chapter 23
...................................................................................................................................................IMPARTIALITY
...................................................................................................................................................susan mendus
Discussions of impartiality usually center around three questions:Wrst, there
is the question of what impartiality is; second, there is the question of what it
requires of us; third, there is the question of whether it is either desirable or
possible to try to meet those requirements. On theWrst question, there is
widespread, even if not unanimous, agreement that impartiality reXects a
commitment to equality. Thus, Thomas Nagel notes: ‘‘the requirement of
impartiality can take various forms, but it usually involves treating or count-
ing everyone equally in some respect—according them all the same rights, or
counting their good or their welfare or some aspect of it the same in
determining what would be a desirable result or a permissible course of
action’’ (Nagel 1987 , 215 ). And in similar vein Brian Barry urges that the
whole idea of justice as impartiality ‘‘rests upon a fundamental commitment
to the equality of all human beings. The kind of equality that is appealed to by
the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and by the
American Declaration of Independence’’ (Barry 1995 , 8 ).
However, this initial, and apparently easy, agreement about what imparti-
ality is becomes problematic when we turn to the second question: what does
it require of us? Here, diVerences arise across two dimensions:Wrst, there are
disagreements about the scope of impartiality: Is it required of each of us, as
individuals, in our ordinary, everyday actions, or is it rather a requirement of
the moral and legal rules of society? Second, there are disagreements about