Texts:1977 Man and Judgment--A Prospectus: Difference between revisions
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<p>Persons find themselves in a world: to live they must act, and they must act as best they can according to their judgment, be it sound or sour. To act, for better or for worse, according to ones judgment is the human condition. Hence educational policy at root pertains to forming man's powers of judgment.A1</p> | <p>Persons find themselves in a world: to live they must act, and they must act as best they can according to their judgment, be it sound or sour. To act, for better or for worse, according to ones judgment is the human condition. Hence educational policy at root pertains to forming man's powers of judgment.[[#A1|A1]]</p> | ||
<p>Nothing with respect to judgment is given, except its necessity. Where there is life there is judgment, discrimination, decision that culminates in action. But judgment does not stop at the border where action begins; judgment pervades action, all living, vital action in which there is an element of responsive control, a perception of the unfolding situation within and without as the act progresses. This perception of the situation, this effort at control, is also judgment, a most crucial form of judgment. Within us, each cell has a certain awareness, a purposeful homeostasis with its environment and certain capacities to make use of resources surrounding it to maintain itself, to perform its appointed functions. If, for some reason, the cell errs in its judgments, or if the environment and situation in which it finds itself are so extreme that they overwhelm its capacities for discrimination and control, the cell will die or atrophy—its life will end.A2 | <p>Nothing with respect to judgment is given, except its necessity. Where there is life there is judgment, discrimination, decision that culminates in action. But judgment does not stop at the border where action begins; judgment pervades action, all living, vital action in which there is an element of responsive control, a perception of the unfolding situation within and without as the act progresses. This perception of the situation, this effort at control, is also judgment, a most crucial form of judgment. Within us, each cell has a certain awareness, a purposeful homeostasis with its environment and certain capacities to make use of resources surrounding it to maintain itself, to perform its appointed functions. If, for some reason, the cell errs in its judgments, or if the environment and situation in which it finds itself are so extreme that they overwhelm its capacities for discrimination and control, the cell will die or atrophy—its life will end.A2 | ||
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<p style="text-indent: -2em;">A{{#counter:in2}} <i>Page 1 (**)</i> My use of "judgment" should become reasonably clear from the text. It is a somewhat broadened use of the word, however, and it seems therefore desirable to say something about the relation between my usage and various standard usages. <i>The American Heritage Dictionary</i> gives the following primary meanings for judgment: "l.a. The mental ability to perceive and distinguish relationships or alternatives; the critical faculty; discernment, b. The capacity to make reasonable decisions, especially in regard to the practical affairs of life; good sense; wisdom, c. The exercise of this capacity." Were one to drop out from definition l.b. the word "reasonable," one would have just about precisely the meaning used through <i>Man and Judgment</i>: the capacity to make decisions. Qualifying the term with "reasonable," equating it with good sense and wisdom, expresses widespread hopes that we have about our judgment and about that of others, but does not add to the definition of the term. Most acts of judgment are made under pressures that preclude careful reasoning—in making them we hope that they will lead to decisions that in retrospect will prove to have been reasonable.</p> | <p style="text-indent: -2em;">A{{#counter:in2}}<ID=A1> <i>Page 1 (**)</i> My use of "judgment" should become reasonably clear from the text. It is a somewhat broadened use of the word, however, and it seems therefore desirable to say something about the relation between my usage and various standard usages. <i>The American Heritage Dictionary</i> gives the following primary meanings for judgment: "l.a. The mental ability to perceive and distinguish relationships or alternatives; the critical faculty; discernment, b. The capacity to make reasonable decisions, especially in regard to the practical affairs of life; good sense; wisdom, c. The exercise of this capacity." Were one to drop out from definition l.b. the word "reasonable," one would have just about precisely the meaning used through <i>Man and Judgment</i>: the capacity to make decisions. Qualifying the term with "reasonable," equating it with good sense and wisdom, expresses widespread hopes that we have about our judgment and about that of others, but does not add to the definition of the term. Most acts of judgment are made under pressures that preclude careful reasoning—in making them we hope that they will lead to decisions that in retrospect will prove to have been reasonable.</p> | ||
<p> All this would be fairly straight-forward were it not that special meanings of the word judgment are more prominent than this very basic meaning. Thus judgment is a legal term, but one that is scant problem, for it is clearly a special case of the broader meaning—as judgment in general is the capacity to make decisions, a legal judgment is the rendering of a judicial decision. A second special meaning, namely that which judgment has within logic, is more troublesome. The difficulty it raises is not so much one of denotation, as of connotation, for it is easy to state the logical meaning of judgment in a way that clearly makes it a special case of the more general use: judgment in logic is the capacity to make decisions about relations within and between propositions. The problem, however, is one of connotation: in the history of culture far more has been said about this special meaning of judgment in logic than about the broader meaning of judgment in life, and most of the discussion among logicians suggests that judgment is a purely formal aspect of reasoning, rather than a flesh and blood element in all action. A third special meaning also raises difficulties because of its relative prominence: through ethics and theology the term has acquired a moralistic tone, owing to the whole matter of value-judgments. Again, these can easily be understood as special cases of the broader meaning, that is, as decisions about values and their application to acts. Nevertheless, those skeptical about the Last Judgment and concerned to be "non-judgmental" in their relations to others are likely to misperceive an effort to understand judgment in its larger sense as the basic problem in living.</p> | <p> All this would be fairly straight-forward were it not that special meanings of the word judgment are more prominent than this very basic meaning. Thus judgment is a legal term, but one that is scant problem, for it is clearly a special case of the broader meaning—as judgment in general is the capacity to make decisions, a legal judgment is the rendering of a judicial decision. A second special meaning, namely that which judgment has within logic, is more troublesome. The difficulty it raises is not so much one of denotation, as of connotation, for it is easy to state the logical meaning of judgment in a way that clearly makes it a special case of the more general use: judgment in logic is the capacity to make decisions about relations within and between propositions. The problem, however, is one of connotation: in the history of culture far more has been said about this special meaning of judgment in logic than about the broader meaning of judgment in life, and most of the discussion among logicians suggests that judgment is a purely formal aspect of reasoning, rather than a flesh and blood element in all action. A third special meaning also raises difficulties because of its relative prominence: through ethics and theology the term has acquired a moralistic tone, owing to the whole matter of value-judgments. Again, these can easily be understood as special cases of the broader meaning, that is, as decisions about values and their application to acts. Nevertheless, those skeptical about the Last Judgment and concerned to be "non-judgmental" in their relations to others are likely to misperceive an effort to understand judgment in its larger sense as the basic problem in living.</p> | ||