{"id":6313,"date":"2016-06-30T13:42:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T13:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/06\/30\/being-judgmental-versus-making-moral-judgments\/"},"modified":"2016-06-30T13:42:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T13:42:12","slug":"being-judgmental-versus-making-moral-judgments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/06\/30\/being-judgmental-versus-making-moral-judgments\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Judgmental Versus Making Moral Judgments"},"content":{"rendered":"

To be judgmental is to be hypercritical, captious, caviling, fault-finding, etc.  One ought to avoid being judgmental.  But it is a mistake to confuse making moral judgments with being judgmental. I condemn the behavior of Ponzi-schemers like Bernie Madoff.  That is a moral judgment.  (And if you refuse to condemn Madoff and his behavior, then I condemn your refusal to condemn.)   But it would be an egregious misuse of language to say that I am being judgmental in issuing  either condemnation.  <\/span><\/p>\n

If someone  thinks it is wrong to make moral judgments, ask him whether he thinks it is morally<\/em> wrong.  If he says yes, then point out that he has just made a moral judgment; he has made the moral judgment that making moral judgments is morally wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then ask him whether (a) he is OK with contradicting himself, or (b) makes an exception for the meta-assertion that making moral judgments is morally wrong, or (c) thinks that both the meta-judgment and first-order moral judgments (e.g., sodomy is morally wrong) are all morally wrong.  (C) is  a logically consistent position, although rejectable for other reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

The interlocutor might of course say that 'must not' in 'must not be judgmental' is not to be construed morally, but in some other way.  Press him on how it is to be construed. <\/span> <\/p>\n

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To be judgmental is to be hypercritical, captious, caviling, fault-finding, etc.  One ought to avoid being judgmental.  But it is a mistake to confuse making moral judgments with being judgmental. I condemn the behavior of Ponzi-schemers like Bernie Madoff.  That is a moral judgment.  (And if you refuse to condemn Madoff and his behavior, then … Continue reading “Being Judgmental Versus Making Moral Judgments”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}