Who Am I to Judge?

Who am i to judge is a very common rhetoric. This rhetorical question often suggest that we are in no position to judge. Are we in no position to judge anyone? Are we in no position to judge anything? Do we lack the ability to give judgement?

Or are humans just afraid of judgement, therefore we make a contract with others to refrain from giving judgement as to prevent getting judged?

Who am i to judge? I am a man with the faculties given by nature or otherwise to make judgement. Is judgement not an important defining characteristic of our species? Do we not judge everything that we observe? Do we not give judgement to make sense of the world, to categorize things? Is saying that an apple is red not a form of judgement? Or claiming that the square root of negative one is an imaginary number a prejudice against the number negative one? Are we not racist in classifying numbers into real, imaginary, irrational, or prime (argh.. those prime nazis, calling themselves the prime)? What is wrong with judgement? Is it not a defining characteristic for us?

Other forms of judgement may be seen as more taboo to humans? Judgement regarding truth may be acceptable to most humans as truth is so remote to us or just a fairy tale as they often imply. But judgement regarding ethics, or the good? Who are we to say what is good and what is bad? Well, do we not have the ability to judge goodness just as we have the ability to judge truth, is our moral centers in the brain not just as reliable as our logical ones? Well for those who believe in a form of natural law (moral law, that is) the good is just a form of the true, what is ethical is rational. For those who believe that they are two separate things, well we still have the ability to discern both albeit independently. For those who believe that there is no truth, there is no morals as my friend once said "the truth of their mothers being human is a matter of opinion then, they should accept if i disagree with them." and of course to these people they cannot judge. Or can they? Are they not more free to judge? For there will be no objective judgement from them that can judge their judgement? Do we not have the right to judge what is good and what is bad? Do we not have an obligation to advise our fellow men of what is right and what is wrong, if we are true to our natural capacity to judge and beliefs?

Judgement regarding beauty is the most controversial. Simply because of this, they do not want to be objectively judged as ugly? Maybe i am the first suggest this, may be i should not as my friend once wrote "Do not offend the common contemporary people." But are we that weak that being called ugly can offend our being? Do we not judge the sunset as absolutely beautiful, then we must have an idea of what is absolutely ugly? Should we humble ourselves to that sunset anyway? Do we really have no capacity to judge beauty?

Who am i to judge? I am a man.