General & Miscellaneous Philosophy

Against Fairness

Name: Against Fairness
Author: Stephen T. Asma
ISBN: 9780226029863

by Stephen T. Asma

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

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.

Synopsis

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.

Watch an animated book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjPhTQ9zi5Q

About the Author, Stephen T. Asma

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 several books, including On Monsters, Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, and Following Form and Function.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Contrary to his book’s title, Asma (On Monsters), a professor of philosophy at Chicago’s Columbia College, is not so fiercely antifairness as he is fiercely profavoritism. After arguing that the “biological process of filial favoritism” is “natural for humans in the same way that breastfeeding is natural,” he ponders how the “ideology of fairness” developed in Western culture, attributing it to “the new leveling and democratization of seventeenth-century Holland,” “Galileo’s leveling and mechanizing of nature,” and Newton’s “natural philosophy,” Bentham’s “utilitarian philosophy,” and Kant’s categorical imperative, and contrasting it with his experience in Eastern culture (“In Confucian cultures like China, I was treated with far more respect than I have ever experienced in the States”). Closer to home, he wonders about “the development of fairness in children.” Indeed, parenthood may push many buttons for Asma, from his initial musing upon how many people he would kill to save his son’s life (and why), to whether that child should have to bring cupcakes for everyone for his in-school birthday (and why not). Agent: Giles Anderson, Anderson Literary Agency. (Nov.)

Wall Street Journal - Meghan Clyne

“Mr. Asma offers a rightly critical diagnosis of our obsession with egalitarianism.”

Barry Schwartz

“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.”

Michael Shermer

“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.”

Maclean's

“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).”

AirTalk with Larry Mantle

“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.”

89.3 KPCC AirTalk with Larry Mantle

“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.”

the Globe and Mail

“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.”