Judgement (1)
Gal Harpaz, The Open University of Israel
doctorharpaz@gmail.com
Judgement is the capacity to recognise relationships, evaluate information, and make informed decisions or critical evaluations regarding events, situations, or people. Judgement involves drawing conclusions from evidence and forming assessments that guide behavior and thought. In both psychology and philosophy, judgement is viewed as a complex cognitive process that integrates perception, reasoning, and experience. Kant emphasised the foundational role of judgement in the synthesis of sensory information, arguing that judgement is essential for organising perceptions into coherent knowledge, a necessary bridge between understanding and reasoning.
Daniel Kahneman offers a contemporary psychological perspective in Thinking, Fast and Slow, distinguishing between System 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic thinking) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, effortful thinking). Judgement derived from System 1 tends to rely on heuristics and is prone to biases, while System 2 supports more reflective, analytic judgement. This dual-system model helps explain why people often make snap decisions that deviate from rational norms.
From a linguistic perspective, scholars such as Chomsky and Levi examine how individuals make judgements about grammaticality, revealing innate cognitive structures that underlie language competence and acquisition. Importantly, moral and social judgements—such as evaluating right and wrong or fairness—are central to both psychological research and philosophical ethics. These forms of judgement involve not only cognition but also emotion, cultural norms, and values, reflecting the broader human need to navigate interpersonal and societal complexities.
Judgement plays a central role in the formation of opinions by shaping how individuals evaluate people, objects, and events. Through cognitive appraisal, individuals assess information based on prior knowledge, beliefs, and emotions, which in turn influences their attitudes. Quick, intuitive judgements (System 1) may lead to implicit attitudes, while deliberate, reflective judgements (System 2) contribute to more stable, explicit opinions. Thus, judgement serves as the cognitive mechanism through which evaluative positions are developed, maintained, or changed over time.
Keywords: attitudes, cognition, system
Related Entries: Attitude, Cognition/Cognitive Linguistics, Judgement (2)
References:
Chomsky, N. (1957). Logical structures in language. American Documentation, 8(4), 284–291. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.5090080406
Chomsky, N. (1980). Rules and representations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00001515
Kant, I. (2024). Critique of pure reason (Vol. 6). Minerva Heritage Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
Levi, I. (1999). Value commitments, value conflict, and the separability of belief and value. Philosophy of Science, 66(4), 509–533. https://doi.org/10.1086/392752
