A: Don’t ask your wife about this. You should make the judgment yourself.

B: I will make my own judgment, and my judgment is that I should ask my wife.

So has B actually made a judgment or not?

I think this can be understood in two different ways.

Two very different kinds of “I’ll ask my wife”

The first possibility is that B is acting out of long-standing dependence. Faced with a difficult question, the first thing that comes to mind is still his wife. If this is just habit, then I am not sure it really counts as judgment at all. If habit does not require genuine deliberation, then it seems fair to say that B has not yet made an independent judgment.

In that case, one way to test it would be to remove the option of asking his wife and require him to give a different answer. If he can produce an answer that he himself finds satisfactory, then it is quite likely that what looked like “judgment” before was really only habitual reliance.

The second possibility is different. B may actually have thought about it and concluded that his wife is more likely to choose well than he is, so he decides to trust her judgment. If that is what happened, then I would say he has judged for himself.

The key difference is whether “ask my wife” is a reflex or a considered decision.

Why this matters in ordinary life

This kind of situation comes up all the time. People say things like, “I’ll ask my wife,” “I’ll ask my father,” or “I’ll ask my boss.” The question is whether the person saying this has already made a judgment, or whether they are avoiding making one.

That is what interests me about this example.

If B really has not judged for himself, yet still answers, “I should ask my wife,” then what should we do if B is someone close to us? Should we, like A, insist that he make his own judgment? And if so, how do we help him learn to do that?

Is more independent judgment always better?

Taking this couple as an example, suppose both partners have strong views of their own. Does that necessarily lead to more happiness than a relationship in which only one person is the main decision-maker?

And what about a team?

Or a larger collective?

The issue is not only whether someone has judged independently, but also whether every situation really benefits from pushing everyone toward separate, self-standing judgment. That sounds desirable in principle, but in actual relationships and groups, the answer may not be so simple.