What does ～と見てよい/～と見ていい mean? How did it have its meaning?

Question

I found these sentences using SPACEALC:

The content in parentheses and bolding are my own:

1. まず勝ち試合と見ていいが、成り行き任せでは駄目です。
   You'll probably win the game, but that's not automatic.

2. ゴドフリィ・ノートンはこの件に深く関与していると見ていいだろう。
   "This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter.

3. ＜that以下＞は間違いないと見てよい。
   It appears certain that

4. 例えば、「おはようございます」と言ってみて相手の外国人が「はあ？」と不思議そうな顔を見せたら、日本語を話せないと見てよい。
   If, for example, you say, "Ohayo gozaimasu," and they look at you perplexed and utter, "HUH?", it's pretty good bet that they don't (speak Japanese).

5. 勇気は人間の資質の中で最も重要なものと見てよい。なぜならそれは他のすべての資質を保証する資質だからだ。
   Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

1. First I would like to draw attention to sentences 1 through 4. I gathered that と見てよい means something along the lines of "appear to be"

2. Then consider sentences 2 and 5 where it seems to have the senses of "evident" and "rightly esteemed" which is like my previous conclusion of "appear to be" except much stronger.

3. Then consider sentence 2 that ends in だろう, which weakens the assertion.

This makes me a little confused.

(Question) What does と見ていい・よい mean?
How does this link back to what we know of て-form + いい?

Answer 1

～と見ていい basically means "safe to assume" or "safe to say" - this is why the association with an assumption is so strong. But it can also be an analogy or a more restatement of one thing as another, as in the cases of #2 and #5. There, it isn't an assumption, per se; rather it is a statement of a general sentiment. It becomes uncertain when followed by ～だろう as normal.

More generally, AをBと見る is just "to view A as B". と is a normal quoting particle, and いい is used for acceptability as usual. I think the tricky bit here is that 見る is being used in a way we aren't as used to.

So really, it isn't any more than the sum of it's parts. The meaning is surprisingly straightforward. The literal approximation suggested in your comment, is viewing __ as ～ is acceptable. works just fine.

Answer 2

Seems that it means something like: though there is not enough evidence/proof/guarantee/... of a fact/matter/... , it is safe to make the assumption that the fact/matter/... is true.

It is a very strong assumption.