I think there's some element of truth to that assertion, inasmuch as love is for things we find good in some way. I'd argue that all kinds of good ultimately boil down to moral goods. But the "judgement" part is maybe problematic, as that perhaps implies a level of cognition that might not be present. Certainly to love something is to feel like it's good, but are all feelings judgements?

Something I've long found interesting to contemplate and never come to an adequate resolution on is the relationship of love to fear and hate. I traditionally thought of hate as the opposite of love, such that when I first heard fear juxtaposed as its opposite, back before I studied any philosophy, I thought that sounded really weird. But after studying some philosophy and learning the Greek roots "phobia" and "philia", fear seemed like a natural opposite to love; but so did hate, still. I wondered, does that make hate a kind of fear, or vice versa? Are they maybe opposite love on orthogonal axes?

The conclusion I came to is that fear is a repulsive feeling (pushing away from something that seems bad) in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves you away from it), while hate is the same kind of thing but in relation to an object that is less powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves it away from you).

That made me think that there should be something that bears the same relationship to love. Love is an attractive feeling (pulling toward something that seems good), but in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself, or less? And either way, what is the other? One thing is wanting to go to someone or something else, the other is wanting to bring that thing or person to you. Are those both "love"? Are there terms to differentiate them?

To call this a ‘value system’ is a reduction of what it means to relate to possibility. Their current behaviour is included in everything they can possibly be. The way I’ve worded it does, however, suggest that the ‘moral judgement’ is not included - it is, but is such a minor factor in ‘what matters’ that its ‘relative value’ is comparatively less than that of ‘everything they can possibly be’.

Think about it in relation to drawing a table: The 3D table is much more than what I can reproduce in even a skilful rendering of a 2D image. If you were not aware that the 2D shape represented a 3D object that existed, then you would see only the 2D shape, and not the table. Likewise, if you were not aware that my expression of 5D value represents 6D meaning, then you would understand it only as 5D value. Language is necessarily a 5D structural relation - it can represent meaning in the same way that the 2D image can represent the 3D table, but the representation is only one aspect of the total information.
10 minutes ago
Reply
Options — Possibility

I disagree. We each value differently and you can value possibilities the same as you can value immediately actualities. Their current behavior is included yes, but everything they can possibly be is not included in their current behavior. Thus you, the wise parent value the possibility, see it as the goodness in them that lets you overlook their current, typically self absorbed behavior. You value, morally value, their potential, and thus you love them in spite of their being, at the moment, less than model citizens of the world.

In all your arguments for your love of your children you are stating exactly why you value them, and I assert that is an expression of your morality. You are not a hedonist annoyed that they interfere with your immediate pleasures. Your ethics looks forward beyond such immediate gratification to see the virtue in your children as what they can (especially with your guidance) become. It is still an actualization of your personal moral values.

Remember that my position is that morality is a personal thing, an individual's value system. You express yours as you express the love of your children as likewise you express your love of all whom you grace with that emotion, and as I posit, with that moral judgement.

I would add that we often value... morally value since, as I define it, we can't value any other way, the potentialities of others and of circumstances over the realized actualities. This is because, even though the actualities are concrete, we have evolved enough intelligence and wisdom to see how unbounded are the possibilities relative to the immediate actualities. This is why we are able to delay gratification and call such behavior a virtue. We trade the immediate gain for the unbounded future (of course, moderated by our calculus of probabilities and uncertainties).

I disagree. We each value differently and you can value possibilities the same as you can value immediately actualities. Their current behavior is included yes, but everything they can possibly be is not included in their current behavior. Thus you, the wise parent value the possibility, see it as the goodness in them that lets you overlook their current, typically self absorbed behavior. You value, morally value, their potential, and thus you love them in spite of their being, at the moment, less than model citizens of the world.

In all your arguments for your love of your children you are stating exactly why you value them, and I assert that is an expression of your morality. You are not a hedonist annoyed that they interfere with your immediate pleasures. Your ethics looks forward beyond such immediate gratification to see the virtue in your children as what they can (especially with your guidance) become. It is still an actualization of your personal moral values.

Remember that my position is that morality is a personal thing, an individual's value system. You express yours as you express the love of your children as likewise you express your love of all whom you grace with that emotion, and as I posit, with that moral judgement. — jambaugh

You are describing love at the level of potentiality - ‘what they can become’ is an awareness of potentiality, but not of possibility. It’s quite common to view them as the same, but ‘potential’ is not the same as ‘possible’, and ‘could’ is not the same as ‘can’. ‘In spite of’ is not inclusive - this type of love still excludes or ignores behaviour I disagree with as ‘not important’, as something ‘we just won’t talk about anymore’.

Love is pure relation that can be as trivial as how I relate to a dress, or as complicated as how I relate to the unconditional possibility of the universe. It doesn’t have to go beyond personal moral values to be called ‘love’, but it certainly has that capacity. Love isn’t always a matter of overlooking current behaviour and focusing only on the potential in them that has moral value for me, but of seeing them also for the potential in them that could have moral value for them at the time (but not for me), and loving them for that, too. It’s about recognising that this is far from the last time they will do something I don’t agree with - but their personal moral values and the behaviour that comes from that is part of what makes them unique and special. It’s one of the more difficult parts of parenting: to let go of the assumption that my personal moral value system will be duplicated in my child.

I recognise that we each have an individual structure of value systems, but I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally (and I’ve had a similar discussion about this in relation to logical evaluation). Moral is, by definition, related to behaviour, so we can only value morally what relates to behaviour, although by extension we also have a tendency to morally value events (and people understood as events). Moral value is also often a reduction of value information to a binary system: good/virtuous or bad/evil.

But more importantly, the recognition that we each have different moral value systems is the reason why ‘love’ as pure relation has the capacity to go beyond our personal moral values. What is morally valued by you, but is not morally valued by me, can still matter to me simply because it matters to you, who matters to me. That doesn’t necessarily change how I morally value it.

I think you are hitting the nail on the head here at the end in that the fundamental disagreement between us is here where you say:

but I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally — Possibility

The format here is pretty straightforward. I've made a universally qualified claim, you assert an existential counter example. So now I ask for that example. Give me some examples of values you personally hold which have no moral basis?

Mind you, we may find our disagreement is fundamentally semantic or definitional. I am, ultimately defining morality to be our value system so by my cooked definition I win the literal debate. The big question is whether there is validity and utility in my definition. I think it is a relevant question in this era where we are stepping back from authoritarian ethics. If morality is not defined by the church or the state or the dude with the biggest baseball bat, then what?

I think you are hitting the nail on the head here at the end in that the fundamental disagreement between us is here where you say:
but I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally
— Possibility

The format here is pretty straightforward. I've made a universally qualified claim, you assert an existential counter example. So now I ask for that example. Give me some examples of values you personally hold which have no moral basis?

Mind you, we may find our disagreement is fundamentally semantic or definitional. I am, ultimately defining morality to be our value system so by my cooked definition I win the literal debate. The big question is whether there is validity and utility in my definition. I think it is a relevant question in this era where we are stepping back from authoritarian ethics. If morality is not defined by the church or the state or the dude with the biggest baseball bat, then what? — jambaugh

Perhaps, let’s see...

Value (verb): to consider something to be important or beneficial.

Value (noun):

1. The importance, worth or usefulness of something.

2. Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life.

3. The numerical amount denoted by an algebraic term; a magnitude, quantity or number.

4. The relative duration of a sound, signified by a (musical) note.

5. The meaning of a word or other linguistic unit.

6. The relative degree of lightness or darkness of a particular colour.

The way I see it, you’re attempting to structure ALL value relations using a specifically moral valuing system, and finding it insufficient for an accurate understanding of reality as we experience it. That’s to be expected. We use many different value systems in our understanding of reality. Understanding the dimensional relation of potentiality is a matter of understanding how these different value systems relate to our experiences and to each other - and recognising that there is no single value system ‘to rule them all’.

A secondary comment more on topic.
I was describing one manifestation of love "at a level of potentiality" namely that manifestation where we love an ill-behaved, weak little "monster" we call a child. I think that plus (for some of us) our value at being needed, at being proven useful to others by the existence of that need, brings us to love children. It is in the nature of making the distinction between child and adult that what we value switches between the potentialities toward the actualities.

I'm not sure what you mean by

Love is pure relation — Possibility

. There may well be pureness in actualization of love but it is also, quite often impure. The mother who backhands her child whom she indeed loves is an example. In such a typical scenario that parent has held onto the delusion that her love is "pure" and thereby turned a blind eye to building resentments and anger which thus grow to a point where they trigger her.

Mind you, we conceptualize ideals as horizons and limit points toward which (or away from which) we orient ourselves. Pure Good vs Pure Evil, Pure Love vs Pure Hate, etc. I assert that these do not exist in absolute purity though we can see extremes so far from the norm that we needn't quibble about the differences from where we stand.

But I also believe thinking in such absolute terms can be counter productive. If we hold say Hitler as the embodiment of pure evil and assume we could never do what he did we forget the fact that Hitler was acting according to the morality he held. He was "protecting" his homeland from what he perceived as a threat in his sick deluded way. But we can be likewise taken with cognitive dissonance in our moral structure, be it the "pure" and visceral rejection of immigrants or our "pure" and visceral rejection of anyone who wants to have a real conversation about the pragmatic need to moderate immigration. We can, if we are not careful channel our inner Hitler.

And, to complete the symmetry, one may take the ideal of pure love so to heart that one may amplify self critique into self loathing and be unable to accept love in any form. My first girlfriend had this in spades. I presume she grew past it as she's now (happily so I presume) married. I only wish I'd not be so immature at the time to have dealt with it better. I only knew that "my love was pure" and its very existence was all that mattered. Now after several decades I recognize that that love, that value, is only meaningful as it places value on my actions. If I fail to act it becomes meaningless.

The way I see it, you’re attempting to structure ALL value relations using a specifically moral valuing system, and finding it insufficient for an accurate understanding of reality as we experience it. That’s to be expected. We use many different value systems in our understanding of reality. Understanding the dimensional relation of potentiality is a matter of understanding how these different value systems relate to our experiences and to each other - and recognising that there is no single value system ‘to rule them all’. — Possibility

But in the end, when we distill all the potential choices we might take at any given moment, we must select one and only one actual behavior. That is the actualization of our entire value system at the time, our ethic. Mind you we all have inconsistencies in our value system. There are unresolved conflicts as there are also uncertainties as to the results of our actions. It is a value system not a singular valuating principle, at least for most of us.

Our morality evolved from and still encompasses the survival/propagation ethic of our animal past. And still those who do not retain some of that don't stick around long enough for us to worry over. But much of what follows builds upon that foundation. Love of truth derives from the pragmatic fact that ignoring the snake doesn't make us immune from its venom. But it can rise in some of us to an ideal in and of itself that we are sometimes willing to take a survival risk to protect.

I agree that we use many different value systems in reality in the sense of valuation of a quantity or ordinals comparisons of qualities. We can rank order fundamental particles by size, we can use point systems to value piece placements in a chess game. But in the end we are each a singular actor choosing one action out of the wealth of possibilities. Even if a particular action is capricious or whimsical it is still the manifestation of a value system.."sometimes you just gotta say 'what the heck!'" There is an implicit good referred to in that statement, some notion of preserving one's sanity or stress relief or recharging of one's mental energy.

Our morality evolved from and still encompasses the survival/propagation ethic of our animal past. — jambaugh

Darwinian rationalism does not constitute a philosophy. The point about love is that it has to be its own rationale - as soon as it serves something other than love, then it ain't love.

Love is selfless input.

Defining love as forking is pretty sophomoric and reductionist.

asserted that "Love is a moral judgement" which drew some responses — jambaugh

I think you should consider, if you haven't already, the distinctions between volition and existential phenomena. Meaning, when you use the term 'judgement', you infer or convey choice; making a choice to Love. (And maybe you're not meaning to, not sure there... .) And then one could say there is also that which doesn't require making a choice, enter; the Metaphysical Will. The example there would be the law of attraction (the collective unconscious experience).

Try walking through the park or at the beach or hardware store sporting an obvious smile on your face. Then see how many strangers approach you. Then experiment with having a melancholy look on your face. See which condition attracts a caring or loving spirit towards you.

Now one could argue that in the aforementioned collective unconscious experience, that there was still volition involved. But there was also a force (or metaphysical will) that caused that need (or will) to choose and act.

In that scenario I submit this is not an exclusive 'moral judgement'' driving force that one consciously chooses.

I agree with you. I was just saying something like that to my teenage son a few weeks back. He told me that he didn’t think Uncle Mark likes him. Kadin is often very sullen and angry at the world, but mostly he has low self-esteem. I asked him if he acted like he was happy to see Uncle Mark or if he looked like he was unhappy to see him. (I knew the answer.)

People judge by appearances.

Yes indeed. I tell young people, where possible, always have a positive spirit. In one's personal and professional life, it will reap dividends. Accordingly, people tend want you on their team, or at least want to be around those who are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.... .

I recognise that we each have an individual structure of value systems, but I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally (and I’ve had a similar discussion about this in relation to logical evaluation). Moral is, by definition, related to behaviour, so we can only value morally what relates to behaviour, although by extension we also have a tendency to morally value events (and people understood as events). Moral value is also often a reduction of value information to a binary system: good/virtuous or bad/evil. — Possibility

I think your definition of "moral" is incorrect. Morality is concerned with what is good and bad. And since it extends into judging thinking in this way, and thinking is not properly "behaviour", but related to behaviour, morality has a greater extent than what you claim.

This casts doubt on your claim "I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally". Evaluating is an act of thinking, and acts of thinking may be judged as good or bad in relation to moral ethics. Morally "good" thinking will produce good value judgements, and bad thinking produces bad value judgements. If you think that there are value judgements which themselves can be judged as correct or incorrect, without reference to moral principles then the challenge is yours, to demonstrate these. Before you proceed, consider that correctness and incorrectness in value judgements is normative.

I tell young people, where possible, always have a positive spirit. — 3017amen

An HIV positive spirit?

...interesting...now in your case, I'm thinking more in terms of your 'pathological spirit'. LOL

Noah Te Stroete likes to call me a "psychopathic asshole". I think. My rote memory is not so perfect.

I have actually grown to like that nic. It has a ring to it. His calling me that is not without compassionate, cuddly feelings.

Darwinian rationalism does not constitute a philosophy. The point about love is that it has to be its own rationale - as soon as it serves something other than love, then it ain't love. — Wayfarer

This aint' philosophy. This is a personal belief, a personal opinion, a statement of personal values. Love, with all its acoutrements, based on Darwinian evolution, however, is believable, logical, and proven.

If something is believable, proven and logical, and stands to reason is NOT philosophical to you, then I don't know what is.

The point about love is that it has to be its own rationale — Wayfarer

Yes, Christians LOVE to run around circular reasoning. "I believe the Bible. Why? Because the Bible is true How do I now that? Because it says that in the Bible. And why do I take it as true? Becasue I believe in the Bible."

Now, Wayfarer, you just applied the same beloved circular reasoning to the notion of love. "It has to be its own rationale".

God forbid that you think outside the box and go outside your circles.

Well, I believe what cognitive science says: you must first recognize that you even have a problem before you can fix it.

I'm happy for you! LOL

You are always happy! I have yet to see you once being unhappy.

I attribute your happiness, from what I've seen in earlier long threads in which you participated, to your complete and utter resilience and incapacity to understanding reason, or even spotting it and recognizing it when you look at it.

Would you care to start a new thread? (Maybe call it ' happiness and logic' AKA the tree of knowledge, LOL)

I'm not sure what you mean by
Love is pure relation
— Possibility
. There may well be pureness in actualization of love but it is also, quite often impure. The mother who backhands her child whom she indeed loves is an example. In such a typical scenario that parent has held onto the delusion that her love is "pure" and thereby turned a blind eye to building resentments and anger which thus grow to a point where they trigger her. — jambaugh

Pure relation is not necessarily pure love - I’ll agree to that. Anyone who says their love is ‘pure’ is attempting to express a pure relation, but talk is cheap these days. I’m starting to see what you’ve been trying to say here. There’s no reason for you to believe what I’m saying about the love I have for my child - it manifests only in my words and behaviour - in how I actualise this relation to my child. Fair enough.

If I can offer a clearer example of what I’m trying to get at, it would be those things we do that have no recognisable value (or even have negative value) for ourselves, yet are meaningful to achieve simply because they actualise potential in (or have value for) the one we love. We tend to ‘rationalise’ or logically explain these actions any number of ways, because otherwise they suggest a negation of the value of self, which is viewed as ‘low self-esteem’ in our social reality. Explaining love as ‘moral judgment’ is one such explanation - one that reduces meaning to only what has moral value. Evolutionary psychology explanations of altruism and self-sacrifice are also feeble rationalisations of love that are ignorant of a six-dimensional level of pure relation or meaning.

one may take the ideal of pure love so to heart that one may amplify self critique into self loathing and be unable to accept love in any form. My first girlfriend had this in spades. I presume she grew past it as she's now (happily so I presume) married. I only wish I'd not be so immature at the time to have dealt with it better. I only knew that "my love was pure" and its very existence was all that mattered. Now after several decades I recognize that that love, that value, is only meaningful as it places value on my actions. If I fail to act it becomes meaningless. — jambaugh

I can relate to where your girlfriend was at, to some extent. At the time I certainly didn’t recognise it as self-loathing, but I was fully capable of subconsciously sabotaging almost any chance at love. Fortunately for me, I was loved by someone with courage and integrity in spades.

The way I see it, love is always possible, but its meaning comes from how we relate that possibility to reality. It isn’t only awareness of love, but the courage to connect and collaborate without limitations that enables us to act with love towards others. Love is a way of actualising potentiality that relates to the world without fears or boundaries. That’s the real challenge, I think.

I accept that most people are unaware of any distinction between what is meaningful and what has subjective value. If we’re lucky, we can get away with love at this level of awareness. But we can also be blindsided by a love that ‘vanishes’ when our potentiality or perceived moral value takes a hit: if one of us is suddenly incapacitated, we lose a child or make a poor choice that threatens our future, for instance. I think it helps to develop love to the point where we understand the difference between value and meaning - where we recognise that what has value for you may not have value for me, but is meaningful purely because of how I relate to you. I think that this kind of love can withstand anything.

I think your definition of "moral" is incorrect. Morality is concerned with what is good and bad. And since it extends into judging thinking in this way, and thinking is not properly "behaviour", but related to behaviour, morality has a greater extent than what you claim. — Metaphysician Undercover

Morality does not judge thinking, but is concerned with the actions that follow thinking; with what is good or bad behaviour. I have yet to come across a definition of ‘moral’ or ‘morality’ that does not mention behaviour, customs or actions, so I stand by my definition. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise. Judging thinking or people is a misuse of moral values - a way to define, control or oppress others, motivated by fear.

This casts doubt on your claim "I disagree wholeheartedly that we cannot value other than morally". Evaluating is an act of thinking, and acts of thinking may be judged as good or bad in relation to moral ethics. Morally "good" thinking will produce good value judgements, and bad thinking produces bad value judgements. If you think that there are value judgements which themselves can be judged as correct or incorrect, without reference to moral principles then the challenge is yours, to demonstrate these. Before you proceed, consider that correctness and incorrectness in value judgements is normative. — Metaphysician Undercover

Apart from the fact that I haven’t asserted any claim but expressed a disagreement, you’re referring to value and value judgements as if they’re the same thing. They’re not. I’ve already addressed the various types of value that have nothing to do with moral principles:

Value (noun):

1. The importance, worth or usefulness of something.

2. Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life.

3. The numerical amount denoted by an algebraic term; a magnitude, quantity or number.

4. The relative duration of a sound, signified by a (musical) note.

5. The meaning of a word or other linguistic unit.

6. The relative degree of lightness or darkness of a particular colour. — Possibility

Value (verb): to consider something to be important or beneficial. — Possibility

Something doesn’t have to be judged morally ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to be considered important or beneficial, so I maintain my opinion that we can value other than morally. I can value money, which is morally nether ’good’ nor ‘bad’. I can also value knowledge, certain possessions, mealtimes and much more...

Something I've long found interesting to contemplate and never come to an adequate resolution on is the relationship of love to fear and hate. I traditionally thought of hate as the opposite of love, such that when I first heard fear juxtaposed as its opposite, back before I studied any philosophy, I thought that sounded really weird. But after studying some philosophy and learning the Greek roots "phobia" and "philia", fear seemed like a natural opposite to love; but so did hate, still. I wondered, does that make hate a kind of fear, or vice versa? Are they maybe opposite love on orthogonal axes?

The conclusion I came to is that fear is a repulsive feeling (pushing away from something that seems bad) in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves you away from it), while hate is the same kind of thing but in relation to an object that is less powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves it away from you).

That made me think that there should be something that bears the same relationship to love. Love is an attractive feeling (pulling toward something that seems good), but in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself, or less? And either way, what is the other? One thing is wanting to go to someone or something else, the other is wanting to bring that thing or person to you. Are those both "love"? Are there terms to differentiate them? — Pfhorrest

Coincidentally I came across an old note to myself tonight about this very topic, and I think the conclusion I've now come to upon reading my old thoughts is that love and fear are opposite corners of a two-dimensional spectrum of emotions, while hate and tolerance are on the other pair of opposite corners. I already use such a spectrum in my philosophy book (why I'm digging through old notes to myself) in this diagram here:



In the top corner I would put love (and joy), in the bottom fear (and despair), in the left corner hate (and rage), and in the right corner tolerance (and peacefulness).

There's an idea that love could be seen as an emergent property of the processes of unity. Therefore, love would be the essence (intent, need, desire, etc) of the pursuit for connectivity. For example, if we're looking to identify with something (and, consequently, develop a connection to that something), then love would be the embodiment of the efforts and conditioning involved in that pursuit.

So, "I love you," would translate to something like, "I appreciate our connectivity," or "I want to further our connectivity," or along those lines. And, I think it could work with anything, from people relations to sports, occupation, life at large, religious/spiritual dimensions, etc, etc.

Morality does not judge thinking, but is concerned with the actions that follow thinking; with what is good or bad behaviour — Possibility

Yes we do pass moral judgement on thinking. Take a look at the ten commandments for example, half of them are concerned with thinking; don't take the Lord's name in vain, honour, and don't covet. And if you read Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, you'll see that he names "contemplation" as the highest virtue, this makes thinking itself an act.

I have yet to come across a definition of ‘moral’ or ‘morality’ that does not mention behaviour, customs or actions, so I stand by my definition. — Possibility

Sure behaviour is mentioned, but morality extends beyond behaviour to include thinking. So your definition is an attempt to force an unjustified restriction onto the classification of what types of values are moral and which are not. You try to force that restrictive definition to support an epistemological position, which is clearly not grounded in reality.

Apart from the fact that I haven’t asserted any claim but expressed a disagreement, you’re referring to value and value judgements as if they’re the same thing. They’re not. I’ve already addressed the various types of value that have nothing to do with moral principles:

Value (noun):

1. The importance, worth or usefulness of something.

2. Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life.

3. The numerical amount denoted by an algebraic term; a magnitude, quantity or number.

4. The relative duration of a sound, signified by a (musical) note.

5. The meaning of a word or other linguistic unit.

6. The relative degree of lightness or darkness of a particular colour. — Possibility

This is all wrong. #1&2 are clearly moral issues, as related to "the end", what is desired. The thing desired, which is what is important in life, and also what makes something useful as being for that purpose, can be judged as morally good or bad. #3&5 are conventions, norms, which are supported by morality. So though it is not directly a moral value, it is supported by morality because without morality norms and conventions cannot exist. #4&6 do not make any sense because you are talking about a relation, something "relative" without naming what it is being related to. To judge a relative degree of light, or a relative duration of sound, requires some sort of standard, like a scale and this is a norm, or convention like 3&5, requiring morality for existence. Suppose you try to judge "brighter", or "longer duration" without such a standard or convention for comparison. A correct judgement requires that you have a correct disposition, or correct character, and such "correctness" in the person is a moral issue. Therefore the correctness of your judgement is a moral issue.

Something doesn’t have to be judged morally ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to be considered important or beneficial, so I maintain my opinion that we can value other than morally. — Possibility

Again, this is clearly wrong. What do you think "beneficial" means, other than having been judged as good for some purpose? And, that purpose can be judged as morally good or bad, rendering the "beneficial" thing as either morally good or bad depending on whether it's being used for a good or bad purpose.

Yes we do pass moral judgement on thinking. Take a look at the ten commandments for example, half of them are concerned with thinking; don't take the Lord's name in vain, honour, and don't covet. And if you read Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, you'll see that he names "contemplation" as the highest virtue, this makes thinking itself an act. — Metaphysician Undercover

Passing moral judgement doesn’t make it justified. The Ten Commandments are not moral judgements - they are precepts to avoid moral judgement, which can ONLY be conducted on the actual behaviour such thinking leads to. Its failures are well documented. Likewise, contemplation as the highest virtue is a principle upon which one morally judges the behaviour that follows thinking. Judging the thinking and not the actions leads us to condemn based on assumptions without evidence, which has been the most damaging abuse of the Ten Commandments.

So the statements "you ought to do...", and "you ought not do...", which are constitutive of ethical principles, are not expressions of moral judgements? Ethical principles are not expressions of moral judgements?

As I said, I think you are incorrect.