In my opinion, there are only two things that affect the making of a fair judgement: circumstances and the mindset of the person making the decision. I shall elaborate on these in my following paragraphs.
Firstly, a fair judgement shall require the person making the decision to have an unbiased mindset. Only through having an untainted view of the world, without letting past experiences and incidents cloud your vision, can you make a fair, unbiased judgement. Yet, how many of us can truly not let past incidents affect our decisions? Many people may claim, "I am unbiased. I view things from both perspectives and I think that person XXX is in the wrong". However, how sure are we that we are truly unbiased? Whenever we look at an event, or think of a word, certain memories would definitely be triggered. For example, one could be looking at a dark-skinned construction worker and subconsciously or consciously think of how you had seen a construction worker sleeping in the void deck. Our mind works extremely quickly and yet, because it has to work so quickly, the operations by our mind are relatively simple. If we see a construction worker, we may trigger a stereotype that they do not work hard, then our mind would start finding instances of that, before reinstating that construction workers are lazy people. This happens instantly, be it consciously or unconsciously, and affects our way of thinking whether we want to or not. Even if we start thinking "I shall not be biased," we may associate it with being harsher/less harsh to the person we are judging and thus, give them a biased judgement that is different from how you would judge a stranger who does the exact same thing. Thus, my point would be that prejudice and unfair judgements is always because we have experiences, which would always taint our judgement one way or another, no matter what we do. What we can do, however is to at least try not to be biased, that is, not be extremely biased such like "I dislike Chinese, he is a Chinese, and thus I dislike him."
Next, you may ask why not have a fixed set of guidelines, that is, rules. However, fair judgement also depends on the circumstances to make a fair judgement. We have to look at the situation and find out what is going on in order to make a judgement that is fair. If we ignore the circumstances and evidence and judge solely based on our beliefs, our judgement would be unlikely to be fair. However, extreme circumstances may force a person to make a judgement which may be fair to the majority, but is not fair to individuals. For example, if a father murders someone and gets the death sentence for committing the crime, it would be fair in the public's eye -- after all, he should not have committed that particular crime if he did not want to get the death sentence. However, is it fair to the child? What if the child does not have a mother or someone who is willing to be a guardian? Is it fair to the child that his father be killed and instead of having a normal life, he becomes an orphan? Should another judgement be passed instead so that instead of just killing that father, they reach a compromise? You may say that having a murderer for a father is worse than having no father, but how do we know? Have we actually experienced what the child must feel? Although circumstances in our daily lives are not that extreme, there are some judgements we have to pass about people and situations which are hard to be fair to everyone involved. A compromise could be reached by all parties, but many people will be unlikely to do that. Everyone wants the best themselves and are naturally unwilling to sacrifice even a bit of their benefits.
Hi Kai En :D
ReplyDeleteI like how you explained about the difficulty in giving an unbiased opinion. Indeed, opinions are hard to change, which is most likely why our teachers and parents emphasise the need for a good first impression:D
I do have prejudice against a friend because he has left a bad impression on me, and I began getting angry at whatever he said, and my mind was filled with criticisms at his actions. But then I realised, that what he did that I criticized, I do myself.
Interesting point on circumstantial fairness too:D However, I do not agree that a compromise can be met that easily in your given scenario, especially since it concerns death. True, it would be cruel to take away the child's father, but would it be fair the the victim, and the victim's family? If we are talking about murder on purpose, is it right to let the murderer off, just because it will be detrimental to the child? I feel that the murderer should have known about the consequences of the act, and shouldn't have attempted murder. Actions often affect the people around you, and I think that the murderer should have been more responsible in his actions. In more trivial cases like theft, a compromise may be able to be met, but in the case of murder, I think it would be injustice to let the murderer off.
Cheers!
Glenn Ang