Judging Personality Over the Holidays -- 2009 Edition

As 2009 draws to a close, many of us celebrate holidays of faiths and traditions from around the world. Our families and friends will be on our minds -- and sometimes in our homes. The Personality Analyst will be on holiday as well. (Next post: Jan. 24th, 2010).

Last year around this time, I explored the pleasures and pitfalls of judging one's friends and family members over the holidays. This year, I revisit the issue, focusing on the question: "If free speech is a right, and I have judged a person, why can't I just say what is on my mind?" (See a recent post on the law and ethics of judging others).

In defense of free speech, the philosopher John Stuart Mill argued there were powerful reasons to express opinions. If the opinion were right, it would allow other clear thinkers to change their minds; if wrong, it would help people understand why their opinions are correct. Diverse opinions ought to be allowed, Mill wrote, as "All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility...".

Free speech, however, is far from an absolute. The legal concepts of "Harm" and "Offense" are often used to limit its expression. Harm refers to promoting the physical, economic, or social harm of another. Defamation of character, for example, is unlawful because it involves making false accusations that impair a person's ability to carry out her business (e.g., accusations of dishonesty) or to maintain relationships (e.g., accusations of sexual misconduct).

Laws based on "Offense" limit speech that is both inescapable and to which others might reasonably object. An example would concern billboard advertisements that describe a person's private parts. In the public sphere, the right to free speech is balanced against such legal limits.

Among our family and friends, there are some parallels to what occurs in the public sphere: We weigh the benefits of freely expressing a judgment against the psychological pain it may inflict.

Some of the benefits of free speech apply to judging others. Accurate assessments of others can be crucial to helping an individual become a better person -- by pointing out an error and helping someone learn. Parents help children this way all the time ("Don't put your finger in the flame!"). Sometimes children help parents by judging them helpfully as well ("Daddy, you look silly dressed like that.")

When we gossip, judgments of others can tell us who to trust and warn us who to stay away from.

We express another kind of judgment to promote our self-interests: "I hate beards." "Your constant humming drives me crazy!" and, "Put the cap back on the toothpaste."

Our friends and family are not abstract groups who might profit from the world of ideas (nor did Mill claim they were). Still, Mill's ideas about free speech apply in part. An accurate judgment, well delivered, may relieve someone of a mistaken opinion about themselves (or of someone else). Nonetheless, some people we know may be unable to profit from such judgments.

Mill believed that free speech could protect groups who lacked power. Each of us can find ourselves helpless when confronted with another person's desires and intentions. Mill had an interesting observation about speaking truth to power:

"... opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground."

In other words, if we wish our judgments to be heard rather than silenced, tact, politeness, and respect, are the order of the day. This is an old and sometimes frustrating lesson. A pragmatic approach is taken by Professor Stanley Fish, of Florida International University, who tells us to inquire of what is being said:

"...what does it do, do we want it to be done, and is more to be gained or lost by moving to curtail it?"

Fish was concerned with the latitude given to public speech. In relation to judgments of personality we might ask: Is the judgment (if negative) helpful enough to outweigh any bad feelings that might arise?

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Spending time with family during the holidays is an invitation to judge others. Most of us, I would guess, would prefer to just say what we are thinking. Blurting out what is on our mind requires little self-control and makes us feel better -- at least momentarily, before the other person reacts.

We will judge others over the holiday; such judgments are automatic, unavoidable. But whether we communicate those judgments or not is up to us. There are some among us who will succeed in expressing only those judgments for which there is a constructive purpose, and in ways that can be heard by others without offense.

For the rest of us mortals, this is very difficult to get right, but we can all try to do better than we have in the past.

Judging character is so hard that most characters have to concentrate to do it even a little bit well.

Because judging others is so challenging, we need to be both tolerant of ourselves if we misjudge others, and tolerant of those who might have misjudged us.

Notes

The quotes "All silencing of..." and "...opinions contrary..." are from pp. 10 and 31-32 respectively of Mill, J. S. (1913). On Liberty (People's Edition). London: Longmans, Green, & Co.. (Downloaded from Google Books).

The quote "...what does it do..." is from p. 127 of Fish, S. (1994). There's no such thing as free speech...and it's a good thing too. New York: Oxford University Press.

The legal concept of "offense" is developed in Feinberg, J. (1985). Offense to others: The moral limits of criminal law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

For a better understanding of issues surrounding free speech, I drew generally on:

van Mill, D. (2009). "Freedom of speech" In, E. N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Forthcoming URL: <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entiries/freedom-speech/&gt;

Copy edits: + 18 hours; 21 hours; in Jan.

I have extended the date for the return of the "Personality Analyst" column until Jan. 24th, 2010, to allow for some vacation and rethinking of the column. Best to all until then!

(c) 2009 John D. Mayer