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Judgement (orjudgment)[1] is theevaluation of given circumstances tomake a decision or form anopinion. It may also refer to the result of such an evaluation, or to the ability of someone to make good judgements.[2]
In an informal context, a judgement may refer to an opinion expressed asfact. In logic, judgements assert the truth ofstatements. In the context of a legaltrial, a judgement is a final finding, statement or ruling, based on evidence, rules and precedents, calledadjudication (seeJudgment (law)). In the context ofpsychology, judgment informally references the quality of a person'scognitive faculties and adjudicational capabilities, typically calledwisdom. In formal psychology, judgement and decision making (JDM) is a cognitive process by which individuals reason, make decisions, and form opinions and beliefs.[3][4]
Inlaw, ajudgment is adecision of acourt regarding the rights and liabilities of parties in a legal action or proceeding.[5][6] Judgments also generally provide the court's explanation of why it has chosen to make a particularcourt order.[7]
Speakers ofBritish English tend to use the term at the appellate level as synonymous withjudicial opinion.[8]American English speakers prefer to maintain a clear distinction between theopinion of an appellate court (setting forth reasons for the disposition of an appeal) and thejudgment of an appellate court (the pronouncement of the disposition itself).[8]
InCanadian English, the phrase "reasons for judgment" is often used interchangeably with "judgment," although the former refers to the court's justification of its judgment while the latter refers to the finalcourt order regarding the rights and liabilities of the parties.[9]
The term "judgment" derives fromLatiniudicare ("to judge"), enteringEnglish via theOld French termjugement around the 13th century. It initially defined both legal trials andeschatological concepts likeJudgment Day. InEnglish law, judgments began as medievalwrits that evolved to court decisions, which was interspersed with gradual inventions likesummary judgment, which originated in 19th-centuryequity courts to resolve undisputed debt claims efficiently. These were later codified in systems like theU.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938). This mechanism allows the dismissal of meritless claims.[10][11][12]
Incognitive psychology (and related fields likeexperimental philosophy,social psychology,behavioral economics, orexperimental economics), judgement is part of a set of cognitive processes by which individuals reason, make decisions, and form beliefs and opinions (collectively, judgement and decision making, abbreviated JDM). This involves evaluating information, weighing evidence, making choices, and coming to conclusions. Judgements are often influenced bycognitive biases,heuristics, prior experience, social context, abilities (e.g.,numeracy, probabilistic thinking), and psychological traits (e.g., tendency towardanalytical reasoning). In research, theSociety for Judgment and Decision Making is an international academic society dedicated to the topic; they publish the peer-reviewed journalJudgment and Decision Making.
Research byDaniel Kahneman andAmos Tversky in the 1970s and 1980s identifiedpsychological heuristics, such as theavailability heuristic andanchoring, which often lead to predictable cognitive biases. Their theory formalized how people evaluate outcomes relative to a reference point, predictingloss aversion (valuing losses twice as much as equivalent gains). This has applications inbehavioral economics and the design ofpolicies. Kahneman's later works, includingThinking, Fast and Slow (2011), distinguish "System 1" (intuitive judgements) from "System 2" (deliberative judgements).[13][14]
Recent advances incognitive neuroscience have mapped judgement processes to brain regions like theprefrontal cortex, often examining howintuitive decisions are processed, as shown infMRI studies ofrisk assessment. Inartificial intelligence,large language models (e.g.,GPT-4) replicate human judgement biases such asloss aversion and thegambler's fallacy. This raises concerns for judicial prediction, though they improve accuracy in planned tasks.[15][16][17]
Ethical judgment involves evaluating actions, intentions, or outcomes against moral norms, distinguishing it from prudential assessments. Philosophers debate whether such judgements are objective (grounded in reason) or subjective (relational), which has been the influence of theories such asdeontology andvirtue ethics.
A major distinction, traced toJean Piaget and refined byElliot Turiel, separatesmoral judgements (concerning harm, fairness, rights; e.g., "stealing is wrong regardless of rules") from conventional judgements (rules, context-dependent; e.g., "uniforms are required in school"). This idea, supported by cultural developmental psychology, posits morals as universal, while conventions are arbitrary. This conception aids explanations for why children follow moral rules more rigidly.[18]
InKantian ethics, moral judgements derive from thecategorical imperative, creatinguniversalizable axioms via practical reason, distinct fromhypothetical imperatives of skill or wisdom. Critics likeHegel viewed such judgements as historically mediated, evolving through the general ethical views of the population.[19]
Aristotle observed that the ability to judge takes two forms: making assertions and thinking about definitions. He defined these powers in distinctive terms. Making an assertion as a result of judging can affirm or deny something; it must be either true or false. In a judgement, one affirms a given relationship between two things, or one denies a relationship between two things exists. The kinds of definitions that are judgements are those that are the intersection of two or more ideas rather than those indicated only by usual examples — that is, constitutive definitions.[20]
Later Aristotelians, likeMortimer Adler, questioned whether "definitions of abstraction" that come from merging examples in one's mind are really analytically distinct from judgements.[21]
In informal use, words like "judgement" are often used imprecisely.[22] Aristotle observed that while propositions can be drawn from judgements and called "true" and "false", the objects that the terms try to represent are only "true" or "false"—with respect to the judging act or communicating that judgement—in the sense of "apt" or "inapt".[23]
Immanuel Kant, in hisCritique of Pure Reason (1781) andCritique of the Power of Judgment (1790), positioned judgement as the core ofhuman cognition, defining it as a conscious mental operation that is the base of the conceptualization of objects viaintuition. Kant'santi-psychologistic ideas emphasize judgement unifying cognitive capabilities for objective validity. "Determining" judgements subsume particulars under universals while "reflective" judgements seek universals for given particulars.[24]
The Last Judgment is a concept originating inZoroastrianism and found across theAbrahamic religions.[25][26]
InChristianity, theNew Testament addresses interpersonal judgement in theSermon on the Mount, whereJesus states: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged" (Matthew 7:1,NIV), cautioning against hypocritical condemnation.[27]
InIslam, judgment manifests asYawm al-Qiyamah (Day of Judgment), whereAllah resurrects all souls for accountability based on deeds recorded in the Kitab (book of records), determining paradise or hell, showing mercy alongside justice (Quran 99:7–8).[28]
Hinduism views judgement as a function ofkarma, the law of cause and effect where actions (samskaras) influence rebirth (samsara) and ultimate liberation (moksha), with texts like theBhagavad Gita portraying it as self-operated moral consequence, notdivine intervention.[28]
Similarly,Buddhism merges judgement viaRight View (Pali:sammā diṭṭhi) in theNoble Eightfold Path, stressing the discernment of ethical actions as a means to break the cycle ofrebirth and attainnirvana, as taught in theDhammapada.[28]
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