Objectivity vs Subjectivity Flashcards
Values and sociology…
All members of society – including sociologists – have values, beliefs and opinions.
Some argue it is both possible and desirable for sociologists to keep their subjective values out of their research.
Others argue that staying value-neutral is impossible, because sociologists are humans studying other humans.
Some argue it is desirable for sociologists to use their values to improve society.
The classical sociologists and values…
For the early positivists, Comte and Durkheim, sociology’s job was to discover the truth about how society worked and to improve human life. Sociologists would be able to say with scientific certainty what was best for society.
Marx too saw himself as a scientist. He believed he had discovered the truth about society’s future and the inevitability of classless society. However, this shows that Marx took for granted the value of communism as the ideal society and saw his scientific approach as helping to bring this society about.
Weber…
Max Weber distinguishes between value judgements and facts. He argues that a value can neither be proved nor disproved by the facts – they belong to different realms. However, he still sees an essential role for values in sociological research.
Weber sees values as relevant when choosing what to research, when interpreting data and in the use the findings are put to. But, they must be kept out of the actual process of gathering data.
Sociology cannot tell us what values or goals we should hold but it can tell us what means we should adopt if we want to achieve certain goals that we value, and the consequences of holding these values.
For example, we may hold the value that racial discrimination is a good thing, but sociology may tell us that this makes the economy less efficient by preventing some talented individuals from taking on important jobs.
Weber’s 4 points…
- Values as a guide to research: we can only select areas of study in terms of their value relevance to us. For example, feminists value gender equality, which leads them to study areas such as women’s oppression.
- Data collection and hypothesis testing: sociologists must be as objective as possible when actually collecting the facts (e.g. not asking leading questions) and the hypothesis must stand or fall solely on whether or not it fits the observed facts.
- Values in the interpretation of data: facts need to be set in a theoretical framework to understand their significance. This is influenced by the sociologist’s values, which therefore must be stated explicitly.
- Values and the sociologist as a citizen: scientists and sociologists are also citizens. They cannot dodge the moral issues their work raises or the uses it is put to by hiding behind ‘value freedom’.
Positivists…
Positivists argued that their own values were irrelevant to their research because science is concerned with matters of fact, not value, so sociologists should remain morally neutral. Critics argue this reflected a desire to make sociology respectable in a society where science has high prestige.
Gouldner argues that by the 1950s, American sociologists in particular had become mere ‘spiritless technicians’ hiring themselves out to organisations such as government and the military.
Example…
An example of this is the Human Terrain system in Afghanistan where anthropologists study different social groups and the finding is used when making military decisions. By doing this, sociologists are making a ‘gentleman’s promise’ which is exactly what Weber was criticising when he said sociologists should take moral responsibility for the effects of their work. For Gouldner, they were dodging the moral issues that their work raised, e.g. in helping to prevent revolutions in South America.
Committed sociology…
Myrdal and Gouldner argue that sociologists should not only identify with their values, they should also openly ‘take sides’, espousing the interests of the actual groups. It is undesirable to be value-neutral since, without values to guide research, sociologists are merely putting their services up for sale. It is also impossible, because either the sociologist’s own values or those of the paymasters, are bound to be reflected in their work.
Whose side are we on?…
The interactionist Becker asks: if all sociology is influenced by values, ‘Whose side are we on?’.
Traditionally, functionalists and positivists have taken the viewpoint of the powerful (police etc.).
Becker argues we should take the side of the underdog (criminals, mental patients etc.). Identifying with the powerless links to the methods interactionists favour, like PO which they see as revealing the meanings of these ‘outsiders’.
Gouldner criticises Becker for romanticising underdogs. Instead, he takes a Marxist perspective, arguing that it is not enough to describe the underdog’s life – sociologists should be committed to ending their oppression. According to Gouldner, we should not be celebrating ‘the man on his back’; we should be supporting ‘the man fighting back’.
Funding and career…
Most research is funded by government, businesses etc. and who pays for research may control its direction and the questions it asks.
Funding bodies may prevent publication of the research if its findings prove unacceptable.
Sociologists may want to further their careers so this may influence the choice of topic.
They may censor themselves for fear of harming their career.
Values, perspectives, and methods…
For Gouldner, all research is inevitably influenced by values.
Values influence the topics that sociologists of different perspectives choose, the concepts they develop and the conclusions they reach. Sociologists’ values influence choice of methods too.
For example, Becker’s support for the underdog leads him to choose qualitative methods to reveal the underdog’s world.
Similarly, functionalists make uncritical use of statistics because they tend to take the side of the ‘establishment’.
Objectivity and relativism…
If all perspectives involve values, are their findings just a reflection of their values, not objective facts?
Relativism argues that different groups and individuals have different views as to what is true and these reflect their own values and interests. There is no way of judging whether any view is truer than any other. Relativism argues that there is no absolute or objective truth – just truths plural. What you believe is true is true – for you.
Relativism and postmodernism…
Postmodernists take a relativist view – there are no ‘privileged accounts’ of society that have special access to the truth. Any perspective claiming to have the truth is just a meta-narrative or ‘big story’ based on values and assumptions. However, critics argue that postmodernism is just a meta-narrative in itself so we shouldn’t believe what they say either!
