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On Judging
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On Judging
Evaluating the moral praise and blame of people is an incredibly complex matter; a matter so complex that God has often stated that we should largely refrain from doing so—leaving judgment up to him. If only God can judge one’s heart sufficiently, then it could be sinful for one to inaccurately judge another’s heart. If it could be sinful to inaccurately judge one’s heart, then we should treat moral judgment with utmost concern and sensitivity. Only God can judge one’s heart. Therefore, we should treat moral judgment with utmost concern and sensitivity. I say that this inaccurate judgment could be sinful because praising someone who should be blamed and blaming someone who should be praised can have a variety of different negative consequences, at the very least on the particular involved. It also seems like a vice and a slight against truth to circumvent the process that should be taken to evaluate something as important as morality whether one knows it or not. This conclusion seems self-evident, but I will argue that we often don’t treat moral judgment with utmost concern and sensitivity.
Only God knows the relationship between you and Him, and the state of your own virtue. Virtue, in the aristotelian sense, is habitual. Excellence is found through habit. To accurately judge someone, you would need to be aware of their habitual virtues, which is indicative of who that specific person is and how good of a person they truly are. A person’s essence and virtue cannot be gleaned from only one interaction or deed. You may have evidence to believe that they are not a good person, from one event or action, but that can hardly be substantive evidence for the deeper self beyond the surface. I say we often don’t treat moral judgements with this level of concern because we are quick to place a moral judgment on one who has acted poorly in one instance as consisting within their personal identity despite not really knowing them or their habits, and thus their virtue.
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