Whether Value Free Judgments are possible in Social Sciences?

The idea of ‘value-free’ social science was conceded down to later decades as a way of understanding the objectivity of knowledge. However, it has been extensively misunderstood. A value judgment is based on the righteous or wrongness of something. A value judgment is a judgment, which is based on an exacting set of values or value systems. 

It has been mentioned that social science should have to accept the domain of human objectives, values, goals, and meanings into its context. Value subjectivism is considered as the main view in that context. Subjectivism can be considered as the non-rational nature of judgments. I has arose two main problems. The first one is when there is an absence of rational claims of evaluative judgments (ends, goals, and the notion of good), then it was subjected to the questions of the way that those goals have to be determined. Most of the philosophers were not subjected to alternative answers like goals and valid values have been set by a supernatural God or passed down from tradition. 

The second one is based on the positivist rejection of values. Durkheim reduced everything into facts (reductionism). Durkheim thought that the society could be reduced to facts because values can be studied quantitatively. Nevertheless, other intellectuals challenged this idea. However, Durkheim was criticized for his overemphasis on the idea of ‘fact’ and for reducing everything into facts (even values). He was criticized for the reduction of live values into relatively dead social facts. He analyzed suicide with statistics. But it is questionable whether suicide is a fact. Although the number of people who committed suicide has taken as a fact, the reason for the question of why people commit suicide is a qualitative one. In addition, his approach lacks the information outside of France. 

Most of the sociologists have reduced everything into fact and values. Comte and Durkheim reduced everything into facts whereas Weber emphasized the prominence of values. Weber had an intellectual combat with Comte and Durkheim because of the complete rejection of values. It is true that facts are quantifiable and values cannot be quantifiable. However, the prominence of values cannot ignore only because they cannot be quantified. He defined sociology as the ‘study of social action’. Even Durkheim was criticized for the over emphasis on the concept of fact. Moreover, he was criticized for reducing live values into relatively dead social facts (E.g.:- Suicide). 

The question that arises in this context is whether entities of one variety can be reduced to another variety. Data can be reduced to numbers, illustrations, diagrams, models, charts etc. However, this is only possible with the physical phenomena. It is very difficult to reduce social data into numbers, illustrations, diagrams etc. According to Max Horkeimer human social action is derived by history, culture and belief pattern. Therefore, if a social fact is reduced to a fact, then it becomes a wrong depiction. 

In social science, it studies the society as a whole and therefore, studies the values that are embedded in it. It is impossible to exclude values from social sciences. There are two types of values; ethical values and aesthetic values. In the context of ethical values, it discusses the good, bad, write, and wrong things, which are accepted by the society. There are theories to explain these things. It is impossible to exclude these value judgments. But, positivism ignores the importance of value judgments. However, when we refer the historical progress of science, it is possible to identify that even in the context of scientific discipline, value judgments have been used. Once there was the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion, which can be defined as a view of the universe in which the earth was at the center (geo-centric), up until Copernicus. Copernicus made a claim of the cosmos by revolving the earth form the center of the universe and placed heavenly bodies in revolving around the sun. He also introduced the theory of the daily rotation of the earth in its own axis. Copernicus’ view of helio-centric model was valued against Ptolemaic model. As such, the theories in science have been subjected to value judgments. Therefore, positivists did a mistake by excluding values. 

Heinrich Rickert’s (1863-1936) contribution is very important in this context. According to him, the methodology of social science should deviate from those of natural sciences. His views were affected to one of the leading philosopher of social science; Max Weber. Rickert argued that the methodology which is used in natural sciences is not applicable to other disciplines. To illustrate, in physics, it is aimed at inventing general laws about physical phenomena. Therefore, the problem of values does not affect to the physical science context. Nevertheless, it is different in the context of social sciences. In the social science context, the objects were embedded by values. He introduced the view of ‘value-relevance’ instead of the view of ‘value-neutrality’. It means that, when a social scientist does a research, obviously he is subjected to the social and cultural values. Both Rickert and the philosophers in the humanistic group claimed that it is impossible to get away from values in the context of social sciences.

Max Weber was the person who mostly discussed about the connection between objectivity and values in social science. According to him, the idea of ‘culture’ is itself embedded with values. Therefore, it is impossible to find everything in culture only by analyzing facts. The book of ‘Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy’ (1904) he has mentioned that. ‘Social sciences’ are considered as ‘cultural sciences’. His view is constructed by using both the concepts of ‘value-freedom’ and ‘value-relevance’. 

The people who tend to produce scientific knowledge are in a position that there are special qualities in the knowledge that they produce which cannot be identified in other disciplines. In other words, they claim that scientific knowledge is the most important. There are several characteristics of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is derived through observations, experiments and empirical evidences. It has accepted that scientific knowledge can be tested. And the things which have empirically proved are supposed to occur in the future with the same consequences. Scientific knowledge is believed to not to be subjected to personal/ subjective judgments. The most important thing is scientific statements are free from personal judgmental claims. In other words, scientific knowledge is believed to be free from value judgments. Therefore, scientific knowledge is excluded from value judgments. 

But when it comes to the knowledge that is derived in the context of social sciences, it is impossible for them to get away from the value judgments. Suppose a social scientist is doing a research and he observe the behavior of a selected group of people. It is possible to occur non-observations and mal-observations. The researcher’s own personal ideas/ value judgments would be included to the findings either with knowledge or without knowledge. 

The objects of the inquiry of the two worlds (natural and social) are different. In the social world, the objects of the inquiry were thinking and acting beings. When it comes to the behavior of the human beings, their behavior is purposive, goal-oriented, and intentional. Therefore, social science knowledge cannot be value-free, in other words, value neutral. In value-neutrality, it says that it is required to free from values (good, bad, right, wrong etc.) in order to identify something as scientific. 

Value-freedom was a complex doctrine along with widely ramified sources in the intellectual history of economics, sociology and law. Social science is a part of a value system. Therefore, it is difficult to use value-free judgments in the context of social sciences.

Bibliography

Benton, T., & Craib, I. (2001). Philosophy of Social Science- The Philosophical Foundations of Social Thought . London: Palgrave.

Brown, S., Collinson, D., & Wilkinson, R. (Eds.). (1998). One-hundred Twentieth-Century Philosophers. New York: Routledge .

Carnap, R. (1966). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science . New York: Dover Press.

Crotty, M. (1998). foundations of Socila Research- Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. London : SAGE.

Uyangoda, J. (2015). Social Research-Philosophical and Methodological Foundations. Colombo 5: Social Scinetists Association .