Value judgment

“ For it renders the judgment of what to do a matter of applying a value existing ready-made, instead of making—as we have done—the valuation a determination within the practical judgment. The argument would run this way: Every practical judgment depends upon a judgment of the value of the end to be attained ”

“ Whenever we judge that a thing is ‘good as a means,’ we are making a judgment with regard to its causal relations: we judge both that it will have a particular kind of effect, and that that effect will be good in itself. ”

“ Thus, in conduct, actions are judged 'good' or 'evil' and 'right' or 'wrong'; in thinking, ideas are 'true' or 'false,' and 'relevant' or 'irrelevant'; for art, objects are 'beautiful' or 'ugly,' and so forth, for the modes of valuation in life are innumerable. Any one of these adjectives either denotes value or censures lack of worth, and each gets its meaning by reference to the specific purpose, moral, aesthetic, or intellectual, it appeals to. The summum bonum, or supreme good, will then be the ideal of the harmonious satisfaction of all purposes. ”

“ Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another's life to save his own. ”

“ And it may be admitted that, in some cases at least, it is right and proper that a man’s motives should thus influence our judgment. But the question is: What sort of moral judgment is it right and proper that they should influence? ”

“ Was there ever a more ridiculous doctrine, than that a man's opinion of his own actions is the true standard for measuring them, and the certificate of their real qualities!—that his own estimate of his treatment of others; is to be taken as the true one, and such treatment be set down as good treatment upon the strength of his judgment. ”

“ Ethical judgments contain an estimate of the worth of human actions. Every such estimate presupposes the existence of a need, a feeling which spurs us on to the judgment of the action, as also the existence of a standard, an ideal, according to which we judge. The motive to the ethical judgment may be called the basis of Ethics. ”

“ For, since all things influence us only in proportion to the worth we attribute to them, their power over us must differ according to the correctness or incorrectness of our judgment. Therefore, the more we regard things in the light of their actual worth and hence also in their relations to each other, the more our character, beholding in these relations the general as the true, will incline to avoid extremes in action. ”

“ It is, in fact, obvious that in order to decide correctly at what state of things we ought to aim, we must not only consider what results it is possible for us to obtain, but also which, among equally possible results, will have the greatest value. And upon this second enquiry the comparative valuation of known goods has a no less important bearing than upon the investigation of the Absolute Good. ”

“ The sources of objective moral judgment in the world of time and circumstance are also thus laid open to the experience of each mind, in the power to consult the public judgment and to verify or correct the private judgment by it. ”

“ As it is the will that designs the benefit, and the matter that conveys it, so it is the judgment that perfects it; which depends upon so many critical niceties, that the least error, either in the person, the matter, the manner, the quality, the quantity, the time, or the place, spoils all. ”

“ If it is true, and if, accordingly, we give the name of ‘duty’ to actions which generally produce better total results in the near future than any possible alternative, it may be possible to prove that a few of the commonest rules of duty are true, but only in certain conditions of society, which may be more or less universally presented in history; and such a proof is only possible in some cases without a correct judgment of what things are good or bad in themselves—a judgment which has never yet been offered by ethical writers. ”

“ That we endeavour to take a right estimate of things. The laws of God are the eternal standards of good and evil; what they declare valuable, or enjoin as wise, are truly so, and what they disclaim as hurtful or worthless are, in fact, to be so regarded. 2. That we try to make a right judgment of our own worth and abilities. If we do this, we shall find that there are others in the world at least as wise and as good as we are, and perhaps we shall also find, that if merit were the standard of honour and affluence, we should not abound altogether as much as we do. ”

“ The second principle I shall take notice of is that of comparison, or the variation of our judgments concerning objects, according to the proportion they bear to those with which we compare them. We judge more of objects by comparison than by their intrinsic worth and value; and regard every thing as mean, when set in opposition to what is superior of the same kind. ”

“ There are cases when, with a clear consciousness of the rectitude of our purpose, and a strong confidence in the justice of our judgment, we must step over all human laws, be the result to ourselves what it may. ”

“ And finally the process of judgment and appraisal, of examination and revaluation. To judge for the sake of judging, to analyze and evaluate for the sake of the process hardly seems worth while. But if we supply the process with the new factors of increased life, physical, social, intelligent, we shall be compelled to new valuations. ”

“ Which faculties do most naturally ripen early in life, and which late in life?
According to my own observation, the latest of the human powers in maturing, as it is the most consummate, is the Judgment. Next in the order of maturity, and next also in majesty and excellence, is the Reasoning power. Reason is minister to the judgment, furnishing to the latter materials for its action, as all the other powers, memory, fancy, imagination, and so forth, are ministers to reason, and supply it with its materials. ”

“ The duty of private judgment, of searching after truth, the sacredness of belief which ought not to be misused on unproved statements, follow only on showing of the enormous importance to society of a true knowledge of things. ”

“ The Processes implied in a ‘Conscientious’ Decision.—​Therefore, it is plain that before conscience is in a position to pronounce its verdict on the facts of a given case, the cultivated reason must review the pros and cons; the practised judgment must balance these, deciding which have the greater weight. ”

“ The fact has been emphasized, again and again, by every writer on the subject, that problems of this class are not capable of exact mathematical solution; that, no matter how much care may be exercised in the execution of the work, the result is tempered by the personal judgment of the men engaged on it, and that only when it is executed by men of experience, sound judgment, and high moral worth can it have a definite, final, and just result. ”

“ It is not by reference to date or country, or grade of material progress, that we assess the value of moral judgments, but by that subjective standard with which our own moral attainments supply us in regard to all that is equal or less, similar or dissimilar. ”

“ The result will reward the toil.
When we undertake to express the objective validity of any truth, we use Judgments. These judgments, if subjectively regarded, — that is, if viewed merely as processes of our own present thinking, whose objects are external to themselves, — involve, in all their more complex forms, combinations of ideas, — devices whereby we weave already present ideas into more manifold structures, thereby enriching our internal meanings. But the act of judgment has always its other — its objective aspect. The ideas, when we judge, are also to possess external meanings. ”

“ And, in the same way, as soon as we have recognised that an act is brave or generous, we regard with esteem or admiration the doer of it. But, though the feeling of approbation or disapprobation follows instantaneously on the act of judgment, the recognition of the character of the action, or its reference to a class, which constitutes this act of judgment, may be, and often is, a process of considerable length and complexity. ”

“ We likewise judge of objects more from comparison than from their real and intrinsic merit; and where we cannot by some contrast enhance their value, we are apt to overlook even what is essentially good in them. ”

“ A moral judgment, then, like a scientific judgment, [41] is objective, not subjective; it is not the expression of a mere opinion, but the statement of a fact which has an existence independent of man. ”

“ The quality of our taste, the predominance of our feelings, or even the casualty of circumstance, may produce associations of ideas, confirmed by habit into predilection or enmity. To search for the cause of these varying opinions, to examine the foundation of these attachments and prejudices, and to reduce them all to the rule of equity is the office of the judgment, that most important effort of the reasoning powers. ”

“ It will be needful for clearing our way, to shew what length we may warrantably go in this matter of executing judgment, in our private capacity, in extraordinary cases of necessity, by setting down some propositions negative and positive, signifying what we disown, and what we own in this point. ”

“ To elucidate the matter, let us take the most familiar case in which the indirect judgments of Reason correct the direct judgments of Common Sense. The direct judgment of Common Sense is that the Sun moves round the Earth. ”

“ And as in practical matters we, ordinary men that is, are seldom called upon to act as judges except in questions where their own sympathies or interests are concerned; the faculty to be trained is the judgment, the practical judgment at work among matters in which its possessor is deeply interested, not from the desire of Truth only, but from his own involution in the matters of which he is to judge. ”

“ We arrive, then, at the last element of the moral phenomenon, the judgment of merit and demerit.
At the same time that we judge that a man has done a good or bad action, we bear this other judgment quite as necessary as{290} the former, to wit, that if this man has acted well he has merited a reward, and if he has acted ill, he has merited a punishment. ”

“ A third thing to be marked in this psychological analysis of the action of conscience, and revealing its nature, is the affirmation of right or wrong to particular acts or principles of conduct. In this the function of conscience passes from its fundamental idea into the form of an applicatory judgment. The ideas of right and obligation are applied to the actual affairs and activities of life. The quality of right or wrong is connected with particular actions, feelings or purposes, and these are affirmed to be right or wrong according as they have or have not such moral quality. ”

“ After the first rudimental conditions we pass at once into meaningless generalities; and with no knowledge to guide our judgment, we allow it to be guided by meaner principles; we respect money, we respect rank, we respect ability— character is as if it had no existence. ”

“ At the same time we recognise that these are ideals, to which in actual experience we never find more than an approximation, for we never discover in any really existing thing or act absolute equality, or justice, or goodness. In other words, any act of judgment on our part of actual experiences consists in a measuring of these experiences by standards which we give or apply to them, and which no number of experiences can give to us because they do not possess or exemplify them. ”

“ Apart from the question of the ultimate sanction of moral conduct, there have always been two explanations of the mental act variously known as "ethical judgment," "moral faculty," "moral sense" or conscience. On the one side there have been those who considered that moral judgment was an emotion, an intuition, or instinctive recognition of right or wrong, which implied no rational or intellectual process beyond [Pg 10] that which is involved in registering or perceiving the fact. ”

“ The standard according to which the value of moral valuations is to be determined. The fundamental fact that has been overlooked: The contradiction between "becoming more moral " and the elevation and the strengthening of the type man. ”

“ An ethical system, accordingly, will acquire its character from the motive principle of judgment upon which it builds. This motive principle is the power that originally and constantly again gives rise to ethical judgments. ”

“ Having established the worth of the principles of consciousness, of evidence, and of contradiction, in relation to the dignity of fundamental, we will now examine the intrinsic value of the different criteria. ”

“ But the same difficulty may be put in another form, in which there may seem an even stronger case against the view that right and wrong depend on the actual consequences. Instead of considering what judgment we ought to pass on an action after it has been done, and when many of its results are already known, let us consider what judgment we ought to pass on it beforehand, and when the question is which among several courses still open to a man he ought to choose. ”