Objectivity
Evaluation of a subject, free from prior opinion or personal interest. But what if your evaluation is governed by your determination to prove how objective you are? If you are going to be so dry about it, leaving nothing to uncertainty or to the emotions, you may still be some distance from understanding it, being filled instead with a delicious sense of your impartiality. And if you don’t bring some frame of reference or opinion—Burke calls it “prejudice”—to the matter, a sensible judgment on the matter will be elusive:
We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would be better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages. . . . Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.O1
Related entries:
Casuistry, Encounter, Mindset, Scepticism, Big Stick.
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