9.3 Rating logic

The evaluation logic explores the logical structure and logical connections of evaluative statements.

The main task of the evaluation logic is to identify and systematize those specific logical laws that allow others to be derived from some evaluations.

Here are some examples of the laws of absolute evaluation logic:

“Nothing can be good and bad at the same time, from the same point of view”;

“Nothing can be together both good and indifferent”;

"It is impossible to be both bad and indifferent."

For example, pride cannot be both good and bad; beauty cannot be together both good and indifferent; it is impossible for an excessive temper to be immediately both bad and indifferent. And finally, whether there is life on Mars or it is not there seems to us indifferent if and only if it does not seem to us as good or bad.

Already from these simple examples it can be seen that the different assessments of the same object included in a law should belong to the same person (or group of people), and be given from the same point of view. If, for example, excessive irascibility is assessed by someone from a certain point of view as a bad trait, then for this person and from this same - and not from another - point of view, she can no longer be indifferent.

Good can be defined through bad, and vice versa:

Something is good only and the case when the opposite is bad ”;

"Something bad is only when the opposite is burying."

No matter what is neither good nor bad.

For example, it is good to register an existing gun only if it is bad not to do it. It is bad to be scattered only when it is good not to be like that. The statement “It’s good that the adopted code has no internal contradictions” is tantamount to the statement “It would be bad if there were contradictions in the adopted code”. Saying “It is bad when a person speaks not on the merits” means the same as saying “It’s good if a person speaks on the merits”.

The validity of these and similar statements, which are specific applications of the laws of the logic of estimation, is, of course, beyond doubt. And the one who tries to challenge, say, the general statement “The indifferent cannot be bad” or the statement “The bad cannot be good,” simply does not know the usual meaning of the words “good,” “indifferent” and “bad.”

The concepts "better" and "worse" are also mutually definable: the first is better than the second, when the second is worse than the first.

Equivalent is defined as being neither the best nor the worst.

For example, the statement that tolerance towards others is better than intolerance, is tantamount to the statement that intolerance towards others is worse than tolerance. An increase in wages is equivalent to a decrease in the working day, only if the increase in wages is neither better nor worse than a decrease in the working day.

Absolute and comparative evaluation concepts in the general case are not definable in terms of each other. Of two good things, one can be better than the other; in the same way, of two bad things, one can be better or worse than the other. From the fact that one thing is preferred by another, it does not follow that the first is good and the second is bad.

There are, therefore, two independent systems of value coordinates, using which a person makes his assessments. The system of absolute evaluative concepts is closer to human action than the system of comparative evaluative concepts. Characteristically, the regulatory concepts of "mandatory", "allowed" and "prohibited", directly related to human activity, are much closer to absolute than to comparative evaluative concepts.

Of particular interest among the laws of evaluation logic are the specification of the contradiction law in the case of evaluations:

"Two states, logically incompatible with each other, cannot both be good";

"Contradictory states cannot be bad together."

For example, honesty and dishonesty, health and illness, rainy weather without rain, etc. are logically incompatible. In the case of each of these pairs of states that exclude each other, it is true that if it is good to be healthy, it is not true that not being healthy is also good; to be dishonestly bad it is not true that being honest is also bad, etc.

Obviously, we are talking about the evaluation of two conflicting states from the same point of view.

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. If, for example, health and ill health are viewed from different angles, then each of these two states will turn out to be in something good, and in something, possibly, in a bad way. And when it is said that they cannot be together good or bad together, it means: in the same respect.

The evaluation logic in no way asserts that if, for example, sincerity is good in some respects, then insincerity cannot be good in any other respect. To show insincerity at the bedside of a terminally ill patient is one thing, and being insincere with his doctor is completely different. Logic insists only that two opposite states cannot be good in the same respect for the same person.

It is fundamentally important that the logic establishes the definition of "rationality" of the rating system.

Inclusion in the number of such definitions of the requirement of consistency is directly related to the properties of human action. The task of evaluative reasoning is to provide reasonable grounds for action. The contradictory state cannot be realized. Accordingly, reasoning suggesting that an impossible action be performed cannot be considered reasonable. The controversial assessment, acting in this reasoning and recommending such an action, also cannot be considered reasonable.

In the logic of absolute evaluations, the principle is usually accepted that every object is either good, or indifferent, or bad.

This principle is valid, however, only in the case of the assumption that the set of things about the value of which there is a certain idea, coincides with the set of all things existing in the world. But this assumption is not always justified. For example, the fact that a trapezium has four sides is most likely neither good, nor bad, nor indifferent; such facts generally lie outside the scope of our assessments.

From the laws of the logic of comparative assessments, we can mention the following principles:

"Nothing can be better than itself";

"Nothing is worse than himself";

"If one is better than the other, then the second is worse than the first."

For example, “Sincere behavior is neither better nor worse than itself” and “If sincerity is better than insincerity, then insincerity is worse than sincerity.”

These laws are, of course, self-evident. They do not say anything about the objects being evaluated or their properties, they do not contain any "subject" content. The task of such laws is to reveal the meaning of the words “better” and “worse”, to indicate the rules by which their use obeys.

A good example of the position of the evaluation logic, which causes constant controversy, is the so-called principle of transitivity, or transitivity:

"If the first is better than the second, and the second is better than the third, then the first is better than the third."

And likewise for "worse."

Assume that the person was offered a choice between reducing the working day and raising wages, and he preferred the first. Then he was offered to choose between a wage increase and an increase in vacation, and he chose a wage increase. Does this mean that, facing then the need to choose between shortening the working day and increasing vacation time, this person will choose, by virtue of the laws of logic, so to speak, automatically, shorten the working day? Will he contradict himself if he chooses in the latter case an increase in vacation?

The answer here is not obvious. On this basis, the principle of transitivity is often not attributed to the laws of the logic of estimates. However, the rejection of it has not quite acceptable consequences. A person who does not observe this principle in his reasoning is deprived of the opportunity to choose the most valuable of those things that are not considered equivalent to them.

Suppose that someone prefers a banana to an orange, an orange over an apple, and at the same time prefers an apple to a banana. In this case, whichever of the three things he chooses, there will always be a thing that he prefers. If we assume how it is done (101,14110), that a reasonable choice is a choice that gives the most valuable thing, then adherence to the principle of transitivity will be a necessary condition for a reasonable choice.

Thus, if a reasonable choice is defined as a choice that gives the best available alternative, then the principle of transitivity turns out to be a necessary condition for a reasonable choice. We are entitled to call someone who violates this principle an “unreasonable person”: in the conditions of free choice, he chooses not the best thing.

The principle of transitivity continues to be the subject of controversy among economists, logicians, and others. The solution to this problem most likely lies in the fact that there are different types of preferences. In some cases, preference is transitive, so that a person is able to choose the best of unequal things, in other situations preference turns out to be non-transitive.

The concept of "better" ("preferred") is not, therefore, simple in its content. If you think about it, there is nothing strange about it. Preference is often associated with choice, with risk, with other preferences, with the available amount of knowledge about comparable subjects, etc.