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Evaluation as Persuasion: A Reply to Kelly's Critique

1 must first pay tribute to Kelly's grasp of my Logic monograph. It is a long and difficult piece, and few have managed such a penetrating critique (or perhaps cared to try). I am flattered by both the attention and the high quality of the critique. I must immediately concede one of Kelly's major points. There is a hidden premise in my argument to the effect that what the evaluator persuades the audience of is true. Otherwise, the evaluator may be acting like a dishonest used car salesman. In fact, I would now go further and contend that the relationship between the evaluator and the audience contains an implicit claim that the evaluation is true. It makes little sense for one to say, 'This is a valid evaluation but happens to be untrue." Truth is presumed in all evaluations, I think. Otherwise, the evaluation is invalid. On the other hand, truth is determined in different ways, and, indeed, this is what separates evaluation approaches from one another. Even if one believes one has the truth, however, one may hold this conviction with differing degrees of certainty. I would still contend that even the best evaluations can only be highly credible rather than absolutely certain. The evaluation is somewhat equivocal to all concerned, and the evaluator presents it as such. On Kelly's second major question, I am less in agreement, I think. Does the evaluator persuade to a "point of view" or a "course of action?" Although I did not say so in the monograph, I think the evaluator persuades that something is the case, specifically, that Program X has a certain value. Sometimes this will amount to a recommendation for a course of action, but not usually. In taking a course of action, the decision maker must decide on a far wider range of considerations than those contained in the evaluation. The evaluator's intent is to inform the course of action but only rarely will the action and evaluation considerations overlap completely. So the evaluator tries to be as relevant as possible but does not expect to determine fully the decision maker's judgment. The evaluator's role is more modest. I would agree that the intent of the evaluator is practical rather than theoretical, but do not know whether my distinction is the same as Aristotle's. It seems to me that there are truth claims in both theoretical and practical arguments, although of different kinds. I do not mean to challenge Aristotle's distinction here because his work seems to be holding up