9. 1 Logical analysis of assessments and norms Good and debt: the possibility of logical research

L. Wittgenstein, who once gave a lecture on ethics, saw the reason for the hopelessness of the scientific discussion of her problems in her language. The language in which we speak of moral goodness and duty is completely different from the spoken and scientific language. Our words, as they are used by us in science, are exclusively vessels capable of containing and transferring meaning and meaning. Ethics, if it is anything at all, is supernatural.

Wittgenstein's thought is simple. To talk about ethics, most likely related to the supernatural, requires a special language, which we do not have. And if such a language were invented after all, it would have been catastrophic: it would be incompatible with our usual language and one of these two languages ​​would have been abandoned. Speaking of good and duty, would have to be silent about everything else.

This is just one of the lines of defense of the opinion of the impossibility of a strict justification of the science of morality, as opposed to the ordinary sciences. Obviously, what has been said about ethics applies both to the theory of law and to all those scientific disciplines that establish and substantiate assessments and norms.

It can be noted that the view that it is impossible to provide a scientific basis for ethics of comparatively recent origin, and it clearly contradicts a centuries-old tradition. Not so long ago, namely about three hundred years ago, the opposite belief was just as common. It was most vividly expressed in the philosophy of B. Spinoza, who was convinced that the highest measure of accuracy and rigor was achievable in ethics and made a grandiose attempt to restructure ethics along the lines of geometry.

Spinoza's contemporary J. Locke also did not doubt the possibility of scientific ethics, as obvious and accurate as mathematics. He believed, moreover, that, despite the work of "the incomparable Mr. Newton," physics and the whole of natural science is impossible. However, defending the possibility of strict and precise ethics, Spinoza and Locke were not original. They only supported and continued the old philosophical tradition, at the beginnings of which Socrates and Plato stood.

Of course, there is no real alternative here. The question does not stand like this: either ethics without natural science, or natural science without ethics. Possible scientific interpretation of both nature and morality. One does not exclude the other.

And this concerns not only good and duty in the sphere of morality, but also all other values ​​and norms, in whatever field they may be encountered.

Despite all the peculiarities of assessments and norms in comparison with the objects studied by the natural sciences, assessments and norms may well be the subject of scientific research. Moreover, research leading to fairly convincing, rigorous and accurate results. "Strict" and "exact" in that, of course, in the sense and to the extent that they are characteristic of sciences that speak of values ​​and duty.

The problem of the scientific study of values ​​has an important logical aspect.

Is it possible to talk about good and bad, obligatory and forbidden in a consistent and consistent way? Is it possible to be logical in matters of morality, law and similar sciences? Do any other assessments and norms derive from the same assessments and norms? Logic should answer these and related questions. It goes without saying that if it turned out that logic is not applicable to spiders, including and justifying values, then there could be no question of any scientific ethics or scientific theory of law.

Can two people, arguing about good or proper, contradict each other? Obviously, yes, and we constantly encounter such a disagreement of opinions.

However, a strictly reasoned answer to this question suggests the creation of a special theory of such reasoning. The proof that one can be logical and consistent in judgments about good and duty requires the construction of a logical theory of reasoning with such judgments.

Such theories have been formed relatively recently. Many of their problems are still not clear enough; a number of their important results are controversial. But it is clear that they are no longer simply abstractly possible, but actually exist and show that arguments about values ​​and norms do not go beyond the scope of the “logical” and can be successfully analyzed and described using the methods of modern logic.

In the middle of the last century, in logic there were two new sections dealing with values: evaluation logic, investigating the logical structure and logical connections of evaluative statements, and deontic (normative) logic, exploring the logical connections of normative (prescriptive) statements.

The rating logic is composed of the logic of absolute ratings and the logic of comparative assessment.

The first attempt to create a logical theory of absolute estimates was made in the 20s. XX century. E. Husserl. In "Ethical Studies", fragments of which were published only in 1960, he defended the existence of logical connections between evaluations and indicated a number of simple laws of the logic of absolute evaluations. However, for the first time, this logic was formulated, apparently, only in the late 60s.

The logical analysis of comparative assessments (preferences) began in connection with the attempts of economists to establish formal criteria for reasonable (rational) preferences. The logic of preferences began to be developed as an independent section of logic after the works of S. Halden and G. von Wrigt.

The development of deontic logic began in the mid-20s. XX century. (Works by E. Mally, C. Menger, etc.). More vigorous research unfolded in the 50s. after the works of G. von Wrygt, who extended to deontic modal concepts (“mandatory”, “allowed”, “prohibited”), the approach adopted in standard modal logic, which uses the concepts of “necessary”, “possible” and “impossible”.

The deontic logic and the logic of estimates almost immediately found fairly wide and interesting applications. This was largely due to the fact that the emergence and development of these sections of logic was stimulated by the actively discussed methodological problems related primarily to the social and human sciences.