If this be judging

Lawyers and lovers, doctors and dealers, politicians and priestsall of us, in factface difficult dilemmas. We want to do
the right thing, yet sometimes, it seems, whatever we do involves doing the wrong.

I should be kind to people; but if I am kind to Zade, then Zoe will be upset; and if I am kind to Zoe, then Zade will be
upset. And if I ignore both of them, they both get upset and so do I. What am I to do? Here, there is just one value
involvednot upsetting people. Another one value question arises with fairness. We should be fair, so parking fines
should be the same for all offenders, say P5000. But that is so unfair. P5000 is a months wages for some, a days salary
for others. Fairness requires a percentage figure of income or capital or vehicle value. How do we judge such matters?

Dilemmas also arise because different values, different right things, pull us in opposing directions. You signed a
confidentiality contract about your work, yet you are aware of some suspicious dealings. Should you break your
contract?

Terrorism: if we torture these suspects, we may learn where the next bombings will occur. Yet if we engage in torture,
were acting abominably, against our principle, our integrity. The suspects may even be innocent.

Love: my future life and the life of the man whom I love would be so fulfilled if we ran away together, yet my parents
would think it dishonourableand Id be letting down both my family and my husband, my commitments.

Values conflict. Absolute principles may appear fine in heavenly abstract, but here on Earth, they engender clashes. You
should never torture, yet what if it is the only means of possibly saving many lives? How many? How strong is the
possibility? Should you respect a womans right to chooseeven if you sincerely believe that abortion is murder? Should
governments improve the quality of lives already fortunate, through arts subsidies, rather than directing the money to
improve conditions for the starving?

Morality, both private and public, embraces a medley of valuesfreedom, happiness, promise-keeping, respect, rights,
fairness, welfareand virtues, such as courage, generosity, justice. There are also finer values: courtesy, decency, beauty
and grace. Quantities are relevant; so are qualities. What should we do when concerns conflictas unnoticed, they often
do; and noticed, they sometimes do?

It is true that it is all a matter of judgment. But while we may know what the matter is, and what the judgment
eventually is, how should the judgment be reached?

How do we judge the right thing to do?

Sometimes judgment is easy, at least in principle. There may be a common measure between different values, our
principle being to maximize or minimize whatever is measured. We should, perhaps, maximize number of lives saved, or
minimize overall suffering. Difficulties may persist. How do we access probabilities? What is to be one, if two possible
actions have equal value, with fine tuning in calculation impractical? Factual disagreements may also arise: for example,
whether capital punishment deters, whether torture is effective. These are practical problems.

We focus though, what is to be done when there seems no common measure, when values turn out to be
incommensurable? How can we judge between quantities and qualities concerning freedoms, rights, virtues, fairness,
welfare? An action may be both manifesting someones right to free speech, yet offending the religious. An action may
be both keeping promise, yet thereby allowing a crime to go undetected. It is not the factors on each side of the scales
are exactly balanced, but, rather, at least, it seemswe lack the scales.

This point about lacking scales requires an admonition. If the choice is between lying to a terrorist, thereby saving many
lives; and telling the truth, leading to the loss of many lives, then we should lie. But when we are not at such extremes,
have we any idea how to judge the right path?

Some may argue that, because we do judge in extreme cases, the scales must exist, measuring moral worth or
something similar, the problem being, so to speak, poor eyesight, or poor calibrations, in the difficult cases. But just
because, when confronted with extremes, we often know what ought to be done, there may yet be no common measure
available in the large range of less extreme cases. It is not clear how talk of moral worth helps us to judge. Further,
some conflicts are between, for example, items of moral worth and those of the aesthetic. Do we know how to compare
the value of extending lifespans for many with saving some Venetian architectural wonders?

When facing these difficult dilemmas, we want to make wise judgments, yet the judgments may appear arbitrary or
motivated by factors such as just how I happen to feel. Of course, we want to distinguish our deliberations from flicks
of the wrist or throws of some dice. We recognize that serious matters are involved, yet we lack, it seems, appropriate
procedures for resolution.

When an expert judges, in the Philippine Supreme Court and in the American Supreme Court speak of weighing the
evidence, balancing factors, yet arrive at opposing conclusionswith three judges for example, concluding that it free
speech has been infringed and two judges concluding that it has notis accepting the majority view as determining the
right answer much better than tossing a coin? The allusion to the coin toss may appear all the more apt, when we
remember that, had certain other expert judges been sitting or been appointed, then the overall decision could well
have been different.

Friend, moral dilemmas often irritate. People often want the answer, determining which one of various alternatives
should be chosen, given the circumstances. Maybe, though, there is no right answer, in that sense. Maybe the right
answer is that whichever option is chosen, the choice will have good and bad features which are in commensurable.

Sometimes we look back at decisions; sometimes we reflect: Now I seethat is what I just had to do. This is where,
upon reflection on choices previously available to us, we may feel that we could have done no other. That does not mean
that physically or psychologically we could not have done otherwise, but that, to be the sort of people we are or have
become, we could not have acted otherwise.

Consider this: two pregnant young women, students, same circumstanceseach are deciding whether to have an
abortion. They reach different decisions, despite being concerned by the same troubling factors concerning relationships,
the significance of life, of becoming a mother, and the effect on their families, finances, and careers. In reaching their
decisions, mysteriously they may have contributed to making their moral selves, to making themselves into the sort of
people they are. One now sees her decision to have the child as courageous, valuing the creation of life, of nurturing the
life within her. The other reflects upon her courage in having the abortion, committing, maybe, to developing a career,
possibly a family much later on, and deeply feeling that having a child was not the right thing for her to do at her stage of
life.

What are we to say?

Some may insist that one is right, the other is wrong; but perhaps that is a mistake. Perhaps they could both be right,
even if, at the time, they were equally concerned about life, career, and future relationshipsand so forth. Of course,
some will then insist that there must have been a difference all along in what weight they gave to the different factors;
but why insist on that? Perhaps the so-called difference that exists in their weightings is nothing more than their
reaching different decisions.

Now consider another: both women look back, feeling that they did the right thingand did. However, we sometimes
look back, reflecting on how wrong our decisions were, even on how difficult we find it to live with what we have done.

Humans that we are, sometimes we have to judge what appears impossible to judge. What justifies the judgments that
we make remains a mystery in deedand not just in word. With these entire, all we can do is muddle through. Morality
is indeed an extremely strange brew.
Fragments from a comics thoughts

Its kind of a funny story,

How I started to be sad
When I was supposed to be happy
Its kind of a funny story,
How I started wishing the balloons would soon take me

Its kind of a funny story,

Im tired and suffocating
But its still a pretty funny story
How Ive labelled the tentacles choking me, chaining me
To a life I was supposed to leave free.

Yes, leave,
But its still a funny story,
And I would soon learn how to laugh
When my anchors have been lifted up
And I am driven to the void
I am to be.

Schrodingers Cat

Unlockable
Means something that cant be locked
And something that can be unlocked

Schrodingers cat
Means something that is dead
And something that is alive

I
Well, I mean
No, I am yet undefined

But when I find a face, a name

And a purpose,
A meaning, Ill surely find.
Fragments from a writers thoughts

What if we all looked the way we wanted? And our lives are exactly the way we pictured it.
Will we be happier?
Will we be contented?
Or would we just find new things to hate?
I suppose the one thing we are certain to hate is our bland, perfect lives.
For to live truly, problems are but a necessity.
If we get everything we want the minute we want it,
Then whats the point of living?
 P.S. Love?
Is man made to love?
Is loving our purpose?
Can we find a purpose in love?
How can love exist?
Was it given by the Creator?
Or is it just an electrochemical process?
Is love a necessity for living?
Is love a necessity for Being?

If love is true and fate is also true then all love is fated. Hence, there is no love at all. For a love entails freewill and
choice, and fate nullifies the existence of freely given choices.

Maybe my argument isnt logical. Maybe theres a missing premise.

But to love, so they say, is always to take a leap beyond all premises. And I just dont knowif my mind would lean to
logic or reality.

Disabled
I have no feet
To stand in public
I have no arms
To dance with society
I have no mouth
So I write
Just to speak.
So please,
Dont let me stich up my lips.