In philosophy, neutrality is the tendency to not take a side in a conflict (physical or ideological), [1] [2] [3] which may not suggest neutral parties do not have a side or are not a side themselves. In colloquial use, neutral can be synonymous with unbiased. However, bias is a favoritism for one side, [4] [5] distinct from the tendency to act on that favoritism. Neutrality is distinct (though not exclusive) from apathy, ignorance, indifference, doublethink, equality, [6] agreement, and objectivity. Apathy and indifference each imply a level of carelessness about a subject, though a person exhibiting neutrality may feel bias on a subject but choose not to act on it. A neutral person can also be well-informed on a subject and therefore need not be ignorant. Since they can be biased, a neutral person need not feature doublethink (i.e. accepting both sides as correct), equality (i.e. viewing both sides as equal), or agreement (a form of group decision-making; here it would require negotiating a solution on everyone's opinion, including one's own which may not be unbiased). Objectivity suggests siding with the more reasonable position (except journalistic objectivity), where reasonableness is judged by some common basis between the sides, such as logic (thereby avoiding the problem of incommensurability). Neutrality implies tolerance regardless of how disagreeable, deplorable, or unusual a perspective might be. [6]
In moderation and mediation, neutrality is often expected to make judgments or facilitate dialogue independent of any bias, emphasizing on the process rather than the outcome. [6] For example, a neutral party is seen as a party with no (or a fully disclosed) conflict of interest in a conflict, [7] and is expected to operate as if it has no bias. Neutral parties are often perceived as more trustworthy, reliable, and safe. [3] [8] Alternative to acting without a bias, the bias of neutrality itself is the expectation upon the Swiss government (in armed neutrality), [9] and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (in non-interventionism). [3] The Oxford English Dictionary documents that, by at least 1897, "neutral" meant applying the rules to the facts, as in football "Neutral linesmen shall officiate in all games." [10] In the Supreme Court decision Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth based on the United States Constitution's First Amendment, the court decided some funding decisions should be made through a neutral viewpoint. [6]
Neutrality has been criticized as an unethical option, the argument being that the neutral option can, directly or indirectly, end up favoring those who harm others or maintain a state of injustice, such as "You are either with us, or against us". Italian writer Dante Alighieri, in his Divine Comedy , says in Canto 3 that people and angels that who were not rebels nor faithful to their God, but stood apart, were condemned to be stung eternally by wasps and gadflies. Theodore Roosevelt, quoting Dante's work in his America and the World War (1915), said "Dante reserved a special place of infamy in the inferno for those base angels who dared side neither with evil nor with good". [11] South African priest Desmond Tutu said: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." [12] Woodrow Wilson said: "Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt." [13]
The Nasdaq Stock Market is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list of stock exchanges by market capitalization of shares traded, behind the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc., which also owns the Nasdaq Nordic stock market network and several U.S.-based stock and options exchanges. Although it trades stock of healthcare, financial, entertainment, retail, and food businesses, it focuses more on technology stocks. The exchange is made up of both American and foreign firms, with China and Israel being the largest foreign sources.
Bias is a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, or a belief. In science and engineering, a bias is a systematic error. Statistical bias results from an unfair sampling of a population, or from an estimation process that does not give accurate results on average.
A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts. As a type of non-combatant status, nationals of neutral countries enjoy protection under the law of war from belligerent actions to a greater extent than other non-combatants such as enemy civilians and prisoners of war. Different countries interpret their neutrality differently: some, such as Costa Rica have demilitarized, while Switzerland holds to "armed neutrality", to deter aggression with a sizeable military, while barring itself from foreign deployment.
In finance, a dead cat bounce is a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock. Derived from the idea that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height", the phrase is also popularly applied to any case where a subject experiences a brief resurgence during or following a severe decline. This may also be known as a "sucker rally".
A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two or more people, groups, organizations, circumstances, or events are treated differently even though they should be treated the same way. A double standard "implies that two things which are the same are measured by different standards".
Ireland is one of four members of the European Union that are not members of NATO. The others are Austria, Cyprus and Malta. The country has a longstanding policy of military neutrality: it does not join military alliances or defence pacts, or take part in international conflicts. The nature of Irish neutrality has varied over time. Ireland declared itself a neutral state during the Second World War, and during the Cold War it did not join NATO nor the Non-Aligned Movement. Since the 1970s, some have defined it more broadly to include a commitment to "United Nations peacekeeping, human rights and disarmament". Recent Irish governments have defined it narrowly as non-membership of military defensive alliances. The compatibility of neutrality with Ireland's membership of the European Union has been a point of debate in EU treaty referendum campaigns since the 1990s. The Seville Declarations on the Treaty of Nice acknowledge Ireland's "traditional policy of military neutrality". The Irish Defence Forces have been involved in many UN peacekeeping missions.
Selective perception is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict prior beliefs. For example, a teacher may have a favorite student because they are biased by in-group favoritism. The teacher ignores the student's poor attainment. Conversely, they might not notice the progress of their least favorite student. It can also occur when consuming mass media, allowing people to see facts and opinions they like while ignoring those that do not fit with particular opinions, values, beliefs, or frame of reference. Psychologists believe this process occurs automatically.
A value judgment is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something or someone, or of the usefulness of something or someone, based on a comparison or other relativity. As a generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values or on a particular value system. A related meaning of value judgment is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand, where said evaluation was undertaken because a decision had to be made on short notice.
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities. First evolving as a practice in the 18th century, a number of critiques and alternatives to the notion have emerged since, fuelling ongoing and dynamic discourse surrounding the ideal of objectivity in journalism.
Advocacy journalism is a genre of journalism that adopts a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose.
Journalistic ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and good practice applicable to journalists. This subset of media ethics is known as journalism's professional "code of ethics" and the "canons of journalism". The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements by professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.
Gender-neutral language or gender-inclusive language is language that avoids reference towards a particular sex or gender. In English, this includes use of nouns that are not gender-specific to refer to roles or professions, formation of phrases in a coequal manner, and discontinuing the collective use of male or female terms. For example, the words policeman and stewardess are gender-specific job titles; the corresponding gender-neutral terms are police officer and flight attendant. Other gender-specific terms, such as actor and actress, may be replaced by the originally male term; for example, actor used regardless of gender. Some terms, such as chairman, that contain the component -man but have traditionally been used to refer to persons regardless of sex are now seen by some as gender-specific. An example of forming phrases in a coequal manner would be using husband and wife instead of man and wife. Examples of discontinuing the collective use of terms in English when referring to those with unknown or indeterminate gender as singular they, and using humans, people, or humankind, instead of man or mankind.
There are a number of meanings for the term humanitarian. Here, humanitarian pertains to the practice of saving lives and alleviating suffering. It is usually related to emergency response whether in the case of a natural disaster or a man-made disaster such as war or other armed conflict. Humanitarian principles govern the way humanitarian response is carried out.
Apoliticism is apathy or antipathy towards all political affiliations. A person may be described as apolitical if they are uninterested or uninvolved in politics. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased position in regard to political matters. The Collins English Dictionary defines apolitical as "politically neutral; without political attitudes, content, or bias."
In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value, often focusing on negative, undesirable consequences. Many different definitions have been proposed. One international standard definition of risk is the "effect of uncertainty on objectives".
Lawrence Mark Sanger is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who was the editor-in-chief of Nupedia, an online encyclopedia, and co-founded its successor Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. He coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, including the "Neutral point of view" and "Ignore all rules" policies. He later worked on other encyclopedic projects, including Encyclopedia of Earth, Citizendium, and Everipedia, and advised the nonprofit American political encyclopedia Ballotpedia.
Search neutrality is a principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance. This means that when a user types in a search engine query, the engine should return the most relevant results found in the provider's domain, without manipulating the order of the results, excluding results, or in any other way manipulating the results to a certain bias.
Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-965, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case involving Presidential Proclamation 9645 signed by President Donald Trump, which restricted travel into the United States by people from several nations, or by refugees without valid travel documents. Hawaii and several other states and groups challenged the Proclamation and two predecessor executive orders also issued by Trump on statutory and constitutional grounds. Citing a variety of statements by Trump and administration officials, they argued that the proclamation and its predecessor orders were motivated by anti-Muslim animus.
Ideological bias on Wikipedia, especially in its English-language edition, has been the subject of academic analysis and public criticism of the project. Questions relate to whether its content is biased due to the political, religious, or other ideologies its volunteer editors may adhere to. These all draw concerns as to the possible effects this may have on the encyclopedia's reliability.
Political bias is a bias or perceived bias involving the slanting or altering of information to make a political position or political candidate seem more attractive. With a distinct association with media bias, it commonly refers to how a reporter, news organisation, or TV show covers a political candidate or a policy issue.