In Praise of Prejudice : The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas

Prejudice Is Wrong, So Lack of Prejudice Is Right 1(5) The Uses of Metaphysical Skepticism 6(2) History Teaches Us Anything We Like 8(5) Why We Prefer the History of Disaster to that of Achievement 13(4) The Effect of Pedagogy Without Prejudice 17(4) Prejudice Necessary to Family Life 21(4) One Prejudice Always Replaced by Another 25(5) The Cruel Effect of Not Instilling the Right Prejudices 30(3) The Inevitability of Prejudice 33(6) The Conventionality of Unconventionality 39(3) The Overestimation of Rationality in Choice 42(5) Authority Necessary to the Accumulation of Knowledge 47(5) The Supposed Equality of All Opinions, Provided They Are One's Own 52(3) Custom Supposedly Wrong Because It Is Custom 55(5) A Partial Reading of Mill Leads to Unbridled Egotism 60(3) The Difficulty of Founding Common Decency on First Principles 63(5) The Law of Conservation of Righteous Indignation, and its Connections to the Expansion of Human Rights 68(4) The Paradox of Radical Individualism Leading to Authoritarianism 72(3) Racial Discrimination Being Bad, All Discrimination is Bad 75(4) Rejection of Prejudice Not a Good in Itself 79(6) The Impossibility of the Mind as a Blank Slate 85(5) The Ideal of Equality of Opportunity Necessary to a World Without Prejudice 90(4) Equality of Opportunity Inherently Totalitarian 94(6) The Rejection of Authority as Egotism 100(4) Prejudice a Requirement of Benevolence 104(3) The Dire Social Effects of Abandoning Certain Prejudices 107(7) The Inescapability of Commandments of Which Justification Is Unprovable 114(5) The Exercise of Judgment Unavoidable, Even in the Absence of Metaphysically Unassailable Principles, and Therefore Prejudices Necessary and Salutary 119(4) No Virtue Without Prejudice 123(4) Index 127