When you adopt a position in favor of another person or a cause without objective and rigorous criteria, you are being partial. Whoever acts in this way has an interested, arbitrary and, therefore, unfair behavior. If we want to be fair in our decisions, it is necessary to avoid bias.
Without impartiality, fair decisions cannot be made
When a soccer referee directs a match, it is assumed that all his decisions must be impartial, otherwise he would be behaving in a totally unfair way. In an analogous way, a judge has to carry out his work avoiding any partial decision.
In certain social contexts, someone's partial attitude does not imply any injustice, since it is a reasonable position. Consider a father who watches over his son while he plays in the park with other children. The father is not a caregiver of all children and it is logical that he watches more closely his own child than others.
Consequently, it would be unwise to claim that the father is being biased. However, in other types of contexts it is essential that someone's position is neutral or impartial. Imagine that a teacher corrects his students' exams and, consciously, gives a higher score to some than to others. His behavior is being unfair, since his profession forces him to make party decisions.
In short, there are professions and activities that imply a totally impartial and neutral position.
Different forms of bias
In the workplace, companies choose the most suitable candidates for each job. This general idea is not always fulfilled and when a candidate is elected without objective criteria, we speak of plugging or nepotism. Something very similar happens with cronyism and patronage, two ways of favoring close people for some kind of personal interest.
It's not easy to be impartial
While in theory it is desirable for all decisions to be impartial and fair, in practice it is considerably more difficult. To a greater or lesser extent, we all have prejudices, interests and personal inclinations that powerfully influence when deciding on one option or another.
Photos: Fotolia - artisticco / rudall30
