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 judgment:
“The repudiation of the primacy of understanding means the repudiation of the norms of judgment as well, and hence the abandonment of all ethical standards.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red:
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:—
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”
—Francis Miles Finch (1827–1907)
“The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)