The Social Function of Scoring Systems
C. Thi Nguyen: Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy
We find scoring systems aplenty in both games and institutional life – in all the rankings and metrics which surround us. Why are scores so common, and what does it mean that we are so often entangled in scoring systems that we don’t entirely control? A score is a quantitative evaluation that renders a singular verdict. Scores have a typical function: they to encourage convergence on a singular evaluation. They are not transparent engines; they transform our values. Scoring can exert systematic pressures on our social processes of evaluations. They work to suppress pluralism about value, and to discourage evaluations in vague terms, and they encourage evaluation in mechanically repeatable terms. In doing so, scores can also serve to settle key choice points in collective reasoning processes – which explains, in part, the centrality of metrics in institutional deliberation.
