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Title: THE QUESTION OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND ITS FOUNDATIONS


1
How Max Weber got it mostly right about the role
of values in social research 
Martyn Hammersley The Open University,
UK Helsinki-Copenhagen Colloquium on Evidence in
Social Inquiry Workshop 1 The Role of Values in
Social Enquiry, University of Copenhagen,
December 2013
2
  • Max Weber in 1917

3
An issue characterised by three Cs
  • Caricature of some of the positions proposed.
  • Complexity a range of difficult issues,
    concerning the legitimate products of social
    research the role of various sorts of value in
    its pursuit the institutional requirements for
    such research evaluation of its consequences
    and so on (see Proctor 1991 Kincaid et al 2007).
  • Confusion a variety of terms are employed to
    mark out different positions, but these do not
    have clear or unambiguous meanings value
    neutrality, value freedom, objectivity,
    subjectivity, partisanship, perfectionism,
    etc.

4
Caricature
  • Critics, and even some supporters, formulate the
    idea that social inquiry can be value-neutral,
    value-free, or even objective in ways that
    misrepresent its original form.
  • Webers work is frequently ignored or
    misinterpreted.
  • There is some slight excuse for both these
    tendencies value-free, value-neutral, and
    objective are problematic terms and Weber does
    not clearly express his position in a way that is
    immediately intelligible. (But see Bruun 2007.)

5
Weber was no positivist
  • Weber was a post-enlightenment thinker,
    influenced by neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche. He
    did not believe, like Comte and Durkheim, that
    science can diagnose social pathology. Nor did he
    believe, like Hegel and Marx, that there is a set
    of values, built into human nature, whose
    realisation is the End of History.
  • If we try to understand his views as if they were
    a form of positivism or historicism we will be
    led astray.

6
Assumptions that the value-neutral principle does
NOT imply/require
  • That research involves no reliance upon values.
  • That making value judgments is quite independent
    of facts about the world.
  • That there is a metaphysical dichotomy between
    facts and values (Putnam 2002).
  • That value judgments are necessarily irrational
    leaps of subjective faith.
  • That because discussion of values cannot be
    scientific it cannot be rational.

7
Complexity Is social inquiry value-neutral/value-
free/objective? Can it be? Should it be?
  • Besides these 3 questions, there are at least
    3 others that need to be addressed, with a view
    to reducing confusion
  • How are we defining social inquiry?
  • What do we mean by value?
  • What do we mean by neutral/free/objective?

8
Types of social inquiry
  • Academic research aimed at building up
    disciplinary knowledge. This was Webers primary
    focus.
  • Practical research aimed at supplying
    information needed by practical actors
    governments, citizens, consumers, etc.
  • Inquiry-subordinated-to-another-activity, for
    example police inquiries, legal research, civil
    service research, and much action research.
  • All three can be of great value, but they are
    different in character (Hammersley 2002ch6).

9
What does value mean?
  • Two meanings in Weber
  • A principle that specifies a good/bad contrast.
    Very often there are multiple versions of the
    same principle, for example justice/injustice can
    take retributive or distributive forms. Moreover,
    all value principles must be interpreted in order
    to be applied to particular cases.
  • A value-judgment an evaluation of some person,
    situation, object, course of action, etc in terms
    of a set of value principles (and, also, on the
    basis of various factual assumptions).

10
Webers treatment of values
  • Weber argues that we are faced with plural value
    principles, and that for this and other reasons
    there are usually conflicting but equally
    reasonable (as well as unreasonable) value
    judgments about any object. Correct!
  • He believed that how we choose among or assign
    priority to value principles cannot be decided by
    reason. Wrong but salutary!
  • However, he thought that value judgments were
    open to rational scrutiny as regards their
    derivation from principles, and also in terms of
    their realism. Correct!

11
Weber on vocations
1. We choose particular vocations, and this will
lead us to prioritise some values over others.
Western society involves institutional
specialisation, and a rationalisation process
requiring us to pursue vocations objectively. 2.
Whatever our vocation, we will often find it
uncomfortable because of conflict among
values. 3. Those following different vocations,
like those brought up in different cultures, may
struggle to reach agreement and sometimes even to
understand one another.
12
Epistemic and non-epistemic values
Social scientists are, by the nature of their
task, committed to epistemic values their sole
operational goal is to produce knowledge. So, in
many contexts, they prioritise truth over other
values. At the same time, the practical, that is
non-epistemic, values to which they are committed
as people can serve as a value-relevance
framework for their research. (There will also be
practical values that operate as ethical
constraints on how the research is carried out,
see Hammersley and Traianou 2012).
13
What is value freedom/neutrality?
  • Value freedom/neutrality requires that only
    factual research questions are investigated and
    that in seeking to find answers to those
    questions the researcher tries to be neutral as
    regards non-epistemic values.
  • The implication is not that publication of the
    findings of a study will be politically neutral
    in its effects, in the sense of being equally
    favourable or unfavourable to all political or
    practical commitments. However, it will not be
    systematically favourable or unfavourable to
    particular positions in its consequences.

14
Assumptions underpinning value neutrality
  • Factual conclusions are distinct from value
    conclusions even though value judgments involve
    factual assumptions, and factual conclusions must
    usually be value-relevant.
  • Social science can only validate factual claims,
    not value conclusions. It can legitimately claim
    expertise, though not infallibility, about
    factual matters. It cannot claim legitimate
    expertise as regards value-judgments. To do so
    would amount to scientism, and would thus
    undermine democracy.

15
What is objectivity?
  • At least three meanings, the first applying to
    knowledge claims, the others to research
    strategies. Objective as
  • Corresponding to objects in the world true
  • Following procedural rules rather than making
    idiosyncratic decisions
  • Taking proper account of what is relevant, and
    only of what is relevant. (There is, of course,
    room for uncertainty and dispute about what is
    relevant.) This third sense was the one that
    Weber used, it is a component of a commitment to
    value neutrality.

16
Bias the conceptual complement to this third
sense of objectivity
Bias distortion of the pursuit of some goal as
a result of the influence of values or interests
that are not relevant to it. For example, bias in
job selection or in legal trials. In the case of
research, of course, bias refers to deviation
from the most effective path to finding true
answers to factual questions (see Hammersley
2000ch6). What constitutes bias in pursuing an
activity depends upon its goal(s).
17
Value relevance
Unlike natural science, social research focuses
on explaining individual phenomena, rather than
aiming at universal laws, and these phenomena
must be selected for investigation on the basis
of practical values, and studied from within a
particular value-relevance framework. A
value-relevance framework defines what is at
issue, but is not partisan in the sense of
favouring only one view about that issue, and
does not provide a basis for drawing value
conclusions as part of the research.
18
Illustrating value relevance
Levels of poverty or social mobility, and reasons
for changes in these, are factual issues that are
value-relevant from a variety of political
perspectives (though not from all). Contrasting
views can be taken about them, and the research
findings are likely to be relevant to many
different political views. How we define
poverty or social mobility can vary, partly
depending upon value assumptions, but
value-neutrality requires us to explore the
consequences of different definitions for our
findings.
19
Has social science ever practised the principle
of value neutrality?
  • Not very systematically, for at least two
    reasons
  • There are continual demands on social science for
    value conclusions, not just from outside but also
    from social scientists themselves.
  • While, in the mid-twentieth century, there was
    widespread appeal to value-neutrality, in
    practice researchers nevertheless often assumed
    that value conclusions follow directly from the
    facts, for example on analogy with the
    (misleading) case of medicine.

20
The current situation
Today, across many fields of social science, and
especially where qualitative approaches have made
inroads, any commitment to value neutrality,
value-freedom, and even objectivity is
generally rejected, usually as positivist (but
see Letherby et al 2012). Value conclusions are
frequently presented as well-established by
evidence, and as warranting acceptance as valid
by anyone. Yet it is rarely made clear why these
value-judgments should be treated as
authoritative, and they are often open to
reasonable doubt.
21
The lost ground
  • The means previously used to infer value
    conclusions from factual premisses religion,
    natural law theory, nationalist ideology, organic
    social theories, or historicism of a Hegelian or
    Marxist kind have been largely abandoned by
    social scientists today.
  • We need not, and should not, adopt an
    irrationalist position, but we must recognise
    that it is much harder for rational discussion
    about values to produce consensus than is the
    case with factual matters. This is because there
    is rarely a single, true answer to a value
    question.

22
Proposed alternative approaches
  1. Researchers as organic intellectuals explicitly
    committed to some set of practical values or to
    some interest group (whether marginalised or
    involved in government). MacIntyre (1990), Root
    (1993), Burawoy (2005), and Turner (2007) all
    seem to propose versions of this.
  2. The contractual model researchers offer their
    services on the market, doing research that
    supports clients value positions, on the model
    of lawyers as advocates. This may be disguised
    via appeal to some notion of the common good.

23
Problems with these alternatives
  1. Social inquiry loses all internal coherence and
    comes to lack clear boundaries, merging into the
    activity of pressure groups of various kinds.
  2. Bias as regards factual conclusions will be
    encouraged, along with misuse of the authority of
    science.
  3. Public funding is hard to justify since research
    is serving partial interests. Given this, what
    research focuses on, and the conclusions it
    reaches, will be determined even more directly by
    funding source than currently.

24
Two corollaries of the value-neutrality principle
  • The primary duty of researchers is to pursue
    inquiry in such a way as to try to ensure that
    their findings are true.
  • A secondary responsibility is to try to ensure
    that the discussion of research findings, and of
    other factual information, in the public sphere
    pays attention to the distinction between facts
    and values and the ways they are interrelated.
  • At present, the social science community does not
    always match up well to these obligations.

25
Summary and Conclusion
  • Current situation the principles of value
    neutrality and objectivity are widely rejected
    social scientists routinely present value
    conclusions as validated by research.
  • There is little clarity about the basis for these
    value conclusions, and why they are legitimate.
  • Rejection of value neutrality is largely based on
    misinterpretation and caricature.
  • The alternatives proposed the organic
    intellectual or the hired advocate are
    undesirable they increase bias, encourage
    scientism, and thereby threaten democracy.

26
An advert!
  • The Limits of Social Science Causal Explanation
    and Values, London, Sage, 2014.
  • Martyn Hammersley
  • Chapters include
  • On the role of values in social research
  • From facts to value judgments? A critique of
    critical realism
  • Can social science tell us whether a society is
    meritocratic? A Weberian critique
  • We didnt predict a riot! On the public
    contribution of social science

27
References
Bruun, H. (2007), Science, Values and Politics in
Max Webers Methodology (Second edition),
Aldershot, Ashgate. Burawoy, M. (2005) For
Public Sociology, British Journal of Sociology,
56, 2 pp25994. Derman, J. (2012) Max Weber in
Politics and Social Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press. Hammersley, M. (2000) Taking
Sides in Social Research, London,
Routledge. Hammersley, M. (2002) Educational
Research, Policymaking and Practice, London, Paul
Chapman/Sage. Hammersley, M. (2014) The Limits of
Social Science Causal explanation and values,
London, Sage. Hammersley, M. and Traianou, A.
(2012) Ethics in Qualitative Research London,
Sage. Hutchison, T. (1964) Positive Economics and
Policy Objectives, London, Allen and Unwin.
28
References contd
  • Kincaid, H., Dupré, J., and Wylie, A. (eds)
    (2007) Value-Free Science Ideals and illusions,
    Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Letherby, G, Scott, J and Williams M (2012 )
    Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research.
    London Sage.MacIntyre, A. (1990) Three Rival
    Versions of Moral Enquiry, London, Duckworth,
    pp23-4 and passim.
  • Proctor, R. N. (1991) Value-Free Science Purity
    and power in modern knowledge, Cambridge MS,
    Harvard University Press.
  • Putnam H. (2002) The Collapse of the Fact/Value
    Dichotomy and other essays, Cambridge MS, Harvard
    University Press.
  • Putnam, H. and Walsh, V. (eds) (2011) The End of
    Value-free Economics, London, Routledge.
  • Root, M. (1993) Philosophy of Social Science,
    Oxford, Blackwell.
  • Turner, S. (2007) Public sociology and
    democratic theory, Sociology, 41, 5, pp785798.
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