Well, Don, again I do not see any area where we disagree in what you just said.

I think you have possibly misinterpreted what I was referring to when I spoke of not judging a person.

Language is the tricky part here. You and I are, I think, in agreement about ethics and about how to respond to unethical behaviour, but we are not interpreting what I mean by the phrase "to judge a human being" in the same way. It has nothing to do with letting people get away with bad behaviour. That's not what I'm speaking of.

Suppose someone does something idiotic...

If you say to him, "That was a stupid thing to do!" you are on solid ground. He can maybe do something useful with that advice. You have judged his behaviour, and behaviour can be changed. You have not judged him, in the sense of who he is as a living being. You have not judged his intrinsic worth.

If you say to him, "You're an idiot!" you are not saying anything useful at all to him, and he can't do anything useful with it. He can just get angry or humiliated. That would be judging HIM, not his actions.

See?

Try the above two approaches on a child while he's growing up. If you keep telling him he's stupid, he's an idiot, he's lazy, and he's no good...well, it gives him no useful input at all, and it may convince him that he really is stupid, an idiot, lazy, and no good, in which case his life is headed for no place good at all...or it may fill him with a sense of bitter injustice and hatred for you. This has happened to many children while they were growing up. They had judgement brought down on them their parents who meant well perhaps, but who had no idea how to use words. It was not expressed as judgement of their actions, but of their intrinsic worth as a human being. That's what I'm saying we shouldn't do.

That's the kind of judgement I'm saying we shouldn't bring down on people.

But we should certainly tell them that their behaviour is unacceptable or inappropriate or illegal...if it is. And they should meet the normal consequences of that behaviour.

As I said, behaviour can be changed. To inform a person of wrongful behaviour can be useful. To inform him that he's an idiot, a bigot, a racist, a fool, etc....is useless. He will either believe you...and forever hate you for it. Or he won't believe you...and forever hate you double for it.

Believe me. I know how it works, having been on the receiving end of that sort of thing when I was young.