They are three SEPARATE CATEGORIES. Why are you insisting on a false dichotomy?

Facts are objective information.
Opinions are unsupported statements of belief.
Reasoned judgment is an evaluation based on evidence.

Jeff,

I know they are presented as three separate categories. The point is, one of them is not the same type of thing as the other two.

Let me try to give you another example. Suppose that I was asked to classify a list of things as "Red," "Blue," or "Solid." Do you see the difficulty that could cause? Ignoring the fact that some things are multiple colors -- let's say nothing on the list was -- "Solid" is a completely different type of qualifier from "Red" and "Blue." Lots of things are completely blue and completely solid; ditto red.

The situation with these three categories is the same. Even allowing the unfortunate definition of "Opinion" here used, "Opinion" and "Reasoned Judgment" both refer to a type of belief. A "fact," though is not a type of belief at all. A fact is an objective feature of the world which is ASSERTED by EVERY type of belief.

In other words, the statement "The earth goes around the sun" is BOTH a fact AND a reasoned judgment. The statement "There is a teacup orbiting Jupiter" is an unsupported belief -- "opinion" in this definition. It is probably not a fact, though we haven't checked for certain.

"There is definitely intelligent life on other planets" may or may not be true, that is, we don't really know whether or not it is a fact; as a belief, it is probably not that well supported by evidence (obviously, there is disagreement about this, however). The disagreement has no impact on whether it is or is not a fact, though.

"state-sanctioned-murder" is probably actually an incorrect use of murder. The point is that the person who would be saying that views the acts the soldiers have committed as illegal or believes that they should be made illegal or would simply like to use hyperbole to make a point. Some stances like utilitarianism, which argue for an exact "fact" on morality, still don't define it. Some people judge it based on happiness, some on lives saved/lifespans/something in that catagory, and some base what they view as morally correct on something entirely different. Of course their are other stances to take into account like religious views. I am a teenager now but I remember when we did the activities from the article. I think that I agreed partially with the article in second grade. My memory is that they asked us to come up with something that was either a fact or an opinion and explain why it was that one and I came up with "This sentence is not a fact" and then explained to the teacher that i thought the activity was stupid and that mine was a fact. She never really came up with a satisfactory answer to what the sentence was. However a large portion of my friends and the other teenagers I have met(who I discussed this with) believe in utilitarianism as a moral philosophy(including me). Note that I tend to mostly talk to the more intelligent ones.

Facts (evidence) objectively exist in the absence of opinion.
Opinions (beliefs) subjectively exist in the absence of fact.
Reasoned judgment is an assessment or conclusion that requires facts tempered by opinion to exist. In the context of CCSS, reasoned judgment is *not* a "type" of opinion.

If you don't like the terms and definitions used in the CCSS, then I guess there's no point in even debating you. You're going off far from the original premise, just like the author of the op ed.

His agenda was obviously, in a nutshell, that the word of God is an absolute "moral fact" and that CCSS is the latest "cultural relativism" fifth column attack on the United States of Christian America. Load of crap, as I originally said.

"His agenda was obviously, in a nutshell, that the word of God is an absolute "moral fact" and that CCSS is the latest "cultural relativism" fifth column attack on the United States of Christian America."

Wha...?

You do know that there are plenty of atheist moral realists, I presume? And you did catch the part where nothing about God was mentioned in the article, perhaps?

"You're going off far from the original premise, just like the author of the op ed."

The point is, the definitions you just gave are not all in the same category as each other, so it's BS to have somebody classify things into one of the three areas.

You may think there is "objective information" that we have access too. Well, there are objective facts; but the only way we have access to them as information is by some form of reason or sense (or, if you're religious, possibly revelation), the results of which are "reasoned judgment." To talk of there being "objective facts" that we know through something other than a valid epistemological process is just nonsense, and it is what these standards are teaching.

Or maybe the settled judgment of philosophers of knowledge is as nothing compared to the insights of American educational bureaucrats. There is that possibility.

Anyway, continue arguing or not as you wish, as I say. I think I've made my points well enough that interested and able readers will judge correctly.

Also our society isn't really getting less morally correct. We may be becoming less religious or less tied to certain traditional beliefs(like men always offering coats) but, in my opinion(and yes, by almost any reasonable definition I am using opinion correctly here), both of those things, especially becoming less religious, are good. Religion is currently holding back much of our society and, while it isn't always bad, it often holds back important parts of our society like medical issues and science and sometimes limits peoples rights(right now what comes to mind is access to birth control, stem cell research, abortion and gay rights). Traditional beliefs are sometimes quite good but also sometimes bad. Fear and discussion of social decline generally cause more problems than there is social decline.
I know web comics dedicated to humor are not normally regarded a trustworthy but I still think think that linking this particular one is appropriate for the topic-----http://xkcd.com/1227/

Haha, that was an interesting xkcd.

Going off topic here, but while I think that's a great point in the comic, I always also think there are two ways to view those. It could just be that each generation thinks it's the worst of all time, and three generations later thinks it was the best. It could also be that they were all correct: that the pace of life was increasing continually through all of those generations, and has increased much more since then. There is at least some evidence of that.

As for our society and moral correctness -- hard to say, of course. I think most people in our society have extremely poorly founded moral beliefs; the idea of a moral system or coherency wouldn't even occur to many, and it's more or less just whatever they like or picked up on TV. But that has probably been true at most times in history.

As for religion, I think the main criterion for the goodness of a religion is whether it is true. I can't work up very much interest in extolling the benefits of a false belief, or lamenting the dangers of a true one, although both are interesting to a degree, I'll admit.

Every bit of which is off topic, so I'll just close by saying -- I agree, you used opinion quite correctly. (Yet I'm sure you would be happy to give reasons for your opinion, notwithstanding your realization that it is not universal).

"Going off topic here, but while I think that's a great point in the comic, I always also think there are two ways to view those. It could just be that each generation thinks it's the worst of all time, and three generations later thinks it was the best. It could also be that they were all correct: that the pace of life was increasing continually through all of those generations, and has increased much more since then. There is at least some evidence of that."--You are absolutely 100% correct on this point. Your second paragraph is probably also mostly true, though I would suspect it is much more closely tied to their parents and the society around them and not to TV. As for religion---- A) I am of course a atheist. B) Why would we pray to a real god? Unless in increases the overall happiness in a society utilitarianism would claim we shouldn't. C) I could argue that a false one that increased happiness is good, especially in moderation and if it wasn't really tied to tradition or didn't try to change anything in society. I think a lot of the asian religions(which have a large group of their adherents identify as atheists because they don't usually have gods--buddhism for example) are this way though I don't know everything about the topic so take that sentence with a grain of salt. D) I am really bad at staying on topic.

"Why would we pray to a real god? Unless in increases the overall happiness in a society utilitarianism would claim we shouldn't."

This seems entirely irrelevant. I don't know of many theists who ask their respective deity to make the world worse off.

Also, if there is a "real god," and by "god" we assume the omnipotent kind, wouldn't utilitarianism be false, or at the very least, a creation of this god? If you suppose the first part of your statement, the second part is false.

+1 Cyrus. Most theists, at least, are not utilitarians.

So, what type of utilitarian are you?

Semck, who are you talking to? SamH or me?

Cyrus,

Sorry, my first sentence was agreeing with you and just clarifying which point I was agreeing with. My second paragraph was a question to Sam. That was completely unclear, I now see.

No problem. I didn't think I said I was a utilitarian...

You're only saying that to make me happy.

Awww, no semck, I really mean it *bats eye lashes*

I am not a specific type of utilitarian. I kind of believe in a mix of a few of the different stances. I probably learn away from act and towards rule. Though in my perfect society people would be entirely logical though i understand that this is both basically impossible and that what information you feed in can make something logical produce illogical results. In terms of what I believe morality should be judged on I can't entirely decide between happiness and life but I probably learn toward life. Kingcyprus,I think a theist utilitarian would argue that you measure the morality of an action by its accomplishment of "god's will". In a theistic world god creates morality but you could still argue that utilitarianism could correspond with that. And I mostly meant that if I prayed to god and he granted my wish but overall society was not improved or he didn't grant my wish and but the overall society was not improved then praying would be incorrect from a utilitarian point of view(of course most theists are not utilitarians for this reason).