I don’t understand. Most vegans believe buying animal products is immoral, which implies they believe people who do are acting immorally. I’m not sure what else judgement could mean. (Maybe “expresses this”?)
Edit: This is copied from my comment in the thread, I should have written it at the start.
To elaborate more, I’d be confused in the same way by this labeling of, e.g., someone who opposed historical slavery but wasn’t loud about their beliefs every time they encountered it. Like, to me the central case of “A judges B” is “A thinks B is not living up to moral standards to the degree it’s reasonable to expect/hope others to”.
I think vegans are quiet about their beliefs for reasons that are usually not “they don’t actually think it’s that bad for others to eat animals.” I think the reasons are usually things like, “it wouldn’t help to speak up right now,” “they’d just mock me,” etc.
This is one of those things where there’s a lot of space between the central example of something and peripheral members, and the equivocation causes a lot of stress.
The central example of being judgmental involves being loud about the other person being bad in full generality, for whatever thing you’re judging. Making a judgement about a particular action, quietly, while still fully respecting the other party as a person doing the best they can, is a peripheral example of being judgmental.
Sometimes people confuse the latter for the former, or feel entitled to the judger’s good opinion on every aspect of themselves. Sometimes they aren’t confused but use confusing phrasing to get people on their side.
The below is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of dictionary definitions being helpful here.
This seems like one of those definitions that says little because it refers back to the base word (in this case “judge”). What does this actually mean? The link defines “judge” as “to form a negative opinion about”. I’m not sure what “characterized by a tendency (to form a negative opinion about) harshly” would mean. Replacing “harshly” with its dictionary definitions only makes things worse: whether a belief is “excessively critical or negative” is relative to one’s beliefs; some would label the belief “buying animal products is morally similar to buying things produced with slave labor” as “excessively critical or negative”, while others wouldn’t. “unduly severe in making demands”—same thing with “unduly severe”, also an “opinion” itself doesn’t make demands.
(Also, there’s the question of if “characterized by a tendency” means “as an intrinsic personal quality”, or if “consistently as conclusions of one moral idea” counts)
Therefore you don’t understand what Elizabeth meant by saying that most vegans are not judgemental.
You would like to understand what Elizabeth meant.
I tried to help you understand by pointing out that the relevant definition of judgemental specifies harsh judgement, and most vegans do not judge harshly. From context that is what I think Elizabeth meant.
Good luck with your quest for understanding. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help.
In my comment, (1) was ~”most vegans believe others are acting immorally.” The same isn’t true of OP’s other examples, like polygamists.
To elaborate more, I’d be confused in the same way by this labeling of, e.g., someone who opposed historical slavery but wasn’t loud about their beliefs every time they encountered it. Like, to me the central case of “A judges B” is “A thinks B is not living up to moral standards to the degree it’s reasonable to expect/hope others to”.
I think vegans are quiet about their beliefs for reasons that are usually not “they don’t actually think it’s that bad for others to eat animals.” I think the reasons are usually things like, “it wouldn’t help to speak up right now,” “they’d just mock me,” etc.
I don’t understand. Most vegans believe buying animal products is immoral, which implies they believe people who do are acting immorally. I’m not sure what else judgement could mean. (Maybe “expresses this”?)
Edit: This is copied from my comment in the thread, I should have written it at the start.
This is one of those things where there’s a lot of space between the central example of something and peripheral members, and the equivocation causes a lot of stress.
The central example of being judgmental involves being loud about the other person being bad in full generality, for whatever thing you’re judging. Making a judgement about a particular action, quietly, while still fully respecting the other party as a person doing the best they can, is a peripheral example of being judgmental.
Sometimes people confuse the latter for the former, or feel entitled to the judger’s good opinion on every aspect of themselves. Sometimes they aren’t confused but use confusing phrasing to get people on their side.
The relevant meaning of judgemental from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/judgmental is “characterized by a tendency to judge harshly”.
Most vegans (and most non-vegans) are not characterized by a tendency to judge harshly.
The below is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of dictionary definitions being helpful here.
This seems like one of those definitions that says little because it refers back to the base word (in this case “judge”). What does this actually mean? The link defines “judge” as “to form a negative opinion about”. I’m not sure what “characterized by a tendency (to form a negative opinion about) harshly” would mean. Replacing “harshly” with its dictionary definitions only makes things worse: whether a belief is “excessively critical or negative” is relative to one’s beliefs; some would label the belief “buying animal products is morally similar to buying things produced with slave labor” as “excessively critical or negative”, while others wouldn’t. “unduly severe in making demands”—same thing with “unduly severe”, also an “opinion” itself doesn’t make demands.
(Also, there’s the question of if “characterized by a tendency” means “as an intrinsic personal quality”, or if “consistently as conclusions of one moral idea” counts)
I read your prior comment as saying:
Vegans make moral judgments
Therefore all vegans are judgemental
Therefore you don’t understand what Elizabeth meant by saying that most vegans are not judgemental.
You would like to understand what Elizabeth meant.
I tried to help you understand by pointing out that the relevant definition of judgemental specifies harsh judgement, and most vegans do not judge harshly. From context that is what I think Elizabeth meant.
Good luck with your quest for understanding. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help.
In my comment, (1) was ~”most vegans believe others are acting immorally.” The same isn’t true of OP’s other examples, like polygamists.
To elaborate more, I’d be confused in the same way by this labeling of, e.g., someone who opposed historical slavery but wasn’t loud about their beliefs every time they encountered it. Like, to me the central case of “A judges B” is “A thinks B is not living up to moral standards to the degree it’s reasonable to expect/hope others to”.
I think vegans are quiet about their beliefs for reasons that are usually not “they don’t actually think it’s that bad for others to eat animals.” I think the reasons are usually things like, “it wouldn’t help to speak up right now,” “they’d just mock me,” etc.