What’s Wrong With Judging Others? - Part I (by guest blogger Brad Cokelet)
Although I am not a Theist, I have always found Jesus’s sayings
thought-provoking. Consider his take on judging others:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment you judge,
you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured
back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye,
but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to
your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a
plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite!”
Jesus is clearly denouncing our tendency to judge others. But what
is his argument to that effect? And how should we understand the
warning about being judged ourselves?
One interpretation is as follows: if we judge another person against
some standard, S, and offer to correct them or help them improve when
they are judged to be lacking, then we will be judged against S too
(perhaps at the last judgment).
But even if it is true, does it give us reason to refrain from
judging others? I do not think so.
In some cases it clearly does not: I judge students in my logic class
- I measure their performance against a standard - and try to “remove
the specks” from their thinking, and I do this knowing that I still
make errors that are just like theirs. But, the possibility of
having my own thinking judged by the same standard is no reason to
refrain from my practice; in fact, I hope to make this possibility
actual by helping my students understand standards of sound
reasoning! I judge my students in part to help them develop their
own capacities to judge.
Analogous considerations seem to apply in the ethical realm. Ben
Franklin reports in his Biography that a Quaker friend told him he
(Franklin) was commonly thought proud, and that led Franklin to add
humility to the list of virtues he was trying to keep in mind and
develop. I do not see why the fact that the friend's own level of
pride (or humility) would be judged, would count against his judging
Franklin. And I do not think the appropriateness of his judging
Franklin depends on whether he was himself proud or even had many bad
traits. After all, people who are working to overcome serious
problems of their own are often better at noticing more subtle
shortcomings in others; having a plank in your own eye can make you
more attentive to speck in your brother’s eye, so why not tell him
about it and help him get it out of there?
Consequently, on this first reading (a second one will be considered
in the next post), I can’t agree with what Jesus says: I think we
should go ahead and judge each other and say to each other, ‘Let me
remove the speck from your eye’ even if maybe especially if we
have a plank in our own eye. By judging each other, we can hope to
become a bit more self-aware and clear-sighted.