Most of us, most of the time, are deeply prejudiced in favour of individual over
collective judgments. This is hardly surprising, since we are all biased.
First, we are biased in favour of our own opinions, which we tend to prefer to those of anyone else.
Second, we are biased in favour of individuals generally, because we are all individuals ourselves, and so are broadly sympathetic to the individual point of view.
We like to think of people exercising their personal judgment, and not just blindly following the rules.
However, as Frederick Schauer argues in his excellent book,Profiles, Probabilities and Stereotypes by Frederick Schauer
Harvard, 359 pp, £19.95, February 2004, ISBN 0 674 01186
though we are right to suspect that all general rules are discriminatory, we are wrong to suppose that it is therefore better to trust to individuals.
This is because no individual is truly capable of judging each case on its merits; individuals simply bring their own personal generalisations to bear on the case in question. These are likely to be just as crude and inflexible as the mandatory guidelines of some far distant committee.
Individuals will simply be applying their own generalisations, and these are likely to be as arbitrary as any. These are the very reasons we have general rules in the first place, to save us from the arbitrary judgments of individuals.
First, we are biased in favour of our own opinions, which we tend to prefer to those of anyone else.
Second, we are biased in favour of individuals generally, because we are all individuals ourselves, and so are broadly sympathetic to the individual point of view.
We like to think of people exercising their personal judgment, and not just blindly following the rules.
However, as Frederick Schauer argues in his excellent book,Profiles, Probabilities and Stereotypes by Frederick Schauer
Harvard, 359 pp, £19.95, February 2004, ISBN 0 674 01186
though we are right to suspect that all general rules are discriminatory, we are wrong to suppose that it is therefore better to trust to individuals.
This is because no individual is truly capable of judging each case on its merits; individuals simply bring their own personal generalisations to bear on the case in question. These are likely to be just as crude and inflexible as the mandatory guidelines of some far distant committee.
Individuals will simply be applying their own generalisations, and these are likely to be as arbitrary as any. These are the very reasons we have general rules in the first place, to save us from the arbitrary judgments of individuals.
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