Objectivity and Value Freedom Flashcards
The early positivists
For the early positivists Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), the creation of a better society was not a matter of subjective values or personal opinions about what was ‘best’. They shared the Enlightenment or modernist view of the role of sociology. As the science of society, sociology’s job was to discover the truth about how society works, uncovering the laws that govern its proper functioning. Equipped with this knowledge, social problems could be solved and human life improved.
In their view, scientific sociology would reveal the one correct society. This gave sociologists a crucial role. By discovering the truth about how society worked, sociologists would be able to say objectively and with scientific certainty what was really best for society - they would be able to prescribe how things ought to be. In fact, Comte regarded sociology as the ‘queen of the sciences’ and saw sociologists as latter-day priests of a new scientific religion of truth.
Karl Marx
There is debate about whether or not Karl Marx (1818-83) was a positivist. However, it is certainly true that he saw himself as a scientist and that he believed his method of historical analysis, historical materialism, could reveal the line of development of human society. This development involved an evolution through a series of different types of Cass-based society, leading ultimately to a future classies communist society, in which exploitation, alienation and poverty would be ended, and each individual would be free to achieve their true potential.
The role of Marx’s sociology, therefore, was to reveal the truth of this development, especially to the proletariat, since they would be the class to overthrow capitalism and herald the birth of communist society. Marx thus takes for granted the value of the ideal communist society and argues that his scientific approach will show us how to reach it. In this he is similar to Comte and Durkheim, in that he sees science as helping to ‘deliver’ the good society.
Max Weber
Marx, Durkheim and Comte made no distinction between the facts as revealed by science and the values that we should hold - since they believed that science could tell us what these values should be. By contrast, Max Weber
(1864-1920) makes a sharp distinction between value judgments and facts and he argues that we cannot derive one from the other.
For example, research might show that divorcees are more likely to commit suicide. However, this fact does not demonstrate the truth of the value judgement that we should make divorce harder to obtain. There is nothing about the fact that logically compels us to accept the value.
For example, we might argue that we should instead make it harder to get married (another value), or that people have every right to commit suicide if they wish (a third value). None of these value judgments are ‘proven’ by the established fact. Indeed, in Weber’s view, a value can be neither proved nor disproved by the facts: they belong to different realms.
However, despite making a sharp distinction between facts and values, Weber still saw an essential role for values in sociological research. We can divide his views into four stages of the research process.
values as a guide to reaserch
data collection and hypothesis testing
values in the interpretattion of data
values and the socioligist as a citozen
1 Values as a guide to research
Weber took the idea from phenomenology that social reality is made up of a ‘meaningless infinity of facts that make it impossible to study it in its totality. Therefore the best the researcher can do is to select certain facts and study these.
But how do we choose which facts to study? In Weber’s view, we can only select them in terms of what we regard as important based on our own values - in other words, their value relevance to us.
Values are thus essential in enabling us to select which aspects of reality to study and in developing concepts with which to understand these aspects. For example, feminists value gender equality and this leads them to study women’s oppression and to develop concepts such as patriarchy with which to understand it.
2 Data collection and hypothesis testing
While values are essential in selecting what to study, in Weber’s view we must be as objective and unbiased as possible when we are actually collecting the facts, keeping our values and prejudices out of the process.
For example, we should not ask leading questions designed to give the answers that we want to hear: our questions should aim to get respondents to give us their view, not our own.
Once we have gathered the facts, we can use them to test a hypothesis. Again, we must keep our values out of the process - the hypothesis must stand or fall solely on whether or not it fits the observed facts.
3 Values in the interpretation of data
Values become important again when we come to interpret the data we have collected. The facts need to be set in a theoretical framework so that we can understand their significance and draw conclusions from them. In Weber’s view, our choice of theoretical framework or perspective is influenced by our values. Therefore, we must be explicit about them, spelling out our values so that others can see if unconscious bias is present in our interpretation of our data.
4 Values and the sociologist as a citizen
Research findings often have very real effects on people’s lives, but sociologists and scientists sometimes choose to ignore the uses to which their work is put. They argue that their job is merely to conduct objective research and discover the facts; it is for the politicians or public to decide what use to make of their findings.
Weber rejects this view. He argues that scientists and sociologists are also human beings and citizens and they must not dodge the moral and political issues their work raises by hiding behind words such as ‘objectivity’ or ‘value freedom’. They must take moral responsibility for the harm their research may do. For example, Einstein’s theories helped make the atomic bomb possible; yet subsequently he spoke out against nuclear weapons.
To summarise, Weber sees values as relevant to the sociologist in choosing what to research, in interpreting the data collected and in deciding the use to which the findings should be put. By contrast, the sociologist’s values must be kept out of the actual process of fact gathering.
Value freedom and commitment
The issue of commitment that Weber raised has remained at the centre of debates about the place of the sociologist’s values in research. For example, some modern positivists have shied away from any value commitments.
By contrast, Marxists, interactionists and feminists have argued for a ‘committed sociology’ in which the sociologist spells out the importance of their values to their research.
Modern positivists
Unlike Durkheim and Comte, who were openly committed to re-shaping society in certain ways, by the mid 20th century positivists tended to argue that their own values were irrelevant to their research. There were two reasons for this:
1 The desire to appear scientific
2 The social position of sociology
1 The desire to appear scientific
Science is concerned with matters of fact, not value - with
‘is’ questions, not ‘ought’ questions. Therefore, sociologists should remain morally neutral - their job is simply to establish the truth about people’s behaviour, not to judge it.
Critics argue that this reflected a desire to make sociology respectable. Science has high prestige in modern society, so mimicking its ways would raise the subject’s status and earn it respectability. This was particularly important in the early 20th century, when sociology was just becoming established as an academic discipline.
2 The social position of sociology
Alvin Gouldner (1975) argues that by the 1950s, American sociologists in particular had become mere ‘spiritless technicians’. Earlier in the century, sociology had been a critical discipline, often challenging accepted authority.
However, by the 1950s, sociologists were no longer
‘problem makers’ who defined their own research problems.
Instead they had become ‘problem takers’ who hired themselves out to organisations such as business and the military, to take on and solve their problems for them.
Gouldner argues that, by leaving their own values behind them, sociologists were making a ‘gentleman’s promise’ that they would not rock the boat by criticising their paymasters.
Because they were simply hired hands, they saw their own values as irrelevant. This is exactly the attitude that Weber was criticising when he said that sociologists must take moral responsibility for the effects of their work.
Committed sociology
By contrast with the positivists, some sociologists argue for a committed sociology. For example, Gunnar Myrdal
(1969) argues that sociologists should not only spell out their values - as Weber recommends - they should also openly ‘take sides’ by espousing the values and interests of particular individuals or groups.
Committed sociologists who advocate this approach, such as Myrdal and Gouldner, argue that it is neither possible nor desirable to keep values out of research. In Gouldner’s view, value-free sociology is:
- impossible, because either the sociologist’s own values, or those of their paymasters, are bound to be reflected in their work.
- undesirable, since without values to guide research, sociologists are merely selling their services to the highest bidder. For example, Gouldner argues that:
‘From such a standpoint, there is no reason why one cannot sell [one’s) knowledge to spread a disease just as freely as /one] can to fight it. Indeed, some sociologists have had no hesitation about doing market research designed to sell more cigarettes, although well aware of the implications of recent cancer research.
Whose side are we on?
If all sociology is influenced by values, this means the sociologist must inevitably take sides. By not choosing a Side, the sociologist is in fact taking the side of the more powerful against the less powerful.
The interactionist Howard Becker (1970) asks, Whose side are we on?’ He argues that values are alwayspresent in sociology.
Becker argues that instead of seeing things from the perspective of these ‘overdogs’, sociologists should adopt a compassionate stance and take the side of the underdogs - the criminals, mental patients and other powerless groups.
This is partly because less is known about these groups and their story needs to be told in order to redress the balance.
By identifying with the underdog and giving them a voice, we can reveal a previously hidden side of social reality.
For example, by empathising with the mental patient, we can show the hidden rationality of behaviour that the psychiatrist thinks of as irrational. In fact, as the interactionist Erving Goffman (1968) argues, to describe the situation of the mental patient faithfully, we have to take their side. We have to be biased in favour of the patient and against the psychiatrist.
This emphasis on identifying and empathising with the powerless has clear links to the kinds of research methods favoured by interactionists. They have a strong preference for qualitative methods such as participant observation, which they see as revealing the meanings of these ‘outsiders’.
Gouldners critiscm of Becker
However, Gouldner criticises Becker for taking a romantic and sentimental approach to disadvantaged groups. He accuses Becker of being concerned only with those who are
‘on their backs’ - the misunderstood, negatively labelled, exotic specimens of deviant behaviour.
Instead, Gouldner adopts a Marxist perspective. He argues that sociologists should take the side of those who are
‘fighting back’ - the political radicals struggling to change society. Sociology should not confine itself to describing the viewpoint of the underdog. It should be committed to ending their oppression by unmasking the ways in which the powerful maintain their position.
