There is no way around it — whenever you think or act, you are in effect holding it out to be a right way of doing things. Whatever you do, you perceive somehow that your actions are acceptable, in that you have ranked your particular way of doing things higher than other ways. You are affirming, or judging, that your actions are better than others you could choose, and that gives a justification to those actions and a perception of rightness.

We use this process of judging every day that finds some activities better than others. Even if you hated the world and were moping around tying tin cans on dog's tails, you would still judge this activity as “better,” in a convoluted way, than petting the dog and removing a few ticks. By following a course of action you are perceiving in some way that “I am doing this” and the “I” and the “doing” are linked together favorably.

But when a judgment differs from another judgment concerning the same action, they can't both be right as if the action's value is what you make of it. Concerning the future landscape look of the world, if one person reasons that all the dry land of the world should be black-topped with asphalt and another person figures it would be better to allow trees and flowers to have a go of it, a disagreement occurs. There would be no such thing as agreement or disagreement if each person's process to judgment, or way of reasoning, were different, because there would be no sharable basis to determine the difference between judgments.

Put in another way: The length of a box is judged as it is measured by a ruler, a fixed measuring device. You may doubt your employees' calculations about the length of the box to be shipped out, but in no way do either of you doubt the process by which you arrive at the measurements: the use of the fixed ruler. Differing measuring devices and languages may function under the same roof, but they are convertible to not contradict each other and still give an accurate portrayal of the same length . There is no disagreement about the box's length being fixed and knowable, and the measuring devices and languages intent on revealing that length have a fixed common denominator.

So when a fundamental disagreement occurs concerning blacktopping the world or not, that should not be the end of it — opposing conclusions chalked up as mere opinion and equal in value. This is the basis of relativistic thought, where whatever your views happen to be are no better or worse than any other: I find a screaming resisting woman being gang-raped evil and horrible and you find it a most delightful experience to view and participate in. That way of thinking doesn't make sense because fundamental contradictions cannot possibly make sense.

To unravel the confusion of mere opinion and relativism, the question is then put to each person's process of judgment that gave rise to the disagreement: How do you go about coming to your judgments? The answers, if eventually extracted from the attention deficited person, are ludicrous: "My parents or teachers said so," "I get warm fuzzy feelings with that answer," or "I get a reward for giving that answer," etc. However, all these answers have absolutely nothing to do with making a judgment based on soundness of reason.

Just like the measuring of the box's length: if the boss measures it as 14 inches and the employee as 13 inches, that isn't the end of it. On remeasuring, the box is found to be 14 inches and the employee is called into question. The 13 inch measurement isn't an opinion as if any number is as good as another, because we all know the box's length and the ruler is unchanging. The fault lies with the employees' process of judgment being off because he was perhaps rip-roaring drunk or was working too fast. The reasons for misjudgment are numerous, but they can be understood and corrected because the process to judgment is fixed.

Similarly, when "I" make a "judgment", the two may not be in true agreement because the "making" process to that judgment could be flawed. Therefore, the process to judgment of the person wanting to blacktop the world and the person for giving trees and flowers a chance is now questionable. Our process of judgment is always called into question where problems, disagreements, and reflections on the rightness and wrongness of actions arise. The question is how do you arrive at what you think, or say, or do?

This kind of reflection holds your process of how you think and act up to scrutiny. There has to be a standard for clarity of thought and action and it has to be the same for all people. Now you can deny any of what is being said here but this only proves the point: you're already in the process of judging what is better, or more right. As such, the necessity for this process to judgment to be the same for all people means disagreements, if further reflected upon or discussed, lead to agreement.