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Judgment
Ethics
Understanding Human Behavior
Human Behavior

Are value judgments always wrong? If so,

why?

David Week, Managing Director (1986-present)

Answered Mar 20, 2017 · Author has 334 answers and 154.4k answer views
Originally Answered: Are value judgments always wrong? Why?

The Wikipedia:

A value judgment is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something or someone, or of

the usefulness of something or someone, based on a comparison or other relativity. As a
generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values or
on a particular value system.

First, it’s not possible not to make value judgements. I’ll call them “evaluations” from here on in.
You choose Joe as a friend over Betty. You trust Bob but no Carl. You give a job to Hassan over
Hassanah. You buy a Ford instead of a BMW. You eat breakfast, but skip lunch. Every time you
do one thing instead of another, you have made a judgement of the first over the other.
Evaluations are unavoidable in life.

All such judgments are personal in the following sense: they are made by persons. They do not
appear out of the air; they are not made by trees or clouds; valuing A over B is a human activity.
It’s essential to living life. Even choosing to do nothing, is to value doing nothing over all the
sometimes you could be doing.

It’s doubtful that such evaluations are made based upon a “particular set of values” or “on a
particular value system.” This suggests that there are certain variables in such a judgement, and
some kind of systematic calculation based on those variables. But the fact is that psychologists
cannot predict what choices a particular person will make. Human evaluation is more
complicated than the phrase “a set of values” suggests.

At the same time, these evaluations are perspectival. They do reflect a point of view: yours. The
way you evaluate a choice or a situation is often different than how someone else evaluates a
Quora https://www.quora.com/Are-value-judgments-always-wrong-If-so-why

similar choice or situation. And we see these differences all the time. So each evaluation reflects
your perspective, or point of view.

Is any choice “right” or “wrong”. Of course, the first time you make such an evaluation, you do
so presuming it’s right. (Why would you purposefully do the wrong thing?) So to ask whether a
choice is right or wrong suggests that a choice made is being evaluated a second time. The
question is: by whom, and why? You go to the supermarket at 11pm. While you’re away your
house is broken into. You regret your evaluation to go to the supermarket in the middle of the
night. Or, the same thing happens, and your friend say: You idiot! Of course you’ll get broken
into!

So, once you’ve made an evaluation, it’s always possible that a second look, by yourself or
someone else, will yield a different evaluation. That too is part of life.

In sum:

 Value judgements are woven into the fabric of life.

 You won’t know if they’re right or wrong until afterwards, and only then if you or
someone chooses to re-evaluate them.

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Shane Butcher, A humble philosopher and student of life (1966-present)

Answered Mar 20, 2017 · Author has 3.6k answers and 476.6k answer views

Have you found you can answer a question based upon ones own morals and values, then answer
again “off the record”?

“People should not be having sex unless they are married.” (A value and moral statement)

“How ever, if the two are exclusive to one another and are commited to one another,it is ok”
Quora https://www.quora.com/Are-value-judgments-always-wrong-If-so-why

Again, a judgement and a different viewpoint again.

Some values judgements may be to the extreme left or right,it really depends on the situation.

A God fearing christian will defend the bible to their death,even if they dont really understand it.

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Rathkeale Timmins
Answered Mar 19, 2017 · Author has 2k answers and 1.9m answer views

Blink: The power of thinking without thinking, a book by Malcolm Gladwell explains all this.

He discusses in a reader-friendly way how our first impressions or instantaneous response to a

person, a situation, or stimuli is often the correct one. This book is work reading. The author
looks at loads of examples where the first response is compared with studies. The message is to
trust our judgements because, most of the time, they are correct.

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Martin Nicol, former Retired (2012-2015)

Answered Mar 19, 2017 · Author has 1.3k answers and 94.1k answer views

I think you have to distinguish between prejudice and first reactions. Ask yourself when I saw
this person what did I see. Did I see a skin colour; a race; a religion? In other words did you see a
class of people, a person who belongs to a group which you have a prepared response to: S/he is
a … and they are all … This is prejudice and should be avoided.

If however you are seeing traits in an individual: are they tidy, clean, do their eyes dart around,
hypervigilant, in a daise, the language they use, manners etc. These all send you messages,
mostly to you subconcious, other people with these traits along with the memory of how that
relationship worked out. Trust these first instinctive feelings. Be open or reserved in dealing with
them accordingly. Usually they get confirmed. Pick up on all these messages, don’t ignore them;
they are your lifes wisdom.

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Mimi Mendoza, studied at The High School Experience

Answered Mar 20, 2017 · Author has 1.8k answers and 348.4k answer views
Quora https://www.quora.com/Are-value-judgments-always-wrong-If-so-why

A2A Here’s the thing about judgment in general…Judgment is imperfect. Judgment is bias and
always will be.

It is the nature, of what judging is all about and it has the same effect for everyone. Judgment,
can never be perfect, for anyone.

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Claude Lambert, Retired scientist. Avid reader.

Answered Mar 19, 2017 · Author has 6.9k answers and 1.7m answer views

You are talking about people, I suppose, not things. Usually, value judgement is based on
oneself: “if you are not like me, you are bad person”. For instance “If you are not a Christian,
you are a bad person” or “If you are not a Muslim, you are a bad person”means: everybody
should be like me. It has led in history to massacres on both sides and nobody has seen much
progress coming out of it. There are larger references. For instance, helping-saving somebody
else is appreciated all over the world. We call them universal values. An example often given is
the declaration of human rights; in history, you can consider that it is composed of mostly new
concepts that we think are better for humankind. We are all born free and equal in dignity and
rights is a very new idea; it leads to progress, not to destruction.

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Nina Crespi, Past is history;future a mystery.Today’s a gift:the present

Answered Mar 20, 2017 · Author has 14.5k answers and 2.4m answer views
Originally Answered: Are value judgments always wrong? Why?

No, value judgments are not always wrong or right, the reason being that judgments are
subjective ( opinions, not facts ). So they can sometimes be right just as betting on a horse race
can be.

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Evgeni Bolotin
Answered Mar 20, 2017 · Author has 1.3k answers and 740.2k answer views
Originally Answered: Are value judgments always wrong? Why?
Quora https://www.quora.com/Are-value-judgments-always-wrong-If-so-why

Value judgments are often personal - they don’t need to represent universal truth, but subjective
one. People may believe in different values that are not necessary wrong or bad, objectively
speaking, just different - and what seems OK to one is problematic to another. I don’t think there
is any problem for a person or a group make value judgments that suit them, as long as they
don’t try to make their personal truth an absolute one.

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