每个人一定都有自己偏好的人、事、物，即便是告诉我们要爱邻居，甚至要爱敌人的耶稣，都有自己特别喜欢的门徒，我们虽然不确定是谁（有人认为是约翰），但我们知道确实有三个人时常围绕在他身边；告诉我们万物皆平等的佛祖也有自己的好朋友Ananda；George Orwell 告诉我们，如果爱不是偏好特定的人，那爱就什么都不是。
 
不管是学校操场还是职场，没有什么比“受到不平等对待”更让人不爽了！生于民主时代加上在开放市场成长，公平早已成为我们的现代信条。美国的道德象征：正义女神衡量法律时，是蒙着眼罩的。在我们汲汲营营追求公平时，我们强迫自己不能偏爱某些人、不能特别喜欢哪些事物，我们将这种感受当做不能见光的人性污点藏在心底。博学的哲学家Stephen T. Asma 在书中将这种感受大剌剌地摊在阳光下。他透过俏皮、机制却认真的论证与举例，维护这种每个人都有但却说不出口也无法否认的偏心直觉，他表示，若我们能对自己有这种想法宽容一点，那么要是真的出现偏袒的状况，我们会好过很多。毕竟，即便从小到大我们都被教导，公平是道德伦理也是美德，但这种后天的教导始终抵不过出生就藏在我们骨子里的天性。
 
作者整合了一长串的科学发现、历史哲学、文化习俗、分析论证与各式各样的个人及文学叙述让我们能细微且全面的了解公平与偏袒如何符合我们的道德架构。他检视所有的事物，从能提升存活率的生物化学开始，讲解母亲对我们的爱能激发我们的“情感区” ，他不只阐释了我们偏心的“方式”，还讲解了我们“应该”这们做的原因。他在书中谈到孔子和尼采等思想家，他表示，我们将公平与更高尚的特质，校是同理心与开阔的心胸混淆在一起。他拆解一堆看似对平等的追求，像是送整班情人节卡片或公民权，揭开我们心底的嫉妒，证明我们为亲爱的人留下最好事物的同时，还是能对陌生人友善、没有偏见，还可以为平等而战。
 
作者提醒我们要重新看待自己对偏袒的设定，不要被今日人人挂在嘴边的“公平”麻痺了心理。他用一种全新且难忘的积极方式，让我们思考生活中的大小行为。
 
本书的动画介绍: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjPhTQ9zi5Q
 
好评
“Mr. Asma offers a rightly critical diagnosis of our obsession with egalitarianism.”
(Meghan Clyne Wall Street Journal)
 
“Asma refreshingly outlines the moral virtues that come with favoritism: loyalty, generosity, and gratitude. While it might strike some as cruel or outdated to accept that we tend to care more about those close to us, Asma shows that this outlook is actually conducive to the moral virtues that utilitarians struggle to justify.”
(Reason Matthew Feeney)
 
“Against Fairness is a terrific book. Stephen T. Asma goes a long way toward convincing readers of a challenging argument. Engagingly written, it avoids the ponderousness that so often characterizes work in philosophy, and I would recommend it to anyone who seems excessively committed to ‘fairness’ as the sine qua non of just policy.”
(Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice 2012-04-25)
 
“Every once in awhile a book is published whose very concept snaps your head back and elicits an internal ‘Whoa! I hadn’t thought of that!’ Against Fairness is one such book. We are all so strongly shaped by modern liberal sensibilities of fairness that the very idea that, in fact, all of us (Jesus included!) play favorites—and justly so—is jarring. But once you think about it—which Asma does with cogent arguments and ample empirical evidence—being indiscriminately fair to everyone makes no sense whatsoever. Whence then do we find morality and justice in an unfair world? Asma shows how in this important contribution to the national conversation.” 
(Michael Shermer, author of The Believing Brain)
 
“Asma realizes, with a sigh, ‘that I will be seen as some conservative Ayn Randian and my book read as a social-Darwinist screed,’ merely for telling his son that it’s not possible for everyone in a race to win it. But that will miss his main point, Asma continues: he’s not arguing for a Little Red Hen merit-based fairness over a prizes-for-all equal-shares fairness; he’s arguing for a favouritism that flies in the face of both concepts, one that privileges our tribes (by blood or affiliation).” 
(Brian Bethune Maclean's)
 
“This is one of those books that I found myself agreeing with one moment and arguing with the next, nodding my head up and down, or shaking it left to right like some kind of dashboard ornament—the bobble-headed armchair philosopher.”
(Zsuzsi Gartner the Globe and Mail)
 
“Asma’s philosophical take on reevaluating what is considered to be ‘fair’ addresses the topic of fairness in a refreshing way, eschewing the culture of rewarding everyone for favoritism.” 
(AirTalk with Larry Mantle, 89.3 KPCC)
 
关于作者
Stephen T. Asma 是哥伦比亚芝加哥学院的哲学教授，他被颁为有突出贡献之学者。他写过七本书，作品包括： "Against Fairness" (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2012)、"On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears" (Oxford Univ. Press)、"Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads" (Oxford Univ. Press)、"The Gods Drink Whiskey" (HarperOne) 与 "Buddha for Beginners" (originally published in 1996 and reissued in 2008)。他的书被翻译成德文、西班牙文、希伯来文、捷克语、罗马尼亚语、印度语、葡萄牙语与中文。
 
他也为多家报章杂志撰稿，有： New York Times, the Sunday Times, Daily Beast, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Fortnightly Review与Skeptic magazine。
 
除了西方哲学外，Asma 对佛学和空子思想也非常有兴趣。2003年时，他到位于柬埔寨Phnom Penh的佛学院教授“佛祖哲学”。除了到过柬埔寨，他也研究过泰国、越南、香港、中国与寮国的亚洲哲学。他在上海住过，并念过书。
 
他的网址是 : www.stephenasma.com