The ruling played down the question of bias: Judges "impartially carry out their duties and make tough decisions time and time again, and that they uniformly do so without engaging in any location-specific favoritism".
For Arendt it is the spectators who have the privilege of judging impartially and disinterestedly, and in doing so they exercise two crucial faculties, imagination and common sense.
Can a judge rule impartially on pension cuts when her mother, her son, her uncle and even she herself all have a stake in preserving the status quo?
Virginia Republican Bob Marshall noted on CNN that "Sodomy is not a civil right", and stated that Thorne-Begland's homosexuality would make it impossible for him to judge cases impartially: "if you have a bar room fight between a homosexual and heterosexual, I'm concerned about possible bias".
Were it not for our discovery that while we are judging other people, those same people are judging us, we would not form the idea of a spectator judging us impartially.
Reason doesn't work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom.
Monsignor Varvaro and other clergymen expressed confidence in the abilities of tribunal members to judge the cases impartially.
The scientific establishment has too much of a vested interest, both emotional and professional, to allow it to impartially judge intelligent design on the facts.
"Judge Duffy carefully, impartially, and commendably conducted the two lengthy and extraordinarily complex trials," a three-judge panel wrote in April.
Hollywood insiders were agog, wondering how Mr. Guber could impartially judge a star who had worked for him, and might do so again.
