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Howdy Consuela, welcome to the SDMB. I wanted to address a common belief that I’ve seen of late and instead of hijacking your thread I started a new one. That’s why you see yourself quoted here instead of in the thread you initially started. <ahem> Now that that’s out of the way.
Since when is it a virtue never to judge the choice someone else makes? I make judgements about others quite often based on my own moral or ethical values. What’s so bad about making judgements?
Marc
Nothing per se. Not when you put it exactly like that. The problem comes in when you presume that your moral judgments have moral authority.
Well, Marc…
I said that I would never judge my friend’s choice to not censor her kids. Maybe it’s a good thing I am not a parent, because I would probably let them watch or listen to anything they wanted. What other people allow their kids to see and hear is their business. Like Eminem? Fine. Buy it for junior. Hate Eminem? Okay. Don’t let them listen to the radio. No skin off my nose.
You may choose to judge every person you meet and that is your prerogative. I have been know to judge people based on my moral and ethical values. But morals vary don’t they? What’s good for the goose may not be good for the gander. I’m not saying there is any virtue in judging or not judging, but people have to do what is right for them, barring any illegal activities.
BTW, what do you get out of making moral judgments on others? Does it give you you a sense of superiority? Just asking.
Hmm, the “barring any illegal activities” part has me curious. Since guessing that what you’re saying is “do what you want as long as it’s not illegal”. That might be a very simplified statement or an incorrect statement altogether. (Please let me know). If that is what you’re saying, there are a lot of activities that are moral but are illegal. Growing marijuana for a cancer patient going through chemotherapy, gay marriage, etc. So, in other words, according to your statement, it’s ok for the law to create our judgments for us?
Since the time when I realized that I don’t know shit. My judgements are no better than anyone elses, and are always based on incomplete information.
Now, when life requires it (sitting on a jury, some guy named Gibson tries to sell me a piece of swampland in Florida) I make judgements as best I can, using the data I have. But where it makes no difference to what I have to do, I avoid judgements for the simple reason that I’m not very good at them, and they tend to prejudice my behavior.
When I said barring illegal activities, I meant ones that would harm or endanger other people. I wish marijuana and gay marriasges were legal all over the country. So what I really meant to say is do what you want as long as no one else gets hurt(unless they want to).
So if there is a child that may want to have sex with an adult, you should not pass a moral judgement on that?
I think judgement is a requirement to develope as a human being. Of course, you are not required to judge everything you see, but if a judgement is called for and you opt out, I think you have failed yourself. Whether it is a moral judgement, or one based on facts.
Of course, condemning and judging are not always synonymous. I don’t think you are required to pronounce your judgement on others. And in most cases it is unwelcome. But that is another debate alltogether.
Well , the bible says something like “Judge not lest ye be judged”, so I guess if you believe that stuff then God says its wrong. My own opinion on it is that no one is fit to judge anyone. We are all unique and all have a diffrent set of internal morals. Everyone has the right to an opinion, but trying to impose that opinion on others is wrong.
Read what I said. Having sex with a child is illegal and would surely be harmful to that child. I would not need to pass judgment , as the court would do that.
I don’t know how this became a debate about legalities. I was speaking of passing judgments on people’s opinions.
Nice non-controversial example you picked, Saen! 
I think it’s important to note that Saen is taking the perspective of the child’s desires, not the adult’s. There seems to be general consensus that an adult having sex with a child is acting immorally in virtually every circumstance. But what about the child? Is he or she being immoral? How many boys had Playboy centerfolds in their rooms? How many girls had centerfolds from 16 or Tiger Beat or whatever followed them in the “here’s cute young men for you to lust over safely, girls!” magazine market?
And there’s a key point to me in looking at it from this perspective – the child may quite reasonably have such desires, but the responsible adult will help to guide the child into a moral stance where the coexistence of those desires, uncondemned, with the knowledge that acting on them could be harmful can exist simultaneously.
The difference here is one specific example of the difference between judgmental expressions and dispassionate judgment, two terms that don’t comfortably make the distinction I see clear. The first in my view judges the person, and generally unfavorably; the second judges a particular situation, action or proposal, concept, or other non-physical, non-personal entity, and evaluates it out of concern for the welfare of others.
To say “a 14-year-old should not engage in sexual relations” is something different from “a 14-year-old should not desire sexual relations” – and I think Saen may have had that point in mind. (As a Callahan’s fan, I was deeply touched by the Tale of the Child Molester, hyphen intentionally omitted.)
Consuela, does the distinction I’ve drawn have any bearing on what you’re trying to guide the discussion towards?
Thanks Poly, you stated my case quit well. Even though I contradicted myself by fudging with my sloppy prose. It should be “I don’t think you are always required to pronounce your judgement on others”.
Consuela
Even in my conservative opinion, iI don’t think it is surely harmful to the child. At least in some cases. For insance, I dont think a mature 16 year old would be any more harmed than a 17 or 18 year old. (I get confused what the legal age is so wichever is the legal one is what I meant.)
Still, somebody does have to make judgments, and it’s important that they be sound. Having sex with a child is illegal only because people made a judgment that it was a bad thing. That’s how they came to pass a law against it.
Furthermore, your position on gay marriages tells us that you do make judgements beyond simply what’s legal or illegal.
I simply don’t think one can get away from making judgments.
So you’re saying that it’s wrong to presume that one’s moral judgments have moral authority.
Is that your own moral judgment? Is there any moral authority whatsoever behind that judgment?
Actually, the passage in question doesn’t say it’s NEVER wrong to judge. Note the phrasing: Judge not, lest ye be judged. The condemnation is against hypocrisy, rather than judgment per se.
That is why the passage also says “Remove the plank in your eye before you point out the mote in your brother’s eye.”
Great topic, and one that I’ve been thinking about for years; especially crossed my mind while watching all the His4Ever threads unfold. So many, many people jumped on her for “judging”. As for me, I’m not quite ready to go along with that (even though I largely disagree with her position on homosexuality).
We make judgements all the time: we judge dozens of inanimate objects, situations, and so forth a hundred times each day (eg, while driving). I posit that we also “judge” people all the time; indeed we must. We judge strangers unfit to leave our children with, just by the simple fact that they are strangers. Anyone who has ever been in a position to hire someone else has had to “judge” the relative merits of applicants, and even judge the character of those applicants. I’ll bet we all know a friend or family member that we would make a judgement we shouldn’t loan money to. Like it or not, everyone has a judgement about everyone else’s character, based in part on past behavior. I don’t think this is entirely a bad thing.
In fact I think it’s not too far of a stretch to say that there are a number of (admittedly extreme) situations where we are obligated to pass judgement on, and even censure people’s behavior, whether it affects us directly or not. Obviously this is pretty risky territory if one goes too far in the wrong direction. But on the other hand, part of my own moral code is to try my best not to let evil go unchecked if there is something I can do about it. (I’m deliberately omitting the legal aspects of these statements, because I think it adds a slight complication to the topic)
Saen made some comments that I liked:
I think that “judgment” happens whether one wishes to judge or not; a thinking person cannot help but judge, make comparisons, and come to conclusions on - just about everything.
The real issue is what one does with those judgments, once they are made.
For example, let us say I happen to dislike a particular sexual practice. I can:
not engage in it myself;
dislike it when others engage in it - but keep that to myself;
dislike those people who engage in it, but not say anything;
tell everyone that it is morally wrong;
attempt to persuade others not to do it;
try to have it made a crime, so that people who do it are arrested;
go around beating up people who do it.
There are no doubt lots of other reactions, as well.
Surely, my reaction should be conditional on such factors as whether the act in question is harmful to others (such as violent child abuse), or whether my reaction is based on irrational dislike over which I have no control - and the quality of my judgment will be measured by the appropriateness of my response in light of those factors - no matter what I do or do not do.
“Not judging” is as much a deliberate action as “judging”, and can be just as deplorable. If I “refuse to judge” someone who is abusing a child - and hence do nothing about it - that is just as reprehensible as improperly judging someone.
More than just that, Malthus. The statement “One should not judge other people” is ITSELF a judgment of other people. Hence, such a blanket statement is itself self-refuting.
Note that this is different from saying “Judge not, lest ye be judged” – which, as I’ve pointed out, is a condemnation of hypocrisy, rather than judgment itself.
Of course I make judgements, I think Tom Cruise is butt ugly and can’t act worth spit. But he still makes millions of dollars so what do I know?
This whole thing started because I said I didn’t want my friend to think I was judging how she raised her kids. I truly did not want to judge I merely wanted to know how to defend her position.
And about the child/adult sex thing. That is a slippery slope since I consider a child to be very young. When we’re talking teen years , well, let me just say teens today are not what they were in my day. A 16 year old with a 25 year old is not that big a deal to me. Now that I think about it, a 16 year old with a 25 year old wasn’t a big deal in my day either.
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This whole thread started because it is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I just used something you said in your thread because it provided a good example. You said you didn’t want to ask her why she censored her kids because you “feared” thats she might think you were judging her. I really want to know why people are so hesitant to judge others. Also, I’m confused. If you don’t judge her actions then why would you want to defend her position at all? I don’t often defend things I have no feelings about.
Marc
I hesitate to bring this up, but I had a similar question a few months ago and I started a thread that helped me to clarify my own thoughts. Of course, it had to do with my questions as a Christian and judging, but I think that a lot of what was said applies here. So, here is the thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=146974&highlight=judge
Please forgive me if I am “sticking my oar” in when it doesn’t apply to your question. I think it does, but hey…I’ve been wrong before. At least ONCE, anyway. Well, maybe twice. Well…