Point Of View

All evaluation is conducted from a particular point of view, although this point of view is frequently implicit and often unacknowledged. Nonetheless, the particular point of view from which an evaluation is conducted suggests the forms of reasoning and criteria that will be relevant for a particular evaluation. Examples of points of view are aesthetic, economic, historical, mathematical, political, religious, and scientific. Within any point of view there are numerous value systems. Thus, for example, within a religious point of view there are value systems that might be described by major religions such as Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, and so on. These many value systems within a particular point of view are often contradictory to one another. A point of view is, therefore, cross-cultural, although value systems are culture bound.

A judgment about the value of an evaluand can and often does vary depending on the point of view taken. For example, if one evaluates a painting from an economic point of view, one might judge it to be a good painting because it has high likelihood of increasing in value. However, if this same painting is evaluated from an aesthetic point of view, the evaluative conclusion might be that it is not a good painting because it violates aesthetic standards for paintings of its type.

To take a point of view is to adopt certain canons of reasoning to use in determining the justification for assertions, including evaluative conclusions. This is important especially from a metaevaluation perspective. At one level, an evaluation of an evaluation must first examine the extent to which the evaluation being evaluated used reasoning and evidence consistent with the point of view taken and at another level must examine the extent to which the point of view was appropriate.