Fair-Mindedness and Charity
This chapter explores the virtues of fair-mindedness and intellectual charity, with a view toward diagnosing and curing problems with public discourse—especially online trolling, bullying, and incendiary speech. The chapter examines and applies intellectual parallels to the well-known Silver and Golden Rules of morality. By working through several realistic cases of discourse gone bad, it suggests a range of guidelines for fostering fair habits of mind. These guidelines describe the intellectual behavior of the fair-minded thinker. The chapter then moves to examine intellectual charity, a virtue that lies beyond fair-mindedness. It closes by arguing that the line between intellectual virtue and vice does not divide people along ideological lines.