Sins of Judgment

by Julien Combray (October 2017)

The Witches lead Macbeth to his demise in Macbeth and the Armed Head by Fuseli.

 

 

The impediments to judgment today are many. The most prominent ones, at least the ones I encounter most frequently, are on the one hand the fervid belief in freedom and equality, and on the other hand a disbelief in any meaningful concept of human nature. These views are in some sense connected, in some sense at odds. For if one denies the existence of human nature, of a natural good for man, then perhaps it follows that all people should be equally free to pursue their own personal idea of the good. Yet if human beings are truly equal, they must be equal with respect to some enduring characteristics native to all men, and thus there must be some meaningful standard by which they can be measured.
 

Belief in the fundamental equality of men is, as everyone knows, a cardinal virtue of our time. To question the legitimacy of this virtue, or even the legitimacy of the different ways it manifests itself in society, is to reveal yourself as a potential enemy of the people. Being an enemy of the people was always dangerous, of course, but a people armed with Twitter presents a new species of danger. If a mob of people wanted to pillory you (or worse) in the past, they were at least forced to leave their sofas. Tweeting demands no such efforts. Should you be famous enough (or your transgressions egregious enough) to begin trending on Twitter then it is already too late, for voices are added exponentially as more people become aware of the trend. Suddenly it can appear as if an entire country is united in an impassioned condemnation of this person or that event when in reality, a lot of people simply clicked the same button. Surely such a power is dangerous, to say nothing of the way that the process misrepresents the relative importance of various issues. Faced with a fear of reputational death by a thousand clicks, many choose to keep any doubts or reflections on this subject to themselves.
 

In the absence of such reflection, we have the habit of extending the belief in equality into all aspects of life. Such a habit results not only from an eagerness for neat solutions in areas of great ambiguity, but also from a desire for the feelings of moral grandiosity on the cheap. These feelings, historically the reserve of those willing to endure some degree of self-abnegation, are apparently obtainable by the application of principles to cases where they obviously do not apply. The process works something like this: take your egalitarian principle and apply it indiscriminately, then feel the tension between the universal ideal and the particular instances of reality, and in forcing yourself to believe the former despite evidence to the contrary contained within the latter, you will feel you have won a great struggle in the name of justice. In an age which takes so few moral problems seriously, such opportunities are understandably coveted.
 

To illustrate what I have in mind, perhaps it would be helpful to provide an example, one both comical and instructive. I was recently engaged in a discussion with someone about mundane subjects when suddenly the conversation turned to morality. The person with whom I was speaking, well-educated and quite canny in his professional life, brought up the example of bestiality. We both agreed the activity was at least morally questionable, and I asked him on what grounds he objected to it. His response left me nonplussed at the time, though I have since found the appropriate response in laughter: he said that it is immoral to copulate with an animal because the animal cannot consent. Any questions?
 

 

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Julien Combray works reluctantly for a French investment bank. He was educated in America and briefly considered a career in academia before abandoning the idea for no apparent reason. He writes on subjects of philosophy and western culture and can often be found taking two hour lunch breaks in cafes throughout London. 

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