Judgment

Categorical versus Quantitative Target

The character of the judgment target (the state of the world at issue) can be categorical, implying simple qualitative distinctions, as when a physician must make a differential diagnosis among several biologically disparate disease categories. Alternatively, the target might be inherently quantitative, corresponding to a point along some continuum, as when a physician tells a patient, “I would expect your recovery to take about 6 weeks.”

Deterministic versus Likelihood Assertions

In a deterministic judgment, the “judge,” the person rendering that opinion, makes a flat-out, unqualified assertion about the target; for example, “You have early-stage breast cancer.” In contrast, in a likelihood judgment, the judge qualifies the offered claim with an indication of associated chances; for example, “There are good odds that you have the disease, I'm afraid.” Some people (e.g., patients) prefer that others (e.g., their doctors) provide them with deterministic rather than likelihood judgments, perhaps because such definitive [Page 646]pronouncements seem more competent and reassuring in their clarity. Others, on the other hand, doubt the integrity and expertise of people who seemingly hide or fail to even recognize the uncertainty presumed to be present in most real-life medical situations. Also, recipients of judgments from other people often say that if there is doubt in their informants' minds (as there usually is), they want to know about it. This allows them to make trade-offs between uncertainty and value, in the spirit of technologies such as decision analysis. They further recognize that deterministic judgments force them to act as if those judgments were definitively true. For instance, an unqualified diagnosis of lung cancer implies that the patient must be treated as having lung cancer.

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