Prof. Dr.Mejame Ejede Charley
Visiting Research Fellow
Central European University
Budapest. Hungary.

                                           MORAL JUDGMENT AND BEING.

                                            Prof. Dr. Mejame Ejede Charley


We have the tendency to judge and condemn others, as we are also prompt in judging and condemning ourselves .It is an almost irrepressible movement which is translated by formulas of the kind: ''it is not right'', ''it is evil'', ''you ought to be ashamed''.That is what is termed moralizing someone. But what authorizes such a moral judgment? To judge morally we must necessarily compare what is with a representation of what ought to be. Whoever judges morally and pronounces a condemnation, denounces what is, starting from what ought to be. Conversely, when we are satisfied with the adequation we go from condemnation to identification. It is sometimes said ''yes, it is really very good'' in order to flatter someone in his character as we do to ourselves regarding self-flattery. We can also go from identification to condemnation in an impulsive way. I find something ''very good'', I praise someone to the skies and the day after I am wholly capable of detesting and condemning what I loved and has disappointed me. In the final analysis, curiously, by judging morally, we believe in assuming a position of an incontrovertible moral authority. Whoever condemns is often sure of him-self or her-self, knowing what is good and what is evil. He or she is therefore often taken aback when he is judged in turn. Generally, we spend our time judging others but we dread being judged.
We all have one day or the other received the advice of not judging, especially when we do not know. We all know what prejudices represent, what wrongs they might cause. We even ought to know when to guard against them. Moral violence is often expressed in hard words which are only a translation of moral judgment.
The kernel of the problem, radically, is to exceptionally know if it makes any sense in morally judging what is. To what extent can moral judgment be founded on reality? How do we know that a thing is ''good'' or ''bad''? Do good and evil really exist in things which we could feel authorized in declaring that this or that is good and evil? This paper explores moral judgment and Being on the following frame work: primo, moral judgment and its structure; Segundo, good and evil within Being; tertio, our lofty choices and our inconsistency.





Moral judgment and its structure

From a logical point of view, there are two types of judgments:

-Judgments of facts such as:
The drawer is stuck
The sky is clear today

Judgments of value such as:
Treatments inflicted on women in Africa are contemptible

The difference between the first and the second is considerable. Fact judgment can be accepted in axiological neutrality of its point of view: it does not contain evaluation either in good or evil. It states what is and presents itself as an observation. However, it takes no brains or it requires little to get out of judgment of facts toward an evaluation. It suffices that the intention stating it envelops reprobation.
The drawer is stuck again! Understood as it ought to be. But who stuck the drawer? It is it that is at fault. The sky is clear again today. But when will it therefore rain? It is to be inferred that it is not good that it be so, it ought to be otherwise. It ought to have rained. The change from observation to judgment is very swift, sometimes, it is only introduced in the tone of the voice and it remains undetectable in expression as such. But the change undergone is considerable, for it is no longer a question of knowing but that of evaluating. Value judgments are principally of two kinds: aesthetic value and moral value. In the prevailing relativism that is ours we easily admit that aesthetic value depends on an appreciation that is varied from one individual to the other and cannot have any absolute character. “Beautiful”, “ugly”, “horrible” etc., are terms that enter aesthetic judgments whose relative character we easily admit; “de gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum”.On the other hand, the situation is more complex regarding moral judgments.

     When we blame someone for something, it is believed that he has failed in his duty and the most bitter way of dealing with the reproach is that of taking the fault for a fact. We give to our moral judgments an absolute character and an incontrovertible authority. When we judge morally we judge from above: “He has left the key hanging again and has forgotten it on the table” is not an observation, it is a moral judgment. It is not good to have done it, what an incompetent person!”. “The key of the entrance door is on the table of the kitchen” is an observation. It is neutral. It is pronounced with neutrality, it does not say that it is not good, it is simply.
Judging morally is not to take note of a fact, as well as understanding but to condemn. It is always a question of evaluation and not one of observation. Observation as such preserves an axiological neutrality, whereas moral judgment is not. What happens then in moral judgment? We introduce a comparison between what is and what ought to be. Being is judged on the basis of what ought to be, whatever the moral system that is used as a referent point. That matters less. What is of interest to us here is its structure. And it is in this comparison that is born the idea that a thing, a person, a state of fact, a behavior is “ good” or “bad”.


      All morality proposes prescriptions that are so much of criteria of good and evil. Judging morally is comparing a state of fact with the prescriptions of morality. If the state of fact does not correspond to prescribed moral standards and is opposed to them, judgment in terms of evil is applied. If it is a question of behavior governed by a code of duty, a deontology, we talk of a fault. If the state of fact corresponds to the prescribed moral code, it is said: “ very good as that”. If my religious moral standard states that eating pork is evil and that pork is proposed to my children’s dining hall, I will be led to say “it is scandalous; we ought to have been given a choice”. If my lay moral code says that the school must remain out of all proselytism, I will be shocked by the claim of young girls wearing veils in school premises. I will also be ready to question the wearing of the Christian crucifix. We all have biases about what ought to be.

     We have our ideals, we have our beliefs, we have our ought to be, our expectations. We always judge morally in terms of good and evil. It seems I do not notice the imperative character of my exigencies. I can deny having a “moral code” or moral principles; but most often it is an empty affirmation which immediately contradicts itself in the fact that I do not cease from blaming, judging, from expressing my rebellion, from condemning. Implicitly that implies that I have an idea of what ought to be., a norm, that warrants my condemning what is. It is according to this comparison that I am warranted to judge morally, if not I would not do it.
In that, moral judgment is a specifically human characteristic which has meaning to man only and should be extended to the realm of Nature. I would never have an idea of morally judging a sparrow that has just settled on a drainpipe by saying it is “good” or “it is not good” in doing so. An earthquake is a natural phenomenon that results from certain causes. In such wise, it makes no sense in reproaching nature for having made the earth to shake by saying that “ it is not good”. To imagine that what occurs in Nature is a punishment from God is of the same order. Rain falls equally on the just and on the wicked. We do not have to project our evaluations of good and evil on Nature. We will not reproach or reprimand a cat for catching a bird by moralizing it in saying to it “it is not good”. The cat in this case does not apply any moral system on its behavior. It follows its instinct. Blaming the cat will therefore mean we are expecting the cat to reason as we do expect man to do. The domain of moral judgment only make sense when we bring it back to the human context. We feel that a human being is not an animal and could surpass the pressures of the instinct. And follows moral rules. If he does not and that on the other hand the society demands that he renders satisfaction to his obligations for an authentically human life to be possible, he is therefore at fault. Man’s greatness lies in his having a built in a libre arbitre,in his ability to choose according to something, according to the evaluation of good and evil, therefore of morality. This libre arbitre as such cannot be conceded to an animal and we think that it has no choice and can only follow the natural law. Actually, we place so high the exigencies we put on man. It is the reason why we easily condemn him for not being upright regarding what ought to be.


     Not only are moral judgments specifically human, but it is also inscribed in a precise cultural context. It is one of the rare observations which could be empirically founded as far as morality is concerned. We remark that people who belong to a culture (and who especially claim it) hold such and such a behavior or conduct A, B, C,, as reprehensible or the D,E,F conduct as morally admissible. But we also know that A, D,F can be admitted here and B,C,E, condemned elsewhere. It is forbidden in Africa to look at a chief straight in the face. Decency requires that one bows down before the chief. In China eating a dog or cat is permitted. Whereas in the West it is entirely reprehensible. We can multiply examples ad infinitum which attest that what is admitted in the manners of a society can be rejected in the manners of another society. Relativism as far as good and evil are concerned is not a doctrine from this point of view, it is an indubitable statement of fact. Belonging to a culture straightaway inclines us to judge in a certain way and also to feel as being judged for the same reasons. It does not mean we are not disposed of a critical distance and that for all that morality is exclusively social.

     I can very well live in a bullfighting country and find this kind of show scandalous. That is to say, that I am very sensitive, that I have compassion for the suffering animal, or that I have principles that are different from those which are commonly welcome. If we admit the second point of view, we recognize that moral judgment is a personal position and not only collective. What remains debatable is that it is in a social context that judgment of the reprehensible kind is most virulent. It is only via external pressure that shame and culpability can be explained for example. We are not dealing with ethics, with empirical judgments. It does not depend on a state of fact, on verification. In Kant’s terms, a judgment that is not empirical is said to be a priori, which means outside all reference to experience. For Kant, possible experience is the key to truth; but the criterion of possible experience is only worth in the order of objective truth and the judgment constituting it. In the scientific order it is not applicable to moral judgment. We cannot invoke an empirical fact in confirmation of a judgment according to which an act should be good or bad. It is one of the reasons in which the judgment that says that A or C is “bad” cannot ring as evidence.


     Let us note in this regard that the ancient thinkers where not raising the question of ethics in these terms. For Aristotle, in Nichomachean Ethics. The word ethics refers to the investigation of éthé, which are in fact, the qualities of character, vices and virtues which predispose a man to do good or evil. The just, virtuous, generous, good man and friend, here is what is Aristotle’s basic ethical investigation. Aristotle, as such was concerned with moral education in a very concrete sense in the training of character. This does not correspond to the contemporary meaning of ethics. As a result, we do not understand the depth of Aristotle on this point. In Latin, the Greek word èthikos was translated as moralis, and indeed, the term mores means custom, habits, what is still similar to Aristotle, but still remains far from a study of the foundations of the rectitude of moral judgment. And yet this is what continues to preoccupy ethics from Kant. Kant refuses an appeal to moral sensibility which he found in Rousseau and he does not take into account the importance of predispositions as Aristotle did. Kant decides to seek a moral foundation solely in practical reason. Reason alone is the basis of the rectitude of moral conduct in duty. Practical reason he explains, determines my will according to the maxims by which I authorize my act or not. The decisive trait of this moral interrogation is to ask if an authorization can be applied at the universal level, it can have an objective impact or not. If I authorize myself to steal from a supermarket, the examination of this maxim will reveal to me that it is a principle that contradicts itself as soon as we seek to universalize it. It is not incompatible with a coherent and responsible society.

     The judgment that evaluates such a conduct ways the intentions therein and can then declare it immoral. Kant feels that everyman, by appealing to his reason, is capable of defining the meaning of duty for the latter imposes itself in an imperative obligation: “you ought to!” the categorical imperative. The sole fact of elevating the maxim of my action at the universal level (and if everyone did it as much what will happen?) can easily confirm whether yes or no my judgment has a rectitude or if it is not. From the moment I only follow my interest, and not reason, I inevitably corrupt the fundamental rational principle of conduct, by introducing a quest for personal satisfaction.

     This is not compatible with the strict sense of duty. We can hence definitely judge immoral and in principle make a promise which we know we cannot hold, to lie, being unfaithful, etc. It is needless taking into account the situation of experience of the subject itself, since the judgment that declares that the immorality of an act is purely formal. The Kantian analysis of duty reinforces the intransigence as far as moral judgment is concerned. And as, Kant shares the idea that by virtue of original sin, man can in no circumstances attain the state of saintly will(God alone has a holy will), man can only tender toward morality, as toward an ideal without never attaining it. Clearly speaking we can only bitterly notice that man is hardly upright and adds to the declaration of pessimism the judgment positing the immorality of our behavior. In this world no one is just and God alone is good. We can judge that there is evil in all human conducts without fear of error, for in every respect the purity of the intentions of someone can in no circumstances be verified.
It has been said that rectitude is what kills us. An affirmation that easily falls in the same line with the prolongation of Kant’s analysis.

Good and Evil within Being

Let us get back to moral judgment. Judging that “it is good” or “it is evil” is understood as an evaluation of what is. Supported on measure, on ought to be. But only judging what is on the angle of what ought to be is that pertinent ? Good and evil form a system of dual concepts which do not designate what is, but allows it to be thought in a relation. Can this relation be different from an evaluation of what we consider as good or bad, useful or harmful? Plus, do good/evil reside in the mind or do they link up in Being? Mental objects which are only in the understanding and not in Nature are called beings of reason. What Spinoza clearly formulates: “some things are within our understanding and not in Nature: they are thus only our own work and only serves at distinctly conceiving things”; these are beings of reason. “The question that poses itself; do good and evil belong to beings of reason or to real beings? But considering that good and evil are nothing other than relations; it is beyond doubt that we place them among beings of reason, for in no circumstances do we say that a thing is good, if not in relation to another thing that is not so good, or not so useful to us as others” …. “An apple is bad in relation to the other, which is good or bad”. If we withdraw the judgment of comparison, we abolish relation, and without relation we cannot know to talk about a thing it is good or bad and we can hardly judge. A thing is what it is, that is all; it is what it is; in its own singularity. In Being we cannot express the judgment of moral value. “A thing considered in isolation is neither good nor bad, but only in its relation to the other, to which it is useful or harmful for the acquisition of what it loves. And so everything can be termed good or bad in several respect and at the same time”; and consequently: “ absolutely bad things can hardly be found”; Good and bad are called so in a purely relative sense, and only the same thing being able to be called good or bad the aspect under which it is considered”. The venom of a snake a snake can kill, but it can also be a medicine. Stairs are generally good for health, however, to obsession it turns out to be a frenetic activity that has a neurotic character. Money can at the same be considered a factor for the corruption of life and also as a flux that is done in order for life to circulate in the social body.


     All in all, it would be worthwhile considering that things are relatively composed of good and evil. But looking closer, this formulation is no more sufficient. Firstly, all existing things are part of Nature and we can only divide and separate only in abstraction. Nature forms and indivisible totality or whole cohering on itself at every moment. Nature supports existence of every event which appears within it. It is the first cause of which all movement in the Becoming can be located and identified as an effect. Being a question of any entity the idea of which we can have; We have to locate its existence within Nature to declare that it exists. Are good and evil existing objects? “ “All things that are in Nature are neither things nor effects. Now good and evil are neither things, nor effects. Therefore, as well, good and evil do not exist in Nature”. There exist only the processes of causality, events, the configuration of events and things we encounter in experience. It is all that we qualify in the good/evil duality. We call a thing “good” for it serves our desires, whether trivial or elevated, and we represent as bad a thing which is opposed to it. It would suffice that our desires change for appreciation to be modified. It would suffice for a moment that we bracket the prescription of desire in order for the mental configuration of good/evil begins to change. This shifting of point of view is moreover a thing that frequently happens. “I thought that it was not good for that he makes this kind of choice, but now I realize that it was as good as that”. Events are exactly the same, what has changed is my evaluation that is no longer the same. Therefore, how were men able to talk about good and evil in absolute sense up to the point of believing that it is real and independent of their judgment? It is a point of view that the most elementary observation can however refute; but that religion is eager to reinforce it. What do we think when this word judgment is written with a capital letter? Moral judgment stuffed with religious weight, is the “last judgment”, “God’s judgment”, “the eye which in the tomb was looking at Cain”, “the finger of God pointing at man’s culpability” ! It is religion that has invented the absolute character of the duality of good/evil and for that, it has invented the opposition God/Devil, by dividing Totality.


     Is there a good that is not relative? Therefore what about the sovereign good philosophers since antiquity are telling us about? All the same is there a certain existence in spite of all? To the second question Spinoza responds in a clear way at the same time in the short treatise and in Ethics. What is the sovereign good? Man’s highest elevated aspiration is to live in the consciousness of his superior nature. “The sovereign good being arriving at rejoicing, with other individuals if he can, of this superior Nature. What is therefore this Nature? It is the knowledge the union of which the thinking soul has with the whole Nature”. The sovereign good as such is situated in the consciousness of unity. It transcends the relative opposition that the moral judgment establishes in the duality of good/evil and which is related to relative things or events. It does not conceive itself in the framework of the moralizing morality., in the sense in which we commonly understands it, but in spiritual knowledge, other wise said the sovereign good is situated not in the ought to be, but in Being. The sumum bonum supposes the unity of the whole.
Let us take up the question this time from a story related by S.Prajnanpad in his letters and which Dan Millman also takes up in his Pacific warrior:

      A man already aged was living in a firm not far from the village. He had only his son as a helper who was working with him in the firm. In the village, he was pitied: “it was unfortunate for living alone with your in order to do everything”. The man retorted: I do not know whether it is good or evil, that is, that is all”. A little while there after, his son went into the forest and met a wild horse. The horse allowed itself to be tamed and the son went with the horse him back to the firm in order for it assist in the firm. In the village, it is said: “ as you are lucky! It is good, you now have a helpmate”. The man replied: “ I do not know whether it is good or evil, that is, that is all”. Now, one day, the son while on horse riding, fell very badly this left very bad scars on him, he became lame. In the village it is said “how unfortunate that your only son has become impotent, it is a calamity for you”. The man replied: “ I do not know whether It is good or evil, it is, that is all”. But some years later, the king of this country waged a ferocious war against her neighbour.He sent emissaries all over, of which one in the village to request all the valid men and expedite to the war front. The world at large went save the son who was lame. In the village it is said: “as you are blessed with good luck, your son has remained, he can help you, ours are in war. The man said in response: “ I am not aware whether it is good or evil, it is, that is all”.
In this story, the village represents opinion. Opinion is prompt at judging on appearances. It says the fact of acquiring the horse is good. We see that. Then that the horse is evil. The acquisition of the horse was not a good. We see that this acquisition was only good at a certain time. This good was relative. The fall from the horse is bad in appearance, but in reality, it turns out that it was also a stroke of luck. We see the inconstancy of moral judgment founded on opinion. Then, where is the error-free appreciation? The veracious appreciation lies in the acceptance of what is as it is, without moral judgment. The villager alone is wise. When he says “it is”, he does not say anything faulty and he does not claim to know much. He abstains from qualifying good or evil what is. He admits that definitively, he does not know as to what is the solution of events and their course. The sage suspends his moral judgment and remains neutral. Neutrality is the only accurate position and even the only one in which right action is founded, for it is the supporting point of the acceptance of what is. It is only by taking things as they are that we can have a lucid focus and find an intelligent action.

       Lucidity does not consist in identifying oneself to what is to declare it, in a way of precipitating a good, nor condemning what by seeing in it evil. It is held in the in the middle: that is so and not other wise. I must know how to take things as they come, without any prior prejudice in terms of good and evil. Prejudice, in the eminently moral sense, judges in advance as far as evaluation is concerned in terms of good and evil and this evaluation is not knowledge in any case. It substitutes itself to knowledge and orientates action in a determined sense, which nothing other than reaction dictated by thinking, a reaction of aversion and of attraction. The mental therefore takes place in the desire/aversion duality and propels action into contraries. As soon as this impetus is given an emotional process follows: that of expectation and disappointment, of hope, fear, elation and depression or nervous breakdown. The subject is literally thrown into contraries generated by the duality posited by thought. The subject is as such pushed not by events as such but only by the idea it makes of it. Opinion passes from one state to the other, at times excited, then overcome, discerning praises and blames in all senses, in reality profoundly fallen into trouble. The sage remains detached. In the position of an impartial witness. He receives what life offers to him and responds to every situation of experience in a fault-free way, without coloring in advance the event in a judgment in terms of good and evil. He sees in the manifestation a play of differences.

     As S.Prajnanpad says: “nothing is entirely good or evil. There are only differences. The venom of a cobra can be mortal, and also saves lives in other therapeutic circumstances. Everything is relative, other wise said. Good and evil are relative. What is good for one is bad for the other. Every single thing is a mix of good and evil. Therefore accept reality as it expresses itself in duality and consequently adapt yourself”. This takes us back rightly to the fundamental teaching of stoicism: “what troubles men are not things, but the judgments they make on these things”. Thus death is nothing formidable, since it was not such even to Socrates. But the judgment we make on death by declaring it formidable, it is what that is formidable. When we are hence in a difficulty, in sadness, we do not blame others, but ourselves. Other wise said our own judgments. Accusing others of one’s misfortunes is the did of the ignorant. A man who denounces him-self is one who begins to instruct him-self; a man who accuses neither the other nor oneself is one who is perfectly well informed”. The ignoramus is one who allows himself to be trapped by his own judgments by taking them for reality. The sage is one who has understood that it is simplistic to condemn others and that he only has only himself to be denounced. The sage does not assign fault on anyone, not even on himself. He accepts what is and takes things as they happen. He abstains at the same time from condemning others as well as from criticizing himself. The ignorant thinks good and evil are in things, whereas the sage begins by understanding that good and evil are only in the judgment on things, the sage knows that and lives within Being, in conformity with self-knowledge. It is necessary, therefore, to always come back toward the self and understand that what does not depend on us, but depends on the course of things, can in no circumstances be qualified in terms of good and evil. “If you feel as good or as evil that one of the things that do not depend on us, by all necessity, when you do not obtain what you want and that you fall on what you do not want, you will criticize those you think they are responsible and you will hate them”. That is wrongly placing evil in the world, whereas there is none. As if it is found in it such as a target to be attained and that we reproached others for having aimed at it! “As the goal is not placed not to be attained, so evil does not exist in the world.


     From ignorance to wisdom is situated the way to freedom. Servitude consists in allowing oneself to be trapped by one’s own mental constructions, while holding to the illusions according to which we ought to have a perfect mastery on events. The ignorant is the ego that believes it is able to have a mastery of everything, which stamps his feet when things do not occur according to his whims and caprices. The ego, in ignorance, imagines having an absolute power over the other, over events and things. He takes his desires for reality. He takes his value his value judgments for the judgment of facts and he becomes narrowly dependent on them. The sage begins by understanding that we do not have absolute power over events, but only on ourselves and representations; and gradually this understanding becomes a second nature. The sage lives this understanding which has become his first nature, his state of consciousness in the Awakening.
The fundamental importance of Epictetus’ first article of the Manual: “there are things which depend on us; there are those which do not. What depend are our judgments, our tendencies, our desires, our aversions: I short all the works which belong to us. What does not depend on us, is our body, riches, celebrity, power: in a nutshell all the works which not depend on us”. Every single thing begins in judgment, because judgment is the master of representation. Events appear in the course of becoming, they enter into Being via the window of the present. As such, I have no control over the manifestation, on the contrary, Stoicism feels I can choose my response to what is. And this choice depends on judgment. The course of events is an exteriority, but this exteriority is in relation with the interiority by way of thinking. It is on this point of encounter that the first and decisive act is situated. Freedom consists for the self to dwell in itself and to remain firm and detached. Servitude is the fact of being thrown outside, to be taken by one’s own judgments and to hold tightly on the order of things which, in fact, do not belong to us. Events come and, creating situations in which celebrity, riches, power or their opposite. But what comes thus, also goes away and do not depend on me and has value such as I give to it. What depends on me, is the manner in which I live the experienced situation in which I find myself, for it integrally depends on my evaluation in terms of judgment. The same situation of experience can be lived in a diametrically opposite way if it is condemned, or if it is accepted. Every situation is an occasion to update wisdom or folly or madness. In itself, no situation is good or bad, it is, that is all, and all situations are temporary, for in the relative, nothing lasts indefinitely. Where is therefore the work that belongs to me? The work is my response to the provocation that life gives me at every moment. It is my creation. My response appears from what I am.

     What I am expresses itself in what I think. What I think takes shape in what I judge, what I judge predetermines what I say and what I say orientates what I do. Hence my first thought truly belongs to me and very well think consciously. Therefore beyond everything I cease from identifying myself with what in no way belongs to me. It is the only way for being free from the alienating influence of action.I have mastery only over action and not over its fruits, results. Attachment to the results, to the fruits of action and its results is ignorance and illusion. The ignorant is one in whom the processes that go from judgment to action revolves in an unconscious way, the ignorant is a victim of his own judgment because he has no knowledge of its fundamental processes. It is wrongly believed that in Stoicism it is a question of making a heroic “effort” of mastery, remaining stoical through the will, in the face of events. But this is erroneous. Mastery is based on consciousness, not on “effort”, it is based on thought or thinking. If detachment is obtained, there is no need of making an effort and detachment is obtained when we know how to make a difference at every moment between what depends on us and what does not depend on us. It is a question, but a repeated exercise, to surprise the mental in order that an illusory mental construction should not be born that is the cause of suffering.
We can judge morally only according to good and evil. Be that as it may good and evil are not objects, elements identifiable in Being, the attributes of Being, but only an established relation in a dual evaluation of human acts, according to the criteria of a particular morality. Talking of good and evil therefore makes no sense, as long as we do not precise as to the criterion retained and in which particular morality and from which point of view. Connecting the good/evil relation to a representation in good/bad, in rapport with what is good for a subject is a convenient generalization and which has the merit of taking moral judgment into account ab initio.It is very worth while never to mistake Being, that is what it is, beyond good and evil, for the ought to be which is a mental representation projected on Being.



Our most highly elevated choices and our inconsistency.

Now, what must appear in its acuity is the relevance of our choices and ends we are pursuing. If I declare aspiring to a sound life whereby vitality is a constant support for the expansion of consciousness, and that moreover I nourish myself with toxic and heavy substances and do not respect rest which my body needs, there will always be someone to make remarks on the pertinence of my choices: “absorbing these substances goes against our most elevated choices”. That in its kind is really a moral judgment, but rather than an observation. Saying the door of the garden is blocked and that access to the street is not possible does not constitute a moral judgment, but an observation. Saying to a person who, from Pretoria, takes the direction of Bulawayo, and intends to get to Cape Town that he is mistaken does not constitute a moral judgment, but an observation. Given our most elevated ends we claim we want to attain and on the other hand the choices we make, it is not a moral judgment in our remarking that we are taking an opposite direction from that which we claim to follow. Rather than talking in the vagueness of “good” and of “ evil” and finding oneself in the vagueness of these notions, it would be more sensible to examine in all lucidity as to what ends we expect in pursuing and what decisions we make in the perspective that is ours.
Every one of us decides what he does and justifies from the representation of the world that is his. Rigorously speaking, no one does anything evil, given his representation of the world. We do know what seems best to us. It is our point of view that is always limited. In the Middle Age, it was “good” to burn down people suspected of witchcraft. The collective representation justified the use of torture in this case. It would have been “bad” for the executioner not to do so.

      We no longer adhere to the representation of man which is that of the Middle Age. Our point of view has profoundly changed; our representation is different, because our ideals are different. This shifting makes us look at these practices as barbaric violence. It was not so long, the discourse on crusade was again one of justification, today we are ready to admit that it concerned violence tinged with heroism, based on religious ideology. Thus, our point of view reflects our ideals; and our representation, constructed on these ideals is in line with the frame work of the justifications of our actions in the world. We can deliberately change our point of view and adopt a highly elevated point of view. As far as moral judgments are concerned, disagreements come from different points of view, a point of view supporting each a different model of the representation of the world. As soon as, collectively, a culture questions what had been its past beliefs, its point of view is modified, and its model of the representation of the world changes automatically.
If we put aside the variations of relativism, sticking to the essential, the fundamental question that poses itself is this: What is our highest elevated idea of humanity? Other wise said: what are our highest elevated choices we would want to make for the future humanity? The term “elevated” is to be taken neither in a moralizing sense nor in the religious sense. It simply means: in the sense of a global promotion of life on earth. From the moment we have a clear consciousness of our most elevated choices; it is absolutely possible to observe if yes or no our present decisions contribute to them or whether they do not orient us to the opposite sense, that they are not at all functional, given our own model. If we choose to contribute to the establishment of peace on Earth, it should be out of place in reinforcing a sense of division, fueling conflicts by using nationalism and fundamentalism. That goes against our goals. If we hope that everywhere on Earth human dignity be respected and that human rights become incarnate the world over in the mode of life of human beings, it should be out of place to support despots who trample on them. If we hope for a green planet, if we hope that Nature gives us back its beauty via the care we are very well willing to give to it, we would not want to contribute to the destruction of the landscape and we will invent a new architecture capable of uniting in harmony the presence of man and Nature. If we wish to see the human being rise again against ignorance, to assert himself in his grandeur and in his intelligence, we will do nothing to encourage the stupefaction of the masses.

     We will not allow our own children to watch silly blunders or stupidity at the television for four hours a day. If we think the celebration of the body takes part in the expansion of life itself, in its lively joy, we will stop dosing or stuffing our children with sweets, noticing in a distressing way thereafter the obesity from which they are suffering. If we really hope that man becomes freer we will constantly invite him to think for himself, we will not encourage all the means of mental manipulations, even in the form of innocent appearance and publicity etc.We will see to it that the argument of authority does not kill intelligence and that no police of thinking can be installed in the media and exceptionally in education.
Observing that our decisions are inadequate in this case does not really constitute a moral judgment. The question is not to know whether it is “good” or “it is not good”, but to know whether such and such a decision really leads us where we desire to go; if we take a bad direction, “bad” here having a “non-functional” meaning and that is all.
The question is therefore that of being fully conscious of our most lofty choices and to put in harmony our acts with our own words. From this point of view there are good and bad decisions, there are intelligent and pertinent choices and stupid and irresponsible decisions. There is also inertia and resistance, the want of generosity, nobility. There is the impetus of love and enthusiasm. A heart that raises itself up, sometimes a revolution in the evolution of consciousness or processes of immobility, stagnation, alienation and destruction. The human being in his indefinable complexity in terms of good and evil. The human being tinkling on the cosmic organ of the laws of Nature and does not very well know how to play the melody of his future, but who all the same aspires that he will be more glorious than in the past.


     To a certain extent, we could almost in this sense admit the expression: “well done”, “badly done”, even if the formula is very confusing, on condition that we remain conscious of its content. All the same, in front of human acts it is more right to dwell on a well-informed observation, than camping in a outrage way, in the control of threatening maledictions, or that of vague and excessive moralization. What, once more, amounts to nothing. The discourse of goody-goody talking, sermonizing, preachifying and the incantations of a giver of lessons are not efficient. Culpability has never been a good counselor. What we need is the understanding as to where our errors are, to understand as to where we have taken a wrong path, to decide rapidly and in a new way, to change our point of view. Do not judge then, but help to understand. It is our beliefs which are the cause of our behaviors, if we wish to change our behaviors it is necessary that we change our beliefs and the latter depend narrowly on our knowledge. Knowledge is at the basis of action. Thus, acting so much from true knowledge, rather than from the basis of erroneous opinions or from fragmentary thinking. Especially, we must cease from positing judgments of values. Truth alone can redress the error. It is only on the rational terrain that we can understand ourselves.

    For that, it is necessary that we observe closer our way of acting and those we can see in what it more often contradicts our most elevated aspirations. Since the dawn of time, we have never lacked aspirations, but we are inconsistent. Humanity has given itself the dreams of great utopias. It has sometimes tasted promises, but without sufficiently corresponding to his highest elevated choices, the most right decisions. If we were to interpret that in a moralizing way, we would say here: we have also often been sinuous, vain, and hypocritical and liars. But what would be the point of such moral judgment? To undermine all confidence. To shatter all impetus.
Let us abandon judgments of value and lay emphasis on the observation of what is. It is comprehension that is fundamental above all. The understanding of the true nature of life, the understanding of men as they are and not such as we would want them to be. There is no such thing as the existence of the ideal man. The ideal man does not exist. Perhaps it is even an internal contradiction. There are real men, with their uncertainties, their limits, their weaknesses, errors, their ignorance and this interior fire motivates their giving the best of themselves, but also their confusions, and their darkness and light.As the chorus in Sophocles’ Antigones underlines, there is greatness in man, but there is a difficulty of being human, the slow progression of the human adventure. This simplicity which renders the human being deeply so moving. Demanding, by means of moral judgments, from the real man that he be ideal is profoundly very cruel. He is what he is. Neither good, nor bad. In the relative world, nothing is absolute. Men are what they are. Men are what they are, they are perfect even in their imperfection, and they are perfect in their unique and in their incomparable original singularity. He who condemns men in the name of the ideal man and spreads in moral judgments, does not love human beings as they are, because he does not understand them. He has placed the ought to be in the place of Being. He demands much and it is his bitterness which tells him men are never upright. It is from here that he draws his critical ferocity. But this tyrannical demand is based on an error.

     The error of measuring Being on the angle of the ought to be. The better we understand a person and the less we are allowed to judge him. A mother who loves his child does not judge him. She welcomes him in order to give him a new impetus and the new impetus repairs and construct more than acerbic criticisms. Love does not pronounce judgment and does not show a mistake with a finger. It is the chopping intellect which points a finger of condemnation and plants moral judgment.
A moral judgment, which falls like a blade and nothing, is sharp edged in the body of the soul than constant damnation. In the context of deontology, it receives its entire justification, as a professional mistake. On the contrary with reference to an ought to be, in a very general way, its justification is much more vague. A value judgment is not a fact judgment; it confirms itself in the intention of he who pronounces it. It is not based on knowledge. Good and evil do not exist in an absolute way. What is, dwells in neutrality.
Because a human being disposes of a libre arbitre, he must choose and choosing supposes an evaluation that we direct toward what seems good to us, to avoid what seems evil to us. Good and evil are not exactly in things. There is no etiquette stuck on either sides; announcing “good” and on the other “evil”. Looking for etiquette is deluding oneself. Life is not an exercise whereby it is about checking a good hut, the solution of the problem having been posited in advance. What is wrong is precisely a dual representation. There are our choices which proceed from the idea of what seems desirable to us, there is action. No action is without a consequence. It is not a question of good/evil, but the process at work in Nature. What we sincerely desire is that our actions contribute to the realization of our most highly elevated choices. In that we can easily deceive ourselves and take a wrong path. Rectifying a decision, recreating de nouveau a choice, is not exactly the question of good/evil, but the realization of the highly elevated end that we can propose to ourselves. It is above all about matching our acts with our most elevated choices and in that case understand in direct observation that there are conducts which do not lead to the direction to which we desire to go.


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