Almost every week someone indignantly attacks my integrity because I offended them with a real or perceived opinion they didn’t like. The underlying assumption is that stating an opinion on any controversial matter violates the sacred duty of neutrality.
First, I’m a teacher and a commentator, not a judge or journalist. Although I strive mightily to be objective, I don’t feel obligated to be neutral. Objectivity implies impartiality, detachment, and independence in evaluating evidence; it doesn’t preclude expressing judgment.
When I think my opinion might matter, I’ve criticized politicians of both parties; condemned shady business practices, racial prejudice, torture, and the denial of due process; and commended admirable words, actions, and moving events irrespective of political implications.
When I was young, I thought it was wrong to be judgmental, regardless of the issue. Later, I came across an observation by philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand who argued that nonjudgmentalness is an abdication of moral responsibility, an exchange of moral blank checks – I won’t judge you if you won’t judge me. Ultimately, I realized I couldn’t be a good father or effective teacher unless I made moral judgments. Now, making and encouraging you to make moral judgments is part of what I do.
But while there’s a responsibility to make moral judgments for ourselves, we need to be careful in deciding whether and when to express them.
For example, my primary goal is to prod you to deeper thinking; it’s not to persuade you to my way of thinking. I’d rather build bridges than walls. Thus, I usually keep my personal convictions to myself.
Before you express a moral judgment, therefore, ask yourself what you hope to accomplish and what you’re likely to accomplish.
My opinion: Whether we’re talking politics or instructing our kids, we should use restraint in expressing moral judgments. And we should do so in a way that promotes respect, reflection, and discourse rather than resentment, resistance, and disagreement. That’s not so easy.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
* According to a comment on the John F. Kennedy library website, President Kennedy’s favorite quote was based on Dante’s Inferno: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”
“In the Inferno, Dante and his guide Virgil, on their way to Hell, pass by a group of dead souls outside the entrance to Hell. These individuals, when alive, remained neutral at a time of great moral decision. Virgil explains to Dante that these souls cannot enter either Heaven or Hell because they did not choose one side or another. They are therefore worse than the greatest sinners in Hell because they are repugnant to both God and Satan alike and have been left to mourn their fate as insignificant beings, neither hailed nor cursed in life or death, endlessly travailing below Heaven but outside of Hell.”
** Philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead) had a lot to say about moral judgments:
“The precept ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’…is an abdication of moral responsibility. It is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.”
“There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.”
“The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is ‘Judge and be prepared to be judged.’”
“The opposite of moral neutrality is not a blind, arbitrary, self-righteous condemnation of any idea, action, or person that does not fit one’s mood, one’s memorized slogans, or one’s snap judgment of the moment. Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites; they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that ‘everybody is white’ or ‘everybody is black’ or ‘everybody is neither white nor black but gray’ is not a moral judgment but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.”
“To judge means to evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard. It is not an easy task. It is not a task that can be performed automatically by one’s feelings, instincts, or hunches. It is a task that requires the most precise, the most exacting, the most ruthlessly objective and rational process of thought. It is fairly easy to grasp abstract moral principles; it can be very difficult to apply them to a given situation, particularly when it involves the moral character of another person. When one pronounces moral judgment, whether in praise or in blame, one must be prepared to answer ‘Why?’ and to prove one’s case – to oneself and to any rational inquirer.”
“Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.”
“It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men’s virtues and condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you, whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?”
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