True or false, good or evil, beautiful or ugly – if we shall make a statement about something, we must make a judgment. If we don’t do that, then we will not assess in any of the three areas mentioned above. Not judging is difficult however, because we do it automatically and unconsciously. If we wish to approach a thing or a person unbiased, then we must notice those automatic judgments and consciously put them aside. We must acknowledge that we can err, only then are we able to set aside a judgment we made and look again more closely.
The quest for truth always relates to statements and views. The world itself is neither true nor false, only what we say about it can be correct or not. It is about our thinking and our words and concepts. A statement always contains at least one judgment. The one who does not judge cannot err, can say neither something true nor false.
The quest for goodness always relates to human action and its effect. We judge the actions of others and our own. Looking forward, we wonder how we can act so that it will be good. It is about what we want and what we do. The one who does not act cannot do anything wrong, can neither do good nor evil.
The quest for beauty always relates to our feeling. The judgment depends on our sympathy and antipathy, The world claims neither to be beautiful nor ugly, this judgment comes from mankind depending on affection and aversion. We connect it automatically to all perceptible things and people that appear in front of us and then become aware of the feeling. That is how our relationships express themselves. The one who does not feel will not call anything beautiful.
So we can differentiate three types of judgment. The factual, the moral and the aesthetic judgment. Wenn someone else judges the same thing differently, this can result in uncertainty, confusion and dispute.
For factual judgments it is common to consider our perception of the world. Still, it is not always easy to confirm that a statement is true or false. We can check that it aligns with the laws of physics that we know. That it aligns with our experience. We can look whether there is a reason for deception. We can look for traces if the statement relates to an event in the past. In general a consonance with reality is considered the standard for truth. The laws of thinking also need to be considered, a true statement cannot be in logical conflict with another true statement.
For moral judgments it gets more difficult. A conscious and well-founded differentiation of good an evil is difficult for many people. Often we use code of conducts as a guideline, provided by the church or the government. However, many will agree that such codes cannot be designed at random without provoking conflicts. There are laws here as well, which can help us to judge. Intrusiveness, subjugation and hindrance of free development of another human is generally considered evil.
For aesthetic judgments we commonly have a tendency to call them subjective. After all, they express our relationship to something or someone. What we consider beautiful is affected by our familiar surroundings and our life up to now. What we are used to and what we have good experience with, that is what we normally also like and consider beautiful. But there are laws here, too. For example the proportions and the symmetry as well as the ratio of plain surfaces and contours cannot be changed at random without affecting the aesthetic judgment. When the laws are considered in a design, the sympathy of an observer is more likely attracted.
Still, as a result of inner conflict it can happen that we react dismissive even when all known rules on a factual, moral and aesthetic level are fulfilled. Inner conflicts can result in the denial of truth. Can result in something good making us angry. They can make us insult something beautiful because we cannot bear its presence. It can also happen due to our experience that an impression, which in itself is true, good and beautiful, triggers an unpleasant memory. Our ego, our pride and our arrogance, even our ambition can disturb our sensations to a degree that we loose access to what is true, good and beautiful. The we reject the very idea of such concepts and and fully dive into the needs of our hurt personality, our self or ego, however we wish to call it. When hurt, the ego strives for recognition and wealth, for power and control, for immortality, and subordinates everything else to those goals. Truth, goodness and beauty do not matter, are reduced to words effective for advertising purposes, nothing more but means to an end.
If humans ends up in this condition here on earth, they are delivered latest by death. There ist no immortality for the body and the soul, only the spirit is eternal. And humans are a spiritual being. The next life will offer an opportunity for reparation. But also within a life on earth, change is possible. We keep receiving opportunities to reconsider, new thoughts appear. We are offered help and we can offer help to others. We can also fence off and let someone collect experience. Both can be right. Every situation requires an individual judgment, and as adults we have to pass it ourselves.