Robby George on the Question of Judging One Another

[Thanks much to Robby for this, in response to my post.]

Dear Michael:

May I venture some thoughts on the questions you posed about judging positions without judging persons holding the positions?  You ask:

Can we disagree with one another, sometimes fundamentally about important issues (the morality of same-sex unions, e.g., or the prudence of using the criminal law in this society at this time, to deal with the moral tragedy of abortion), without our "judging" one another--judging the position, yes, but not one another? Should we even aspire to do so?

The answers, I think, are "yes" and "yes."  "Yes" we can; and "yes" we should.

On the question whether we should aspire to avoid judging others, we have an express teaching from the highest of all authorities.  Jesus's command that we "judge not" (lest we ourselves be judged) is recorded in St. Matthew's Gospel.  On the question whether it is possible to fulfill the command, it seems to me that Jesus would not give us a command if it is impossible (even with God's grace) to comply with it. Obviously it is challenging command, because our emotions, and not just our rational faculties, are inevitably engaged when we argue and debate--especially when our arguments and debates concern profound issues of right and wrong.  But I suppose that is just the way things are in this vale of tears.  So we must all do out best, and try to support each other--across the lines of division--in doing it.

But things do get dicey when we think about extreme cases.  Let's use the standard example, and consider Hitler.  He advocated, then committed, genocide.  We rightly judge that to be unspeakably wicked.  In doing so, do we not judge Hitler himself to be unspeakably wicked?   I've always found this a bit puzzling.  Surely we cannot avoid judging Hitler to be a genocidal murderer.  That's what he was; there is no way around it.  Surely we would, and should, have supported punishing him for his crimes, had the allied forces captured him at the end of World War II.  But Jesus's command is categorical.  There is no "except in the case of . . . " clause in Matthew 7:1.   There is, then, some meaningful sense in which we are not supposed to judge even Hitler. What could that sense be?

Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council teaches that "God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts; for that reason he forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone."  But, of course, we do make judgments of guilt in the context of the criminal justice system, and plainly the fathers of the Council are not enjoining us against doing so.  As I said, certainly we could legitimately have supported trying and punishing Hitler for genocide, just as we punished his collaborators and henchmen.  So, again, what does "not judging" mean?

Well, one thing it means, I suppose, is that we must recognize that it is not for us to judge the ultimate condition of anyone's soul -- even Hitler's.  That's God's job, and we must not purport to usurp it.  The Church teaches solemnly and authoritatively that no one -- not even the Pope -- can say whether any particular human individual -- even Hitler -- is damned.  As Germain Grisez puts it, commenting on Matthew 7:1 and Gaudium et Spes 28, "perhaps, due to invincible ignorance or lack of freedom, they are not internally guilty; perhaps they are."  At the same time, plainly we sometimes have an obligation to defend what we believe are moral truths, even if in defending them we offend those who believe and act contrary to them.

Of course, Hitler was not a person of goodwill.  The kinds of disputes that prompted your question are disagreements among people of goodwill.  It is a lot easier to avoid judging people when one acknowledges that--however misguided one judges their positions to be--they are people who are sincerely seeking the truth and trying to act in accordance with it.  This in itself provides a certain kind of "common ground" between the interlocutors.  And it generates certain norms of conduct for them.  Above all, I think, there is a norm of reciprocity which requires debaters to treat each other with civility and respect.

I published a piece in the Harvard Law Review a few years ago in which I explored the application of this norm in the context of great moral debates in our national history, especially the debate over slavery in the 19th century and abortion in our own time. What I wrote has direct relevance, I believe, to the questions you have posed:

"People ought to respect the principle of reciprocity whenever they find themselves in disagreement with people of goodwill, regardless of whether they find the position (or even the arguments) advanced by such people to be worthy of respect.  It is not the worthiness of a position (or argument) that makes this principle applicable.  Rather, it is a matter of respecting people's reasonableness (even when they are defending a view that one can only judge to be fundamentally unreasonable) and their goodwill (even when they are defending practices and policies that one can only judge to be gravely unjust or in some other way immoral).  By observing the principle of reciprocity in moral and political debate, one is not necessarily indicating respect for a position (which one perhaps reasonably judges to be so deeply immoral as to be unworthy of respect), but for the reasonableness and goodwill of the person who, however misguidedly, happens to hold that position.  The point of observing the requirements of reciprocity is to fulfill one's obligations in justice to one's fellow citizens who are, like oneself, attempting to think through the moral question as best they can."

Now this analysis raises a question about how it is that reasonable people of goodwill can embrace policies and practices that are profoundly unjust or immoral.  That turns out to be a very complicated question, indeed.  As a brute matter of fact, however, it is all too easy for any of us to fall into moral error; and our basic reasonableness and even our goodwill cannot provide a guarantee that we won't.  Most of us (at least those of us who are not black) imagine that we would have been abolitionists in the days of slavery; yet the truth is that only a few of us actually would have been.  How could otherwise decent people--folks very much "like us"--have supported so horrific an evil? I offer some reflections on that, and on the question of how reasonable people of goodwill can today support abortion, in the Harvard Law Review article I mentioned.  Citation:  110 Harv. L. Rev. 1388-1406 (1997).

Best wishes,

Robby