Judging other people

[Brian Smith 0]

What for?

The reason for judging someone is to help you to decide how you will deal with him and what he deserves from you.    Whether a terrorist is irrational, honestly mistaken, or totally benevolent and rational is irrelevant.  Justice to me -- the egoistic beneficiary of my own actions -- demands that if someone is trying to kill me, what I ought to do is to stop him and punish him for it.

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Since there is some serious discussions on an ethical topic - the means of identifiying virtues and/or vices - in the "Current Events" thread, perhaps a separate thread dedicated to the topic of moral judgment would be in order, so that those interested in the subject may find it in a more expected place. I know I was certainly going to ask some questions on the subject, but have to finish focusing on something else before I can shift focus to it.

Therefore, 'if you build, he will come' - or at least I will.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

These are the questions I hope are suitable for this thread:

- What does it mean to judge people morally?

- Why judge other people morally (as distinct from judging their skills at work, for example)?

- When should one judge others?

- How should one judge others?

- How should one deal with mixed cases?

I have one observation to offer. This point took many years for me to learn, and I owe the point ultimately to Leonard Peikoff.

The people who matter most in our lives are the good people. Why? Because they have something to trade and thereby improve our lives. The bad people destroy or impede. They add nothing. They must be stopped or avoided, but otherwise they deserve no attention.

The most important judgments are judgments of the good. But looking for the good doesn't make the job of judging easier. There is only one thing I can think of that simplifies the process of judging people to find the good: Benefit of the doubt is usually a safe procedure until we gather more information one way or the other.

[Brian Smith 0]

One other question we might ask is what knowledge does one need about another person in order to make a moral judgment about them at all?

Science tells us that man is a complex being. Not only can a man's actions be determined by conscious effort, but his actions can also be governed by other processes not under his direct volitional control - eg. his actions may be governed by his subconscious.

Because of this, it has been suggested that one may not morally judge a person without knowledge of whether his actions are determined consciously or are guided by automatic processes.

In other words, if one is able to determine that a person's actions are not the result of subconscious processes, then one may morally judge that person because he is in volitional control of his actions. However, if one is able to determine that a person's actions are the result of subconscious processes, then one may not morally judge that person, because volition is not invloved in such processes. And finally, if one is unable to determine that a person's actions are the result of conscious determination as opposed to being governed by some automatic process, then again one may not morally judge that person, because one is missing information required to come to any conclusion concerning their behavior.

So my question is this: does moral judgment require knowledge of a man's subconscious - ie does it require one to know his psychology? Does moral judgment require one to know another man's psychological status, or his psychological reasons, or any other psychological context which might be responsible for his actions?

[Stephen Speicher 0]

So my question is this: does moral judgment require knowledge of a man's subconscious - ie does it require one to know his psychology?  Does moral judgment require one to know another man's psychological status, or his psychological reasons, or any other psychological context which might be responsible for his actions?

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If a person's actions are without thought, or a result of evasion, we morally condemn his actions for the basis on which they were formed. For a person with certain psychological problems, say, repression, his psychological state can inhibit his ability to identify and integrate material with which he is confronted. As long as this person is working towards undoing his repression, we cannot condemn him morally for his failure to identify and integrate what may be obvious to a psychologically healthy person. We cannot assume his failure to be one of evasion. Repression is an automatic function of the subconscious, not directly under volitional control.

[Brian Smith 0]

If a person's actions are without thought, or a result of evasion, we morally condemn his actions for the basis on which they were formed. For a person with certain psychological problems, say, repression, his psychological state can inhibit his ability to identify and integrate material with which he is confronted. As long as this person is working towards undoing his repression, we cannot condemn him morally for his failure to identify and integrate what may be obvious to a psychologically healthy person. We cannot assume his failure to be one of evasion. Repression is an automatic function of the subconscious, not directly under volitional control.

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How does one reconcile that principle with Ayn Rand's premise that "morality is the province of philosophical judgment, not psychological diagnosis"?

She states: "A man's moral character must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions - not on the basis of inferences (usually, spurious) about his subconscious."

"A man is not to be condemned or excused on the grounds of the state of his subconscious."

"Morality" she continues "demands that one treat and judge men as responsible adults."

"This means that one grants a man the respect of assuming that he is conscious of what he says and does, and one judges his statements and actions philosophically, ie as what they are - not psychologically, ie as leads or clues to some secret, hidden, unconscious meaning."(All emphasis in the original)

Logically, such a position makes perfect sense. It is impossible to prove a psychological condition if one does not exist - ie one cannot prove a negative. One can only prove a positive - ie one can only prove a psychological condition if one exists. That is the principle of the burden of proof. As such, a man is presumed 'innocent' of psychological problems until proven 'guilty' of them. And since the average person is not a psychologist, trained to diagnose psychological maladies, unless the psychological problem is extremely overt, proof is not going to be forthcoming.

Based on these facts, if moral judgment requires one to know another man's psychological state, then no one would be able to pass moral judgment at all.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

One other question we might ask is what knowledge does one need about another person in order to make a moral judgment about them at all?

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The purpose of all thinking is to gain the knowledge of reality we need to guide us in life. A moral judgement, like any evaluation of anything in reality, can help us gain and keep our values.

Gaining many important values involves interaction with other people. Other people can also threaten and destroy our values. Because of that, we need to know as much as we can about what others are likely to do for us or against us in the contexts in which we encounter them.

For instance:

Will my doctor tell me when he isn't sure about my condition or will he fake it?

Will my friend show up on time when we agree to meet?

Will the carpenter I hire do careful work?

Will the butcher give me honest weight?

Can I trust someone to keep a secret or to keep his promises?

If I accept work from this company will they treat me fairly and pay me on time?

It is very important to know these things.

The problem is that we can't know other people's context of knowledge or motivation the way we can know our own. We have to infer everything from incomplete information, so judging others is probably the most difficult intellectual task there is. It is also the most inherently error-prone but, since the stakes are often very high -- love, friendship, money, career -- we should always make the effort to do the very best we possibly can. We should constantly evaluate what people say and do concretely (Why did he do THAT?) and morally (Is he basically honest? Hard-working? Does he care about facts?)

So what knowledge do we need? To the degree that we might interact with someone in respects that affect our important values, we need enough well-integrated observations of their past actions, knowledge of psychology, and understanding of ethical principles to allow us to predict their future actions with as high a degree of confidence as possible.

Sometimes we do have a high degree of confidence, sometimes we only know enough to be hopeful or to be wary, and sometimes we haven't a clue. It is our self-interest to do the best we can.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

If a person's actions are without thought, or a result of evasion, we morally condemn his actions for the basis on which they were formed. For a person with certain psychological problems, say, repression, his psychological state can inhibit his ability to identify and integrate material with which he is confronted. As long as this person is working towards undoing his repression, we cannot condemn him morally for his failure to identify and integrate what may be obvious to a psychologically healthy person. We cannot assume his failure to be one of evasion. Repression is an automatic function of the subconscious, not directly under volitional control.

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How does one reconcile that principle with Ayn Rand's premise that "morality is the province of philosophical judgment, not psychological diagnosis"?

By keeping context. That quote, and the others, were from Miss Rand's article on psychologizing (The Psychology of "Psychologizing," The Objectivist, March, 1971). In that article she states that psychologizing "consists in condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence." (Emphasis mine.) If, as I said, "this person is working towards undoing his repression," that is factual evidence to be considered. It would be psychologizing to condemn a person for evasion while ignoring factual evidence to the contrary.

While there are certainly psychologizers who excuse horrendous deeds without justification, the worst, to me, is the flip side, the psychologizer who unjustly condemns and sees evil evasion everywhere. As Miss Rand notes (in the same article),

Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizer's invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims' minds, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives.... The harm he does to his victims is incalculable.  People who have psychological problems are confused and suggestible; unable to understand their own inner state, ... The unearned status of an "authority," the chance to air arbitrary pronouncements and frighten people or manipulate them, are some of the psychologizer's lesser motives. His basic motive is worse.  Observe that he seldom discovers any virtuous or positive elements hidden in his victims' subconscious; what he claims to discover are vices, weaknesses, flaws.... The basic motive of most psychologizers is hostility. Caused by a profound self-doubt, self-condemnation and fear, hostility is a type of projection that directs toward other people the hatred which the hostile person feels toward himself. Blaming the evil of others for his own shortcomings, he feels a chronic need to justify himself by demonstrating their evil, by seeking it, by hunting for it and by inventing it.

Based on these facts, if moral judgment requires one to know another man's psychological state, then no one would be able to pass moral judgment at all.

Since no one has suggested this, it is not a problem. And, to be perfectly clear here, I am not suggesting that a person working conscientiously to undo his repression gets a free pass on all moral judgment. Rather, when confronted with this person's difficulty to clearly identify some material, to blithely take evasion as the reason is itself psychologizing.

[Janet_Busch 0]

Sometimes we do have a high degree of confidence, sometimes we only know enough to be hopeful or to be wary, and sometimes we haven't a clue.  It is our self-interest to do the best we can.

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Back in the days when I was still active socially, I used to experience a little "alert" about certain people, without anything overt that I was aware of to cause such an emotional reaction. When I was young and inexperienced, I tended to ignore this; as I grew in experience, however, I learned pay attention because my subconscious "saw" or heard something my conscious awareness didn't take cognizance of.

I had already noted this experience when I first read Miss Rand's explanation of emotions. It resonated with me because it explained what I had come to call my "alert button". The real value I gained from her was the knowledge of how to evaluate my own emotional responses. When I found something that I subsequently learned was a "false alarm", it told me that I had integrated something erroneously. It was immensely helpful in weeding out false ideas. Most of the time, however, I found something that justified the alert.

I don't judge anyone by this emotional response, of course, but I have learned to use it to make myself aware that there may actually be something to be wary of.

The flip-side of this is that instant liking we may feel for someone. This is usually much easier for us to evaluate, though we should always be aware that our first impression may be wrong.

I've thought about this a lot, but I've never written it down before (I apologize if the construction is awkward). I do so now because I'm wondering if other's have noted a similar "alarm button" of their own. If so, how do you use it when evaluating a new acquaintance?

Perhaps the better question is: What role do emotions play in your evaluation of others?

[Brian Smith 0]

If, as I said, "this person is working towards undoing his repression," that is factual evidence to be considered. 

Fine. But as Ms. Rand indicates, a person who seeks to morally evaluate another man's actions is not going to be able to infer knowledge of that repression on his own:

"A conscientious psychotherapist, of almost any school, knows that the task of diagnosing a particular individual's problems is extremely complex and difficult. The same symptom may indicate different things in different men, according to the total context and interaction of their various premises. A long period of special inquiry is required to arrive even at a valid hypothesis."

Furthermore, she indicates: "a layman needs some knowledge of psychology, in order to understand the nature of a human consciousness; but theoretical knowledge does not qualify him for the extremely specialized job of diagnosing the psychopathological problems of specific individuals. Even self-diagnosis is often dangerous: there is such a phenomenon as psychological hypochondriacs, who ascribe to themselves every problem they hear or read about."

Thus, unless he is privy somehow to the work of the specialist, the person engaged in moral evaluation will not have the factual evidence (the psychological diagnosis) that the person is suffering from repression, let alone that the person is working towards undoing that repression. And absent such factual evidence, one would have no basis to presume he is not, as AR put it, a "responsible adult." One would have no factual evidence that he was not in conscious control of his actions.

This means it is the very rare case indeed in which one would have any cause to consider a man's psychological state when engaging in moral evaluation of his actions. Absent the requisite specific evidence, in fact, there would be no reason to consider it at all.

For instance, take the members on this forum. No one has the evidence - the psychological diagnosis - to validly assert any member here might be something other than a responsible adult (unless of course the adult in question explicitly indicated that, and provided some form of corroborating evidence of their problem). In other words, one would have no basis to infer another member's words and actions were under anything but their conscious control. As such, one would morally evaluate each member accordingly - ie philosophically.

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On the issue of psychologizing, I would agree that the man who condemns and sees evil evasion everywhere is likely experiencing major errors in knowledge, or may be engaging in evasion himself or the like. But since evasion is the willful suspension of one's consciousness - ie a volitional act; and a psychologizer casts a man's action as the result of his subconscious - ie a non-volitional act; then the man who sees volitional acts of evil everywhere cannot at the same time be identified as a man who casts all those evil acts as non-volitional. That would be a contradiction. Thus I would say he cannot be identified as a psychologizer.

This same would be true of the man who, when confronted with a person for whom one does have evidence of a psychological problem (ie has knowledge of a professional psychological diagnosis or the like) still blithely - without consideration - takes evasion as the reason for that person's inability to clearly identify some material. This accuser is, again, claiming an act of volition on the part of the psychologically troubled person, not an act of non-volition, which is what a psychologizer claims.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

I don't judge anyone by this emotional response, of course, but I have learned to use it to make myself aware that there may actually be something to be wary of. 

The flip-side of this is that instant liking we may feel for someone.  This is usually much easier for us to evaluate, though we should always be aware that our first impression may be wrong.

[...] I'm wondering if other's have noted a similar "alarm button" of their own.  If so, how do you use it when evaluating a new acquaintance?

Perhaps the better question is:  What role do emotions play in your evaluation of others?

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Emotions are the best -- and most efficient -- starting point for evaluating someone. That is because emotions automatically and instantaneously integrate everything that you know about people, your entire past history and experience, and all your value premises.

Emotions are automatic and associational, but they are not logical. They may be integrating facts and experiences that are totally irrelevant in the current context. Therefore, you can't stop with that first impression but should delve further to identify the cause of your reaction.

For example, I loved Ayn Rand's novels and, when I heard she was going to be on TV, I tuned in eagerly to see her. To my surprise, my first impression was strongly negative. Why? I realized that she looked like and had exactly the same accent as my life-hating, misery-worshipping Russian-immigrant aunts. Then I reminded myself that this was the author of The Fountainhead, not my relatives, and the emotion vanished.

So when I judge people, my first question is "What do I feel about them?" and my second question is "What am I seeing or hearing that makes me feel that way?"

[piz 0]

...Benefit of the doubt is usually a safe procedure until we gather more information one way or the other.

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I always begin by granting an assumption of rationality - that's my "benefit of the doubt." After that, I use my direct experience with a person to adjust my evaluation in one direction or another as I deal with him over time. There's some discussion in the "Forgiveness" thread of this process that may be relevant here.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

I do so now because I'm wondering if other's have noted a similar "alarm button" of their own.  If so, how do you use it when evaluating a new acquaintance? 

Perhaps the better question is:  What role do emotions play in your evaluation of others?

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Emotions stem from value-judgments, so they certainly have significance. The more integrated a person is -- the less conflict between conscious and subconscious ideas -- the more trustworthy, in general, he can consider his emotions to be. And, the more aware, the more mentally alert and perceptive a person is, the more his emotions can be a reliable indicator. But, ultimately, such emotions are only indicators and are not sufficient to make a proper conscious judgment; only reason and logic can do that.

With that said, when first meeting people I have found my own initial likes and dislikes to be a fairly reliable indicator of my eventual conclusions about them. Sometimes I pick up on something inconsequential, only to discard the response once I understand its source. But, more often than not, my initial response is on the money.

[piz 0]

The reason for judging someone is to help you to decide how you will deal with him and what he deserves from you.

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I think this is the best expression of how this topic should be viewed (with one addition - see below). As for the psychological factors involved in moral judgment, speaking as someone who is in the process of overcoming long-standing, deep-seated repression (which until relatively recently I wrongly believed to be evasion), I expect others to deal with me according to the standard implied by Betsy's statement - they should act in their own self interest. That is, I never expect the benefit of the doubt. If my actions negatively impact someone, they're perfectly justified in treating me accordingly - whatever it's effect on how they morally judge me, the volitional status of my actions should have no bearing on the way anyone deals with me. I accept that, from another's perspective, there is no effective difference between evasion and repression on my part, in terms of its impact on his life.

Of course,

If..."this person is working towards undoing his repression," that is factual evidence to be considered. It would be psychologizing to condemn a person for evasion while ignoring factual evidence to the contrary.

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So a person who has some knowledge of my psychological situation ought to take that into account. At best, however, that knowledge acts as a mitigating factor that may lessen the severity of the judgment passed on my negative actions, making it less likely that he will continually hold me in a bad light. The knowledge should have little effect on specific decisions he makes in dealing with me - his self-interest should be his overriding concern.

I should note that I have tremendously narrowed the range of actions that are still affected by my repression, so this is very seldom an issue any more. But I take responsibility for the totality of my actions, hence my acceptance that others may not excuse certain things. I should also point out that I refuse to allow others to abuse any remaining psychological weaknesses I may have - I expect justice for myself to no less a degree than I expect it for others.

(I just realized that this post might make me sound like some sort of recovering psychotic. That's not the case at all. Mild to middling neuroses, sure, but that's it. If you've read my posts here on THE FORUM, you know me pretty well. If necessary, I can even produce my Homer-Simpson-style "NOT INSANE" certificate. )

[Elizabeth 0]

I've thought about this a lot, but I've never written it down before (I apologize if the construction is awkward).  I do so now because I'm wondering if other's have noted a similar "alarm button" of their own.  If so, how do you use it when evaluating a new acquaintance?

Perhaps the better question is:  What role do emotions play in your evaluation of others?

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I pay attention to my first impressions or gut feelings about people much more than when I was younger. I've had to teach myself to be more comfortable making judgments and assume responsibility for right and wrong assumptions I make. It's been interesting learning balance.

I think emotions play a huge role in our evaluation of others upon first impressions. In an instant I will evaluate a person by their appearance (kept?), manners and mannerisms, etc... I tend to think first about whether someone seems genuine before considering whether I would want to know them or not.

[Stephen Speicher 0]

If, as I said, "this person is working towards undoing his repression," that is factual evidence to be considered. 

Fine. But as Ms. Rand indicates, a person who seeks to morally evaluate another man's actions is not going to be able to infer knowledge of that repression on his own:...

Repression is only one aspect of factual evidence; in what people do and say there is much that can be identified. There are often several possible interpretations, if one is on the premise of looking. But for the sort of mentality that finds evil evasion lurking in any disagreement, the relevant facts are not seen.

Someone else (I forget who) recently mentioned something about the need to judge the good. The mentality that actively seeks out evaders rarely spends time praising the good. Note that on THE FORUM we have a subforum dedicated to the praise of The Good, but none dedicated for condemnation. Good is more important than evil, and those who spend their time relentlessly attempting to uncover evil evaders would be much better off looking instead for something good to praise.

For instance, take the members on this forum.  No one has the evidence - the psychological diagnosis - ... In other words, one would have no basis to infer another member's words and actions were under anything but their conscious control.

In making judgments the choice is not necessarily between psychological evaluations and condemnation. There are also reasons other than evasion that make sense of what another person does or says. Unfortunately, for the one who sees evasion everywhere, the facts underlying the reasons are not seen. Competence at introspection is itself a difficult enough task, but competence in justly judging others is even harder.

[Brian Smith 0]

Repression is only one aspect of factual evidence; in what people do and say there is much that can be identified. There are often several possible interpretations, if one is on the premise of looking.

You are quite correct. In what people do and say there is indeed much that can be identified. But to identify those fact as evidence of something other than a man's conscious control of his words and actions, as Ms. Rand clearly indicates, is the domain of the psychological specialist and not that of the layman. The reason for this, as you point out, is that there are often several possible interpretations of a man's actions. For instance, a man's outbursts is possible evidence of emotionalism - to one trained to identify such philosophical problems. But it is also possible evidence of a deep-seeted psychological problem - to one trained to identify such psyychological problems. And while the former is identified by Ms. Rand as open to both the layman and the professional, due to the nature of philosophy and philosophic diagnosis - the latter is not open to the layman, but only to the professional (and sometimes not even him), due to the nature of psychology and psychological diagnosis. In fact, it is the amateur (and even the reckless professional) who engages in and then acts upon such psychological diagnosis whom Ms. Rand is warning against and identifies as a psychologizer.

But for the sort of mentality that finds evil evasion lurking in any disagreement, the relevant facts are not seen. 

As I indicated, I agree that such a person indeed has a problem. But when engaging in moral evaluation, one's choices are not: to engaging in psychological diagnosis - or - to declare all invalid identification the result of evasion. That would be a false alternative.

When morally evaluating a man, as has been indicated, one begins with the implicit premise that such a man is conscious of his ideas and actions. As such, the first thing one does in the evaluative process is to identify whether those ideas and actions are valid or not, and if they are reached by a proper method of cognition or not. If in both instances, they are, then one morally evaluates him as virtuous. If they are not, however, one does not, at this point, come to the moral conclusion of vice. Since man is fallible, invalid ideas and actions can be the result of errors of knowledge as well as breaches in morality. To determine which is the cause of the invalid ideas or actions, one references a man's conscious actions. One looks at his logic and his philosophy respectively. And one then identifies which is responsible for the invalid result. Only with the result of this evaluation can one come to a moral conclusion of vice or not.

The man who finds evil evasion (as opposed to non-evil evasion?) - the man who finds evasion lurking in any disagreement is the man who does not engage in this secondary step of identification. He stops at the identification of ideas or actions as invalid and thus, without warrant, attributes vice.

Someone else (I forget who) recently mentioned something about the need to judge the good. The mentality that actively seeks out evaders rarely spends time praising the good. Note that on THE FORUM we have a subforum dedicated to the praise of The Good, but none dedicated for condemnation. Good is more important than evil, and those who spend their time relentlessly attempting to uncover evil evaders would be much better off looking instead for something good to praise. 

I agree completely. But engaging in moral evaluation and then acting on that evaluation are two different things. My question here has never been whether one should act according to one's moral evaluation, but what one may or may not use to arrive at that moral evaluation in the first place.

In other words, before one can accord man justice, one must first know how to validly identify the good.

As to the rest of the quote, its a good thing there is no one here who spends his "time reletntlessly attempting to uncover evil evaders." But I am certain if there were, one would try to help him "uncover" his error so he too might see the good, as opposed to ignoring him and just praising the good. Because this forum serves, not just as a place to praise the good (if one knows what it is), but as a place for those (including one's self) who are in search of knowledge of the good or of how to identify it properly to come in order discover that knowledge (which is why there is not just a catagory for "The Good" but a vast number of other threads and catagories as well).

There are also reasons other than evasion that make sense of what another person does or says. Unfortunately, for the one who sees evasion everywhere, the facts underlying the reasons are not seen.

Again, this is not under dispute. When evaluating another person, one indeed must - because one (presumably) has the philosophical competence to do so - distinguish errors in knowledge from evasion. Failure to do so most definitely means he has not seen the facts underlying those wrong ideas or actions. Of course, because one does not have the psychological competence to do so - one will not be able to see reasons beyond those identified above. Any such 'sightings' are merely the spectres of psychologizing.

Competence at introspection is itself a difficult enough task, but competence in justly judging others is even harder.

Yes. And a requirement to make psychological diagnosis before justly judging others makes it impossible.

[Janet_Busch 0]

(I cannot seem to get the reply button to work properly, so I cannot quote the post. I am commenting on Brian's post #16.)

Are you saying that one may not consider any part of a person's psychology when judging them? Do you consider all such accounting to be psychologizing?

I have a close friend who might justly be said to evade in one particular area of her own self-knowledge. I know, because I know her very well, why her mind slams shut in when she confronts anything that has to do with this matter. I make allowances for that because in every area I consider important, her values are my own, and because she is otherwise one of the best people I know. Had I cut myself off from her because I would not consider her psychological makeup, but focused completely on the evasion I noted, I would have missed out on 32 years of a very close, and very dear, relationship.

Clearly, such evaluations can't all be psychologizing. Do you think Miss Rand was saying that any attempt to understand why someone might behave in a certain way amounts to psychologizing? Are we to ignore what we know to be facts about a person beyond what we can understand about their philosophy?

My own understanding of Miss Rand's essay was that we cannot arbitrarily assign motives or causes to actions in place of making a judgment based on facts (what has a person says and how have they acted); that is, you cannot make psychological excuses for someone for good or ill. I didn't get that it means that you ignore what you do understand about a particular person's psychological makeup.

Have I misread you?

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

My own understanding of Miss Rand's essay was that we cannot arbitrarily assign motives or causes to actions in place of making a judgment based on facts (what has a person says and how have they acted); that is, you cannot make psychological excuses for someone for good or ill. I didn't get that it means that you ignore what you do understand about a particular person's psychological makeup.   

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This summary neatly brings together my concerns. From it, I am led to another question: Isn't it possible for a person who is not a specialist in a science to still know something about the objects of that science? I may not, for example, be a botanist, but I can know from experience that planting seeds in a pot and never adding water results in withered sprouts.

Likewise, I may not be a psychotherapist, but can I not see some evidence of evasion -- such as shifty-eyed, repeated avoidance of questions asked -- and then reach a conclusion about the existence of that evasion? And isn't that enough for me to decide whether to continue socializing with a particular person, for moral reasons, at least in a particular area of life?

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

Likewise, I may not be a psychotherapist, but can I not see some evidence of evasion -- such as shifty-eyed, repeated avoidance of questions asked -- and then reach a conclusion about the existence of that evasion? And isn't that enough for me to decide whether to continue socializing with a particular person, for moral reasons, at least in a particular area of life?

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I suspect now that I have conflated two issues. The issue is not whether one can make moral judgments, but whether one can explain another person's behavior by referring to a specialized science which one doesn't know or hasn't applied to that person.

For example, undercutting my own example quoted above, I don't need to be a psychotherapist to recognize evasion. But I do need to know the techniques and principles of that specialized science, and to have systematically applied them, in order to either explain that person's behavior psychologically or give him a clean bill of psychological health.

I am very interested in these issues because, as coordinator of an Objectivist network I sometimes need to make unpleasant choices about accepting new individuals into that network -- or, rarely, ejecting one already in it. Because I do not have a full grasp of the issues, the decisions are sometimes agonizing.

[Brian Smith 0]

Are you saying that one may not consider any part of a person's psychology when judging them?  Do you consider all such accounting to be psychologizing?

I am saying that if one attributes a man's actions or ideas to the subconscious without the specialized knowledge required to come to that conclusion, then yes one is psychologizing.

I have a close friend who might justly be said to evade in one particular area of her own self-knowledge. I know, because I know her very well, why her mind slams shut in when she confronts anything that has to do with this matter.  I make allowances for that because in every area I consider important, her values are my own, and because she is otherwise one of the best people I know.  Had I cut myself off from her because I would not consider her psychological makeup, but focused completely on the evasion I noted, I would have missed out on 32 years of a very close, and very dear, relationship. 

Morally judging a person - identifying whether they are rational or irrational, or the like - is a different issue from whether one should associate with that individual and why, after making such a determination. Simply having made the moral judgment does not automatically require one to shun such an individual. In other words, there is not just one proper response to the identification of all vice.

Are we to ignore what we know to be facts about a person beyond what we can understand about their philosophy?

No one is supposed to ignore facts. But the only facts one knows about another person are his words and his actions. To be able to identify a man's words or actions as evidence of a psychological problem, requires a very specific context. It not only requires the specialized knowledge of a psychological professional, but also the thorough and time consuming psychological investigation by that professional of the individual in question. Absent this specific context, there is no means for a man to recognize another man's words or actions as anything but consciously directed. And since a conclusion derived in the absence of evidence is an error - specifically an arbitrary assertion - after identifying it as such, it must be dismissed without further consideration.

In this instance, the conclusion of a psychological problem derived in the absence of evidence (iabsent a qualified identifier and a proper method of identification) is an error - specifically psychologizing. After identifying it as such, it must be dismissed without further consideration as well.

My own understanding of Miss Rand's essay was that we cannot arbitrarily assign motives or causes to actions in place of making a judgment based on facts (what has a person says and how have they acted); that is, you cannot make psychological excuses for someone for good or ill.

Specifically the article was indicating that one cannot arbitrarily assign psychological motives or causes to actions (etc). However, the principle that we cannot arbitrarily determine anything is the more fundamental principle upon which it is derived, so your phrasing is the broader application.

I didn't get that it means that you ignore what you do understand about a particular person's psychological makeup.   

It is one's "understanding" - one's supposed knowledge - of another person's psychology which is in question. How does one "ignore" that for which one has no evidence?

[Brian Smith 0]

The issue is not whether one can make moral judgments, but whether one can explain another person's behavior by referring to a specialized science which one doesn't know or hasn't applied to  that person.

Yes.

For example...I don't need to be a psychotherapist to recognize evasion. But I do need to know the techniques and principles of that specialized science, and to have systematically applied them, in order to either explain that person's behavior psychologically or give him a clean bill of psychological health.

Yes, except I hesitate over the last part of the last sentence.

If you mean that one needs to know the techniques and principles of that specialized science and have to have systematically applied them in order to identify another man as mentally healthy, in the face of evidence previously identified by that self-same process, then I agree completely.

However, if you mean one needs to know the techniques and principles of that specialized science and one have to systematically apply them in order to identify any man as mentally healthy, then I have to disagree.

As I pointed out to Janet in my last post, unless one has evidence of a psychological condition, one has no reason at all to suggest a man is anything but mentally healthy. This is an application of the principle of the Burden of Proof. Because a man is man, his identity (among other things) is that of a psychologically healthy individual. One needs no more proof of his mental health beyond the fact that he is a man. It is only if one makes an assertion to the contrary that one requires addition proof (and we have already established the standard of that proof).

I am very interested in these issues because, as coordinator of an Objectivist network I sometimes need to make unpleasant choices about accepting new individuals into that network -- or, rarely, ejecting one already in it. Because I do not have a full grasp of the issues, the decisions are sometimes agonizing.

Yes, there are a lot of different and complex issues one must consider - and balance at some points - when trying to determine something's value or disvalue to himself, especially when it comes to making that determination about another human being.

I myself am still working through many of those issues (as if one couldn't tell ).

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

I am still confused about the issues, so bear with me.

[...] if one attributes a man's actions or ideas to the subconscious without the specialized knowledge required to come to that conclusion, then yes one is psychologizing.

←

[bold emphasis added.]

My understanding of the meaning of the term/idea "psychologizing" is, in Ayn Rand's words: "... condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence." (The Ayn Rand Lexicon, "Psychologizing," p. 394)

She does not address the issue which we are discussing, the issue of what kind of evidence is required -- that which is generally available to all observers, or that which is available only to those who know specialized techniques for gathering it within a context of specialized scientific fundamentals.

Your usage of the term/idea seems to be different. You seem to be assuming that specialized-scientific training and knowledge are required to understand another person's mind (which includes his subconscious and his psycho-epistemology, as well as the content and methods of his conscious mind). If that is your assumption, then I would like to challenge it.

I am not an astronomer, but I can objectively understand that the earth moves around the sun. I may not have certainty on that -- because I don't understand the causes involved. But I do understand it to some degree with some level of assurance, based partly on expert testimony, and I can apply what I know with results predictable enough to get through life. (I recall this subject came up in another thread, dealing with this astronomical example.)

Can't I do the same with evaluating another person's mind (if for some reason I should need to)? I know from introspection the existence and some features of my own consciousness, subconscious, and psycho-epistemology. Can't I make inferences about others partly on that basis?

I am looking forward to exploring this further.

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

No one is supposed to ignore facts.  But the only facts one knows about another person are his words and his actions.

←

Even though you might not have meant this statement literally, I would like to take it that way for the sake of exploration.

I disagree that one can know as facts about another person only that person's words and actions. That would be empiricism. A fact is an existent of some sort. Words and actions are themselves existents, that is, facts. However, the inferences I draw are also identifications of facts assuming my methods are objective and I have sufficient content.

For example, in a battle Mr. X runs away while others stay, face the enemy and win. He has a frightened expression on his face. He says he doesn't want to die and will surely do so. He offers no specific reason for doing so. I, as his leader, remember that I have seen this behavior in him in other areas of his life: facing a dental emergency, needing to confront his wife about a marital problem, and other areas.

I can infer that he is a coward -- which is an inference about the nature of his character. I can rightly say it is a fact of his nature -- not evident to the senses alone, but only through inference.

So, in conclusion, I would say that I can identify many facts about another person other than sense-perceptible facts such as words and (other) actions. My identifications might be only possibilities or probabilities, but I have reason for believing that they are identifications of facts of reality.

Now, that was a moral evaluation. Can I make psychological evaluations without being a psychologist? I think I can. If I see evidence -- for example, comments from his parents about some traumatic experience in his childhood that left him terrified of situations which are both emergent and threatening -- of a problem with his subconscious, then I can make a psychological excuse for his behavior, even though I have no scientific training in the field of psychology.

Would I be certain of my conclusion? Far from it, but if for some reason I needed to make such a psychological evaluation on my own, then I would do it and get on with my mission in life.

None of this, of course, justifies psychologizing as Ayn Rand defined it -- excusing or condemning for psychological reasons, in the absence of evidence or contrary to evidence -- whether gathered by an amateur or by a scientific specialist, I would add.

[Brian Smith 0]

My understanding of the meaning of the term/idea "psychologizing" is, in Ayn Rand's words: "... condemning or excusing specific individuals on the grounds of their psychological problems, real or invented, in the absence of or contrary to factual evidence." (The Ayn Rand Lexicon, "Psychologizing," p. 394) 

She does not address the issue which we are discussing, the issue of what kind of evidence is required -- that which is generally available to all observers, or that which is available only to those who know specialized techniques for gathering it within a context of specialized scientific fundamentals.

You are correct. That quote certainly does not address the issue, but the context in which it was written most certainly does (The Psychology of "Psychologizing," The Objectivist, March, 1971). Because I was trying to make clear what qualifies as 'absence of evidence' or 'factual evidence' in this instance, I simply provided a greater elaboration on the concept in accordance with what was contained in that context.

For instance the two quotes I provided at the beginning of post #9 are part of the specific context of Ms. Rand's identification of the requirements for psychological identification, taken from this article:

"A conscientious psychotherapist, of almost any school, knows that the task of diagnosing a particular individual's problems is extremely complex and difficult. The same symptom may indicate different things in different men, according to the total context and interaction of their various premises. A long period of special inquiry is required to arrive even at a valid hypothesis."

Furthermore, she indicates: "a layman needs some knowledge of psychology, in order to understand the nature of a human consciousness; but theoretical knowledge does not qualify him for the extremely specialized job of diagnosing the psychopathological problems of specific individuals. Even self-diagnosis is often dangerous: there is such a phenomenon as psychological hypochondriacs, who ascribe to themselves every problem they hear or read about."

If you have it available - or if you can borrow it from a friend, etc - a reading of this essay may help answer many of the questions you are putting forth here.

Your usage of the term/idea seems to be different. You seem to be assuming that specialized-scientific training and knowledge are required to understand another person's mind (which includes his subconscious and his psycho-epistemology, as well as the content and methods of his conscious mind). If that is your assumption, then I would like to challenge it. 

No. It is my assertion is that one needs specialized-scientific training and knowledge, etc., to identify the words and actions of any particular man to have been caused by his subconscious, rather than to have been caused by conscious mind.

By what means and methods, other than those already identified, would you use to rationally make such a determination?

I am not an astronomer, but I can objectively understand that the earth moves around the sun. I may not have certainty on that -- because I don't understand the causes involved. But I do understand it to some degree with some level of assurance, based partly on expert testimony, and I can apply what I know with results predictable enough to get through life. (I recall this subject came up in another thread, dealing with this astronomical example.)

As Ms. Rand states in the second of her quotes from post #9 (above), one needs much more than just a theoretical understanding of a field such as psychology in order to gain knowledge about a particular individual's subconscious. Thus, because you are not an psychotherapist or similar mental health professional, you may be aware that men can suffer from neurosis, psychosis, and other psychological problems. But you have no means of applying these very general facts to any particular case. That is the specific function of the science of psychology. Put simply, you have no means of applying this knowledge to your friend Bob in order to determine if he has a neurosis instead of simply being evasive - any more than you can apply your knowledge that the earth moves around the sun not only to discover, but to identify the nature and movement etc of a particular object in space - and to do so against the background of a thousand other similar objects moving the exact same way. (This is of course not a perfect comparison for a number of reasons - including the fact that one of the fields involves a far more complex subject than the other consciousness. But it serves as a crude indication of the principle).

It is specifically the layman who goes out and tries to determine if his friend Bob has a neurosis that Ms. Rand identified as a psychologizer. After the first quote from post#9, in which Ms. Rand indicates the standards by which psychological evaluations are properly made, she says:

"This [the aforementioned standard] does not stop the amateur psychologizers. Armed with a smattering, not of knowledge, but of undigested slogans, they rush, unsolicited, to diagnose the problems of their friends and acquaintances."

This is the context of the extensive quote Stephen provided. In the next sentence, Ms. Rand says: "Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizer's invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims' mind, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives."

In other words, where Bob claims or believes his actions are under his conscious control, the psychologizer seeks to attribute his actions and words to some subconscious process Bob is not even aware of.

Ms. Rand continues: "With reckless irresponsibility, which an old-fashioned mystic oracle would hesitate to match, [the psychologizer] ascribes to his victims any motivation that suits his purpose, ignoring their denials. Since he is dealing with the great "unknowable" - which used to be life after death or extrasensory perception, but is now man's subconscious - all rules of evidence, logic and proof are suspended, and anything goes (which is what attracts him to his racket)."

I'll ask again: by what means and methods, other than those already identified, would you use to rationally identify another man's subconscious?

--

Let me provide one other quote from Ms. Rand's essay:

"In dealing with people, one necessarily draws conclusions about their characters, which involves their psychology, since every character judgment refers to a man's consciousness. But it is a man's subconscious and his psychopathology that have to be left alone, particularly in moral evaluations."(all emphasis in originals)

[Brian Smith 0]

Even though you might not have meant this statement literally, I would like to take it that way for the sake of exploration.

You are correct. It was not meant literally. It was meant to indicate that these are the only sources from which we can draw conclusions about a man (since we are not directly privy to the contents of a man's mind, as we are our own).

To give you an idea of what I was trying to get across with the quote above, let me quote Ms. Rand again (from the same article) who invariable states things better than I do:

"An individual's consciousness, as such, is inaccessible to others; it can be perceived only by means of its outward manifestations. It is only when mental processes reach some form of expression in action that they become perceivable (by inference) and can be judged. "

And, of course, man is capable of inference. In fact inference is one of the tools of the psychology specialist. That is not in question. What is in question is the specific context of knowledge required to draw valid inferences. A man may draw inferences all day long- in any field of endeavor. But merely having drawn them does not make them valid.

Put simply, anecdotal evidence is not a standard. Such a standard can only be provided by the science of psychology (in the context previously described).