Vertinimas, privalomybė, norma

Abstract

The object of the article is the specificity of the concepts „evaluation“, „obligation“ and „norm“ and its interrelations in the ethical and to certain extent in the legal discourses. The specificity of the acts of evaluation is defined by showing its difference from factual cognitive sentences, „value“ meant the worth of a thing, and „evaluation“ – an estimate of its worth. The obligatory utterances, such like „must“ and „ought“ has a hortatory force as different from the previsions based on the knowledge of the causal links. At a junction of the evaluative and obligatory approaches merges norm as a sort of social articulation of the both. Therefore norm performs a double function – that of obligation, on the one hand, and that of criterion of evaluation, on the other. There are different points of view regarding the question of substantiation of both ethical and legal norms. This poses the question about which sort of values are the background of the above systems of norms.
In spite of the differences of the meanings and uses between the ethical and legal terms and utterences, one may stress certain common formal features that both moral and legal duty possess in virtue of their both being aspects of roleguided conduct.
One can discern the positive and negative forms of the verbal expression of norms and the problem arises which form is more effective with respect to social purpose of norms – that obliging to perform good acts, or that inciting to abstain from doing evil. The logic of moral evaluation as well as that of obligation is extremely complicated. An Austran philosopher A. Meinong set forth a model of the evaluation of actions, introducing four moral categories with respect to what is „good“ and what is „bad“. The actions that are considered to be good may be either permissible or impermissible (condemned). According to Russian philosopoher A. Ivin in morality the highest value is good, but not all kinds of good are required, on the other hand, not all kinds of obligation are good.