by a speck in the cosmos”. “In the science of man based on the concept of alienation, this understanding would be frank and explicit. We would posit and ideal model of man, and propose the kind of changes we would need to help further this ideal; and then we would gather empirical data and measure them against he ideal.” Thereby the value aspect of our science of man would be foremost in front of us at all times.

 

As a definition of ‘alienation’ the dictionary uses such similes as “strange”, “different”, “incongruous”, “owing different allegiances”, and “properly therefore belonging to another”, “not of our type”. “The judgment of “our type” and “not belonging” is a mixture of both. Since this is the case, we would always have to get agreement, in our science both on what we want to promote and on the supporting objective data that we gather.” The type of alienation Becker speaks of is that which we all tacitly (implied but not expressed) agree is dehumanizing.

[coberst]

Kriminal99

 

What is fair-minded?

 

The individual who has learned the knowledge and skills of Critical Thinking can use those skills and knowledge in a self-centered or in a fair-minded way.

 

 

Can an individual become the best thinker she can be by studying the knowledge and skills comprising the science of reasoning? Can she further her goal to becoming the best thinker she can be by comprehending the normal human tendencies that lead all of us into irrational behavior?

 

If a person becomes the most knowledgeable, skilled, and self-knowledgeable person in the world that person can still use her ability in a way that does harm to her community. A person can become a self-centered thinker or s/he can become a fair-minded thinker. In the self-centered mode she can become the incarnation of Evil of the world, or in her fair-minded mode she can become the incarnation of Good of the world.

 

One of the things we learn when we study Critical Thinking is that we must be critical of our self. We must question and understand what we “believe” in order to begin the process of becoming a fair-minded thinker, the very heart of Critical Thinking.

 

What means do we have to discover, to criticize, and to modify our biases, our prejudices, and our ideologies that guide our everyday performance in the world?

[Kriminal99]

One answer is other people. If our biases do not affect or harm anyone, and there being wrong does not prevent someone from achieving their goals, then they are irrelevant. If they do cause these things, then there will be someone to complain about it.

 

The other answer is ourselves. It seems to me the way I attack and refine my own arguments is to pretend I am my own enemy who uses arguments similar to ones I have seen other people make in the past and similar to ones I have made as well. One thing about philosophy and debate is that many arguments have common threads such that you can apply the same kind of reasoning to many different topics. To criticize yourself allows you to better accomplish your own goals, even when noone else is effected directly.

 

But regarding this whole value science thing... It does not seem to me to be particuarly signifigant. Everything about science is wrong for the purpose of giving the average person information to live his life more efficiently. Of course some of these things are no doubt to be altered in this "value science" you speak of, but I hold that to try and make scientific knoweldge more useful to the general populace is to turn science into philosophy, or to go to such great lengths that you might as well start from scratch.

 

Everything about science is wrong for this. It focuses on 3rd person observation of events. You saw X Y and Z happen with a certain frequency and documented the results carefully etc. But I did not see it. My taking it on faith from you that those things happened is not science. Science is suited to an organization where it is known that all members have common biases such that there is little or no reason to doubt each others reports.

 

Science is overspecialized in nature. The average person has no clue what, and probably does not care to know what scientists talk about. Most scientists have a private language and poor communication skills outside of this private language. Forever a system has been built where people outside of their discipline cannot even undeterstand what they are talking about and yet they expect people to value their knowledge when they cannot communicate understanding that they gain.

[coberst]

Kriminal99

 

When we use the word "science" we are normally destined to confuse. The man on the street generally uses this word to mean natural science, technology, everything that is good, math,etc. Few recognize that the word also means any domain of knowledge that satisfies certain standards. The standards are established by the philosophy of science. One can Google Wikipedia and examine Philosophy of Science for details.