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Pass Judgement

04:54 / 23.04.02

This topic is about judgementalism. Ayn Rand is used only as an example.

The following is from Ayn Rand. I make no claims in the opening post about my feelings toward this statement. I am interested in your comments.

"One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment. Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man's character as thoroughly as does ... the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil."

08:37 / 23.04.02

I'd like to bring in Derrida's idea of the fundamental indecideability of justice here. The reference is to an article with a weird title in the edited volume "Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice".

Justice consists in making decisions - and in making those decisions according to a law (otherwise the decisions become arbitrary, ie unjust). But justice also consists in not submitting every case to a decision-making machine which fails to consider the uniqueness of each set of circumstances (otherwise the decisions become totalitarian, ie unjust). So justice is an undecideable negotiation between the general law and the particular case. Which is to say that it can never be known whether the decision you take is just until you have taken it - which in turn means that there is an ethical imperative to make the decision.

21:03 / 23.04.02

If I were to take this view of justice, I don't see it solving the problem of whether I ought to make judgments about the actions of other people. Certainly, by Derrida's reasoning, it is imperative for me to make decisions, but am I to determine whether the people around me are making decisions and making proper decisions?

There's no inconsistency in saying no. But Ayn Rand say yes in theory, and many others say yes in practice.

21:03 / 23.04.02

If I were to take this view of justice, I don't see it solving the problem of whether I ought to make judgments about the actions of other people. Certainly, by Derrida's reasoning, it is imperative for me to make decisions, but am I to determine whether the people around me are making decisions and making proper decisions?

There's no inconsistency in saying no. But Ayn Rand say yes in theory, and many others say yes in practice.

21:21 / 23.04.02

Hmmm. I see what you mean. Thanks - shall go and ponder this (great thread, by the way.)

21:51 / 23.04.02

I judge Ayn Rand as "wrong".

22:23 / 23.04.02

this is the part of the argument that is a leap for me: it can never be known whether the decision you take is just until you have taken it.

i understand the relationship between the "known" and the time of the decision. what happens after the decision is made that makes the justice known? is this a case of history deciding? or some sort of quantum-collapse on the level of ethics? can you explain in a particular example how the value becomes known? a decision is simpl a mental act followed by, i suppose a legal action. how does the closure of deciadeability affect value?

The Knowledge

22:29 / 23.04.02

Ethically, I judge people whom I perceive as weaker than me. And, as I perceive everyone to be weaker than me, I judge everyone.

Morally, I judge nobody. Yet it is morally that I am judged by everybody.

22:57 / 23.04.02

Judging others is a bad idea, because of the opposite notion, which is being judged. You know that you're about a kabillion times more complex than people will give you credit for, and therefore, their judgements are like getting a blind homosexual to judge Miss World.

And, then there is the fact that as soon as you do, you're putting a benchmark on some kind of 'right' or 'wrong', and then for a lot of people, a lot of what they say, think, feel and do is suddenly 'right' or 'wrong', not because it makes them happy/sad/depressed/elated, but because it makes you feel that way.

So, in summation: don't judge, because chances are that it's none of your damn business.

23:25 / 23.04.02

Judging another assumes a higher position than the one judged, that somehow you know better what is right and true than they. If you hold a given social position that entitles rank above another in a certain field, such as a legal justice does in the field of law, then the original quote holds true, for it is your duty to judge. Otherwise, between equal men, the act of judging is an act of assuming that you are not equal, but superior.

wembley can change in 28 days

23:26 / 23.04.02

What if one considers tolerance to be morally correct? One's first reaction is always to judge, because that's part of what our brains do. We categorize and arrange people, things, actions, philosophies et al in hierarchies of similar or dissimilar to ourselves. However, often the more you get to know about the object you're judging, the more your own benchmark changes. So the reactionary swing in the mind against the initial judgement is to analyse that judgement and re-evaluate it with more information. Then you get to roadblocks.

For a more concrete example, I live in a society (and my acquaintances are probably the epitome of this) where you just do not say anything ignorant and/or insulting about another group of people. You get lynched for racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. You end up looking like an idiot. I'm not religious and therefore judge those who are religious to be dissimilar to me, but not necessarily inferior. I don't pretend to understand their beliefs and leave the judgement scale on stalemate, on purpose. It's a conscious decision. On the other hand, I have no problems passing judgement over a group of people who believe that female circumcision is a viable practice.

What's the difference again between moral and ethical?

But if we're to believe Rand, are we simply going to keep passing judgement and waging war after war until eventually we're all doing the same thing? Whoops, sorry. Left my "there will be world peace someday" blinkers on while posting that.

14:29 / 24.04.02

The word judgement is being used here to mean both a decision making process and an action, perhaps condemnatory, based on the results of that process.

If we separate these two strands, then I think that most of us would agree that being aware of the morality of actions is an imperative. Perhaps I am wrong in this, but it does seem to me that if one wants to be moral then one has to be aware of the morality of the world around us.

On the other hand, to act on this sort of decision is not nearly so clear. There are bound to be situations when to not act would be wrong, but there is surely a huge grey area where the best course is far from certain. wembley's discussion of tolerance is a good example of this. How do you decide when to act and when not to?

14:40 / 24.04.02

I'm not sure if this is enough of a separation. I will agree that having a consistent sense of morality is always coupled with having a sense of the morality around us, but even condemning another in your own mind without action is a form of judgment that I do not think is necessarily a good thing.

The system of morals I use makes judging another person extremely difficult. It requires knowing what kinds of thoughts and feelings go into every action. This is, of course, impossible.

Instead of judgment, I try to ask myself, "if I were advising a friend..." what would I say.

14:54 / 24.04.02

But I'd say that to shy away from that internal judgement is to shy away from making the observation in the first place.

For what its worth, I agree that these judgements need to be tempered with an appreciation that we don't know what motivations and cicumstances are relevant to others. Personally I try to factor this in, when I make my moral "evaluation". So, I might think that something is morally questionable, but reserve outright (internal) condemnation because of my ignorance of the situation. I find that some reflection on my own fallibility is helpful.

But there are cases where the individual circumstances cannot excuse what we see. I'm not saying that we should stone people we find morally lacking. In fact I'd say that tolerance is best exercised, when possible, in precisely those situations where we have decided that someone is in the wrong. But unless we make at least tentative moral estimations then I'd say we are putting our morals on hold.

15:49 / 24.04.02

The most you can do without passing judgement is to observe that the person is not following the morals you hold. By observation of another, you create a map of their morals based on your perceptions of them. This could be used to pass judgement, but it could also be used to create expectations instead. When you judge, you decide to catagorize someone in a certain way. An expectation is more of a probability that they will act a certain way, than the more certain opinion one has from judgeing. You are not saying "This person is..." You are saying "This person is likely to..."

07:44 / 25.04.02

Yeah, that is pretty much what I had in mind, cusm. I think the word "judge" is being used here to mean "condemn" whereas I interpreted as being intended for a usage closer to "assess".

Ie, "You need to judge when the time is right."

09:10 / 25.04.02

Assess is a process, it is an ongoing action involving the possibilities and counter possibilities being weighed one against the other, perhaps interminably. Condemnation is one of the possible final outcomes when this assesment has finaly come to an end; condemnation would be both the end result and the marker that the time of assessment is necessarily over. A Condonement or Congratulation are also possible outcomes -- not in a coutroom, but in the overall process of judging whether something is morally acceptable.

i think i've just answered my own query about the derridean analysis above, or at least made some progress towards getting it.

i also can't help identifying "pass judgement" with "pass gas", so my judgment is impaired by giggles.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:57 / 25.04.02

We must judge. We cannot make moral claims of any kind unless we judge. We cannot engage in revolution, because we cannot assess the status quo, let alone compare it with a notion of another way.

If we do not judge, we are arbitrary. On which topic...

Justice consists in making decisions - and in making those decisions according to a law (otherwise the decisions become arbitrary, ie unjust).

I'm not sure about that - you can make decisions by looking to track justice, without reference to solid laws, and still be just, surely? Laws themselves are often unjust. It occurs to me that this is a translation thing - or something dealt with in the rest of the text - Deva?

But justice also consists in not submitting every case to a decision-making machine which fails to consider the uniqueness of each set of circumstances

Spot on. I've been trying to find a neat way of expressing that for a year. Sheesh.

Which is to say that it can never be known whether the decision you take is just until you have taken it

And that just doesn't follow for me. I'd like it to, but there's a step missing. Is there more?

Moving on:

I'm a big fan of personal responsibility, of formulating responses to cases without seeking justification from over-arching notions of law or five-word moral injunctions. These things are there, as far as I can see, so that we can avoid thinking about particular cases, and also to avoid responsibility for the results of our convictions. "This person has done wrong, but it's not me who causes them to suffer as a consequence, it's the due process of law..."

I think that's a very dangerous lie.

More to follow...

12:39 / 25.04.02

I'm not sure that I've got this right but I think that Derrida is talking about Justice both as a personal and as a communal concept. So the application of justice by society needs to follow from laws since otherwise its application is arbitrary for the individuals concerned. This plays off the big picture with the small quite well.

Once you accept this, then you get a certain uncertainty in the system of justice in itself. Thats because the application of these rules leads one to conclusions or decisions that run contrary to what we consider justice in the particular. As much as you can try to avoid this, you always end up having to assess the justice of a decision once applied to an actual circumstance. If nothing else, experience would lead us to believe that you can't get a set of laws which always produce desirable results. And yet laws are formulated with this unattainable goal in mind.

I think that is what he means. Maybe I've been a bit too simplistic?

14:35 / 25.04.02

Time for a quote (paraphrase):

Law is a force to keep the common man seperated from Justice.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:46 / 25.04.02

A statement which is reliant upon judgement.

'Any man more right than his neighbours consitutes a majority of one.'
Emerson.

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:44 / 25.04.02

I think we might be confusing the process with the control a bit. See, any Judgement (capital merely to distinguish a legal, communal decision from a personal judgement) must be based on the specifics of the case. Any generalisation means we fail to distinguish properly. For example the difference between manslaughter and self-defence can only exist if we accept that not all killings are 'wrong'.
However, the only way to try to achieve consistency in these Judgements, which eventually come down to the judgement of a judge or a small jury, is to establish some sort of framework for guidance and quality control.

Since we cannot predict and thus prepare for every single instance in which a Judgement is required, this framework must be generalised to some arbitrary degree. And there are no clues as to when we should reer to the framework, and when we should go with our own judgement.

Personally, I figure the only solution is to make the best judgement you can, and then acting on it while always remembering that you may be wrong and need to respond appropriately.

I think that's what this line is about:
Which is to say that it can never be known whether the decision you take is just until you have taken it

The point being, if you find out beforehand what the 'right' decision is, you're unlikely to then go ahead with the wrong decision. So it doesn't really count as a decision. Although I think it is a bit optimistic, in that I think more often than not you never find out what the right decision was.

02:21 / 26.04.02

Just a little thing, and it may be outside of the topic abstract... but there is a point of view that the tendency to judge or not judge is a pure psychological trait --e.g., J vs. P on the Myers-Briggs inventory. "Judge" in this case just means to decide. A strong J actively prefers to be decided, a strong P actually enjoys being undecided. Relevant to this thread is that both types perceive and process the world according to their different paradigms --pardon me for taking liberties, but for example wembley gets a P for "What if one considers tolerance to be morally correct?" and Nick gets a J "If we do not judge, we are arbitrary." Plus, note the differences in punctuation.

What this says is that the ethics and morality of judging others may be beside the point; we may judge or not judge people not because it's right or wrong, but because our brains or minds are wired this way or that. One might even suppose that the ethical or moral arguments follow, that we choose for our arguments the ones that support our own psychological tendencies.

09:12 / 26.04.02

I certainly agree that when it comes to ethics, or in fact many opinions that we hold, our predispositions come before any arguments that we present. But I'm not sure that I'd go so far as to say that the arguments have no value.

One of the purposes of an argument is to present a coherent front to the opinions that we hold. This is not to say that the opinions are systematically or rationally arrived at, merely that our defence of our views is often presented as such. One could argue that the point of this seemingly backward exercise is to enable communication and allow the consideration of diverse viewpoints at a level distinct from the primal. However, it is always hard to escape the kind of "first" motivations that Persephone is talking about.

Where does that leave us when we consider the ethics of judging others? Do we strive to construct a set of internal guidelines while recognising the flaws of such an approach? Or do we abandon this codification due to its inescapably compromised bias?

hmmm. A bit of both?

Morlock - groupie for hire

09:49 / 26.04.02

A big question with the Myers-Briggs stuff is how much of your personality is hard-wired, and how much is simply habit and can be changed with time. If it is hard-wired, then yes, arguing the morality of making judgements seems slightly absurd.

In the end, you have to make a judgement of some sort. In order to make any kind of choice you have to decide on the merit of each of the options available, which requires judgement. We have to make choices every day. In the end, I don't think it makes any practical dfference if you put off the decision as long as possible, or make a provisional judgement quickly, allowing for reassessment later.

Hmmm, by the way, anyone else find it funny we are trying to pass judgement on passing judgement?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:52 / 26.04.02

Persephone: as a matter of interest, I score a P on the test.

11:35 / 26.04.02

Ehhh Nick, I should have left that part out. I was scoring the sentences and not the people. But since you've shown me yours, I'll show you mine: I was off-the-charts J, the last time I was tested.

However, to Morlock's point, I'm a Reform J. I think it is not part of the theory that these traits are separate or immutable, they're on a continuum and a sliding scale. E.g., a woman that I knew was a lifelong P. Then she had kids and for a time started scoring pretty solidly J. In her words, "You have kids, there's not really time for nice ambiguities... you just know that you have to keep them from running into the street."

And I don't think that it's absurd to argue about the morality of making judgments if you accept this theory that morality comes in second, with psychology in first place. Something doesn't have to be sui generis to be valid. I think the psychology bit adds a little shading, though.

Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes

21:54 / 26.04.02

I’ve always seen judgement as being tied up with several constraints, one is whether you have the power to act upon the judgements you make, or choose to act upon them based on past conditioning. Those who are “in power” have the right to judge, on a moral issue, this is usually ordained by god, but politicians and journalists are muscling in on the act.
I imagine that to judge is a modern method of trying to distinguish a threat, (a positive judgement no threat, a negative judgement, a threat). Chances are you will judge in the same way as your tribe. Control comes when the rulers of your tribe or country define how you should judge. This is why one of the early control manifestos “the bible”, tries to persuade others to accept gods judgement, don’t judge by your own free will. This is echoed by t blair saying things like; don’t be to hasty to judge the police. So chances are, your judgements are not your own but natural or conditioned responses. Does the person who passes judgement the most feel the most threatened?