Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of evidence in the making of a decision. The term has four distinct uses:
- Informal - Opinions expressed as facts.
- Informal and psychological – used in reference to the quality of cognitive faculties and adjudicational capabilities of particular individuals, typically called wisdom or discernment.
- Legal – used in the context of legal trial, to refer to a final finding, statement, or ruling, based on a considered weighing of evidence, called "adjudication". See spelling note for further explanation.
- Religious – used in the concept of salvation to refer to the adjudication of God in determining Heaven or Hell for each and all human beings.
Famous quotes containing the word judgement:
“Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.”
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–55)
“They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop’s bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgement on him!”
—Robert Southey (1774–1843)
“A man’s conscience and his judgement is the same thing; and as the judgement, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)