9.4 Regulatory statements. Standards and assessments. Standards and descriptions

Regulatory statements

Discourse on duty, like all other reasoning, obeys the principles of logic. And in this area it is possible and necessary to be consistent and demonstrative. Questions about due often cause controversy and controversy. But this does not happen, of course, because the connections between statements about the obligation go beyond the limits of logic and in matters of duty no one can be convinced by logical reasoning.

Regulatory statement establishes a certain standard of behavior. It obliges, permits or forbids the execution of nonexpert action under threat of punishment.

Normative statements are, in particular, the statements: “Stop talking!”, “Robbery, i.e. open embezzlement of another's property, is punished with correctional work, either arrest or imprisonment ”,“ No one can be held responsible twice for the same crime ”,“ No one can be arbitrarily deprived of life ”, etc.

The language wording of the normative utterances is diverse and heterogeneous. Sometimes such statements have the form of an imperative (imperative) sentence (“Do not smoke!”, “Stop lying!”, Etc.). More often, a normative statement is represented by a declarative sentence with special normative concepts: “mandatory”, “allowed”, “prohibited”, “(normative) indifferently”. Instead of the above concepts, other words and turns may also be used: “must”, “may”, “should not”, “allowed”, “recommended”, “forbidden”, etc. In the linguistic presentation of the normative utterance, the context in which the norm is expressed plays the decisive role. You can talk about the usual, or standard, wording of regulatory statements. But one can hardly say that there is a grammatical sentence, in principle, not capable of expressing such a statement. An attempt to define a normative utterance on purely grammatical grounds does not lead to success.

It seems more successful to try to clarify the concept of a normative utterance (and, accordingly, the concept of a norm) by contrasting normative utterances with descriptions, analyzing the internal structure of the norms and studying various types of norms.

Standards and ratings

Normally norms and ratings are considered independently of each other. Attempts to establish a connection between norms and estimates are rare, and it is presumed in advance that the question of this relationship is very complicated. Most often, it is argued that assessments somehow “underlie” the norms or in some way “entail” norms. Attempts to reveal the exact mechanism of this connection lead to cumbersome and meaningfully obscure constructions.

In fact, as the estimation logic shows, this connection is simple. Norms are a special case of the value relationship between thought and reality. As such, the rules are a special case of assessments. It is precisely the case that seems to the regulatory authority so important that it finds it necessary to establish a certain punishment for bringing reality into line with its assessment.

The legal norm is a socially imposed and socially fixed assessment. The means by which evaluation becomes the norm is sanction, or “punishment” in the broad sense of the word, imposed by society on those who retreat from the prescriptions set by them. The punishment is many-sided and heterogeneous, starting with the deprivation of life and ending with the abstract "condemnation of history." Accordingly, the boundary of the norm area is not clear. In particular, legal norms are rigidly fixed social assessments, with strictly fixed sanctions.

Methodological rules - assessments, the rejection of which threatens with the emergence of some, not specified beforehand difficulties in research activities.

The rules of the game are scores with a kind of sanction: a person who neglects them leaves the game (“plays a different game”).

Grammatical norms - assessments with a vague sanction, in many respects similar to the sanction for violating the rules of the game, etc. The variety of types of possible human activity - from the transformation of nature and society to the game of “crosses and toes” - lies at the basis of the diversity of the punishments that accompany the violation of the norm and the heterogeneity of the field of the norms themselves.

The idea that norms are a special case of assessments can be expressed using the following definition:

The action A = is obligatory (by definition) the action L is positively valuable, and it is good that abstention from this action entails punishment.

By this definition, the “Mandatory action A” norm is decomposed into two assessments: a positive assessment of action A and a positive assessment of punishment for failure to perform this action (refraining from it).

Standards as estimates, standardized with the help of sanctions, are a private and fairly narrow class of assessments. First, the rules relate to human actions or things that are closely related to the action, while assessments can relate to any objects. Secondly, the norms are directed to the future, while assessments may concern both the past and the present, and that which exists outside of time in general.

The difference of norms from other assessments is therefore connected with the sanction. It has, ultimately, a social nature.

The difference between norms and assessments does not imply, of course, that they are in no way interconnected. On the contrary, their connections are diverse and close, although they are not - with one exception - the nature of logical inference. This one exception is simple: a rule that prescribes an action logically follows a positive assessment of this action by those who set the rule. For example, from a rule prescribing to be honest, it follows logically a positive assessment of honesty by people putting forward this rule and suggesting that its non-compliance should be punished.

Standards and descriptions

A descriptive statement says what is or is not taking place; normative statement expresses the norm and says what should, can or should not be.

The distinction between “is” and “must” is fundamental: that which is really exists; that which should be, can both exist and not exist. However, the boundary between "is" and "must" is not always possible to make distinct.

The difficulty of separating normative statements from statements of other types, and above all from descriptive ones, is largely connected with the existence of statements that perform several functions at once or change their function from situation to situation.

In particular, the norms are almost not found in scientific theories that do not set as their special task their elaboration and justification. The usual theories of norms include, as a rule, in the form of “mixed”, descriptive-normative statements. In particular, the dual nature of the most general principles of the theory is obvious. All other laws of theories and even some underlying facts are not normatively neutral.

The dual, descriptive and regulatory nature of the principles of morality and law. On the one hand, they systematize the centuries-old experience of mankind and express it in the form of “universal maxims” (“Do not kill!”, “Do not steal!”, Etc.). On the other hand, these principles require certain behavior and imply punishment for acts that are not consistent with them.

Behind the opposition, the description - the norm stands, ultimately, the opposition is the truth - the value, and the first elements of these oppositions cannot be clearly understood without clarifying their second elements.

The main function of a descriptive, or descriptive, utterance is to describe the reality.

If the description given by the statement corresponds to the real state of affairs, the statement is considered true, if it does not, it is false. Only descriptive statements can be true or false; all other statements that do not pretend to describe reality are outside the category of truth.

The concept of a descriptive utterance can be adequately clarified only on the basis of contrasting it with an evaluative, and in particular normative, statement. An attempt to define a description outside the opposition description — an assessment (in a particular case, a norm) is similar to the intention to characterize “boiled” without mentioning “raw” or to define “smooth” without referring to “rough”. The situation is similar with those definitions of a normative utterance that do not oppose the description to the norm.