On Judging Others

Is it Wrong to Judge Others?

A very common ethical claim made in contemporary American culture is that it is wrong to judge others or to be judgmental.  Instead of judging others, we are told, we should be accepting of people doing whatever they sincerely believe is right.  We should want other people to be happy, and so we should affirm others in doing what makes them happy, instead of ever judging them for it.  While such an idea may sound pleasant on the surface, careful examination of it shows that it is incoherent, problematic, and dangerous.  

The most basic problem with the claim that it is wrong to judge others is that it is a self-defeating claim.  Making a moral claim that certain actions are wrong is only meaningful if we intend to apply it to the real world in order to make judgments about people’s actions.  Thus, to claim that it is wrong to judge others or to be judgmental means making a judgment about the actions and/or character of those who judge.  It means judging them for being judgmental.  But if it is wrong to judge people for their actions, it must logically be wrong to judge people for being judgmental.  Thus, anyone who claims that it is wrong to judge others is condemning their own actions.  Saying it is wrong to judge others is inherently a self-referentially incoherent claim.  

Furthermore, if intended in an absolute sense, the claim that it is wrong to judge others is dangerously problematic.  If it is always wrong to judge others, then we cannot say it is wrong to steal, murder, torture, or rape, since it would be wrong to judge people for doing these things.  Such moral relativism or skepticism would prevent any human society from existing, since everyone would just do whatever immoral things they want, without ever being told that these things are wrong.  This would cause the downfall of human civilization, and possibly even threaten the survival of the human race.  There can be no human society without moral beliefs.  And if we have moral beliefs, then we must necessarily judge people.  To make a moral claim necessarily means to judge the actions and/or character of a person who does not act in accordance with that moral truth.

Moral Disagreement and Judging

We have seen that it is incoherent and deeply problematic to claim that it is always wrong to judge others.  However, it seems that most people who claim it is wrong to judge others do not actually believe that it is always wrong to judge others.  Rather, what they mean to say is that it is wrong to judge others unless what they are doing is something that everyone knows is clearly and obviously wrong.  For example, we can judge people for being murderers or torturers, but we should not judge them for failing to conform to our personal beliefs about sexual ethics.  

The problem with this, though, is that there is no self-evident morality; there simply are no moral truths that everyone knows are clearly and obviously true.  People disagree about every moral question, including the question of what killing counts as murder and what (if any) killing is morally acceptable.  We cannot divide moral beliefs into those that “everyone” knows are true on the one hand and “personal,” controversial moral beliefs on the other hand.  Rather, all moral beliefs are controversial, and there differing degrees of consensus regarding various moral ideas in different times and places.  

What those who claim it is wrong to judge others usually really mean (but never say) is that it is acceptable to judge someone in cases where they agree that their actions are wrong, but it is wrong to judge someone in cases where they do not agree that their actions are wrong.  This represents a narrow-minded moral perspective that fails to appreciate the fact that intelligent, informed, thoughtful people hold to a variety of moral beliefs.  Where there is moral disagreement, it is inevitable that sometimes people will be judged for doing things which they themselves sincerely believe are good and morally innocent.  This is unavoidable.  

Now, it can certainly be uncomfortable and unpleasant to be judged by someone else for doing what one sincerely believes is good and right.  But to object to another person’s moral judgment of oneself for this reason is immature and narrow-minded.  Instead of judging others simply because they judge one’s own actions, one should respect the fact that this is what they sincerely believe, and seek to understand why they sincerely believe that these actions are wrong.  As long as there are moral disagreements, people are going to make controversial moral judgments about other people.  Rather than attempting to silence such controversial judgments, we should use them as an opportunity to engage in moral dialogue, achieve a better understanding of others’ beliefs, and, possibly, even change our own moral beliefs for the better.