Partiality

Loving-kindness (mettā) is cultivated toward all beings without distinction: the practice taught consists in extending loving-kindness beyond loved ones, to the indifferent and then to the enemy, as a mother protects her only child. Extended to all that lives, this benevolence tilts the teaching toward a benevolent impartialism.

Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta, Sutta Nipāta 1.8 (the discourse on loving-kindness) · Dhammapada, ch. I (The Pairs)

Loving-kindness (mettā) and compassion (karuṇā) are cultivated toward all beings without distinction: the practice consists precisely in extending loving-kindness beyond loved ones, to the indifferent and then to the enemy. Dissolving the separate self removes the basis of partial preference, orienting Buddhism toward a benevolent impartialism.

Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta (the discourse on loving-kindness) · Dhammapada, ch. I (The Pairs)

The solidarity born of revolt holds for every humiliated man, with no privilege of proximity or belonging: the formula "I rebel, therefore we are" extends the value to all men. Rieux heals the plague-stricken indiscriminately, which leans toward impartialism, tempered by Camus's carnal rootedness in a beloved land.

The Rebel (1951) · The Plague (1947)

Stoic cosmopolitanism implies equal concern for every rational being: since all humans share the same logos and form a single world-city, the sage in principle owes them impartial regard. Hierocles even urges drawing the circles of oikeiōsis inward, treating the most distant as kin.

Hierocles, Elements of Ethics · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII, 13

Diogenes' cosmopolitanism denies any natural privilege of one's near ones: homeland, family and city being only nomos, they ground no particular obligation that nature would recognise. Every rational being counts equally, beyond the arbitrariness of birth. The position leans toward impartiality, but stays inferred: Diogenes does not theorise duties, he dissolves conventional loyalties more than he builds a positive impartial ethics.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 72

Stoic cosmopolitanism grounds equal regard for every rational being, a child of the same Zeus. Yet Epictetus also stresses the particular duties attached to roles (father, son, citizen), which tempers the impartialism: an impartiality of principle lived through concrete attachments.

Discourses, II.10 · Discourses, III.24

Cosmopolitanism grounds an equal regard for every rational being; but Marcus thinks this concern in circles, from kin to city to humankind, each carrying its own duties. He thus stands on the median position of concentric circles, neither pure impartialism nor avowed partiality.

Meditations, III, 11 · Meditations, VII, 13

Friendship (philia) is a good indispensable to the good life, and it is ordered: one owes more to one's own, parents and benefactors, than to strangers, and civic philia holds the city together. The legitimate priority given to those close to us places Aristotle on the side of partialism.

Nicomachean Ethics, VIII-IX; IX.2

Charity itself is ordered, Thomas argues: we ought to love all human beings, but not all equally, for the order of nature requires that we first help those close to us, parents and fellow citizens, to whom we are more tightly bound. This hierarchy of duties, grounded in real proximity, places Thomas on the side of partialism, without thereby excluding the universality in principle of love of neighbour.

Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 26 (the order of charity)

Sympathy, the source of moral approval, is by nature unequal: we feel more keenly for those near us than for the distant. Hume acknowledges this limited sympathy as a primary fact of human nature; the rules of justice and institutions serve precisely to correct the effects of this partiality, without abolishing it. The leaning is thus partialist, tempered by an artificial corrective.

A Treatise of Human Nature, III, part II, sect. 1-2 (the origin of justice, limited sympathy)

Friendship, philia, occupies two whole books of the Nicomachean Ethics and is an indispensable good of the good life: one owes more to kin, benefactors and fellow citizens. This avowed priority of particular bonds, up to the civic friendship that holds the city together, places Aristotelianism on the partialist side.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII-IX

To love humanity in general is a cold abstraction: it is to the near, the familiar, to what is our own that the heart goes first, and this partiality of feeling is worth more than the calculated impartiality of the Enlightenment. Romanticism prefers the warmth of particular bonds, the homeland, the family, friendship, to the universal and disembodied benevolence of the cosmopolitan.

Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France · Herder, Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humanity

The ethics of ambiguity always starts from the concrete situation and from singular bonds, not from an overarching, impartial standpoint: one commits from where one is, alongside those to whom one is tied. Yet this partial anchoring opens onto the universal requirement of willing the freedom of all, which tempers the partialist leaning.

The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), engagement from within the situation