Skepticism and the Problem of Judgment

     The skeptics believed happiness springs from the suspension of judgment.  Those who realize all convictions of truth are logically flawed have no desire to pursue intellectual victories, therefore they do not have to bear the agony of being wrong.  These were the precursors of scientists and agnostics, those who rely on evidence supporting a broader frame of reality.  But even the skeptics would have rejected modern scientists, for natural theories are only supported by origins that can't be detected by the senses, at least not without instruments.

    My challenge is that you can't have a functioning society without being able to make judgments.  Law, engineering, military, medicine: all of these operate on strict judgments to make the collective people happier.  We depend on each other and their judgments to live in a functioning society.  You also can't have a stable family without parents making judgments over what children have done right or wrong.  The child will grow up misguided, spoiled at worst, if the parent does not have a system of rules put in place.  The child or the citizen can argue relentlessly over the system's loopholes, where the skeptic is able to breakdown any proposition by circular reasoning or infinite regression.  That is why the skeptic severely undervalues intuition as a force of cohesion, at least in the social sciences.  In the natural sciences, they do have a good point; some animals have more refined senses than us in particular cases, meaning we would be wise to suspend judgment in areas where our intuition is weak.

    There is a crazy case circulating on YouTube, about a criminal representing himself, abusing our justice system by trying to expose every loophole or logical fallacy he can find.  The patient judge, rest her soul, has to had to rely on motherly intuition to scold this man-child into submission.  It is comically equivalent to a mother setting straight a toddler who is vaguely aware of the rules but is not happy when told no, who then seeks any weakness in the system of rules to justify getting what they want.  My firstborn, who is three, shows such similar behavior to Darrell Brooks that I can't help laughing.  He pouts and makes a scene when he doesn't get his way, in a courtroom of all places.  I'm actually giving Mr. Brooks too much credit.  My son is still more mature, because at least he doesn't throw tantrums in public.