Thinking to Believe

Dennis Prager argues against this silly notion that “we should not judge” by pointing out that if we cannot make judgments, then not only are we prohibited from declaring certain people to be evil/immoral, we are also prohibited from declaring certain people to be good. Both require that we judge the merits of a person. People often miss this because they think of “judgment” only in terms of bad.

Furthermore, it would be meaningless to say someone is good unless they are being compared against someone else we have judged not good. In other words, you can’t say someone is good unless you can say someone is bad.

Georgetown University philosopher, Alexander Pruss, made an insightful comment over at Right Reason about abortion. He argues that not only is the act of abortion immoral, but even the contemplation of the act is immoral:

In weighing whether or not to abort, one is weighing the life of a particular child against other considerations. In engaging in such weighing, one is acting as if this particular child’s life had the kind of value that can be weighed and compared against other considerations (Kant calls this “market value”). Suppose that through the weighing of pros and cons, one chooses not to abort. In that case, one’s later relationship with the child causally depends on one’s having judged that the child’s life outweighs the values implicit in the considerations one had in favor of abortion. This suggests a certain kind of conditionality in the relationship: one’s having engaged in weighing implies that one accepted the possibility that something else at least might be more valuable to one than the life of the child.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>

Very interesting argument!