Social Science and the Moral Life

In "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," William James famously remarks, "ethical science is just like physical science, and instead of being deducible all at once from abstract principles, must simply bide its time, and be ready to revise its conclusions from day to day." The consequence of this is that "everywhere the ethical philosopher must wait on facts" (James 1978, 625). James's claim is that we should apply the same epistemological rigor in our investigation of ethical claims that we apply to our investigations of any other empirical claims. It goes beyond his well-known statement that facts are "shot through" with values to insist that our values are shot through with claims about facts.

This argument places James, and pragmatism more generally, squarely within one of the central debates in the philosophy of social science, understanding the extent to which scientific investigation should shape values. The position one takes on this matter colors one's entire understanding of the role of the social scientist. On the one hand is the social scientist as engineer, uncovering the relations between causes and effects in the social realm. On the other hand is the social scientist as social critic, using empirical inquiry to uncover not just how relationships are but how they might be better.

This article does not deny the obvious difference between stating "P exists" and "P ought to exist." It does, however, reject some prevailing views regarding what follows from this difference. Two views are of special concern.¹ First is the view that facts or experience have no evidential bearing on intrinsic value judgments and hence are irrelevant to the justification of noninstrumental practical principles. Thinkers as diverse as David Hume, Max Weber, and the pragmatist Patrick Baert have alleged that the difference between facts and values is so fundamental that to appeal to one in support of another is considered a logical fallacy. This view gives us a doubled epistemology, with one set of criteria for warranting belief about facts and another set of criteria for warranting belief about values.

The second view is that ethical principles cannot be relevant to the justification of social scientific theories. This is the converse of the naturalistic fallacy, that statements about facts cannot draw support from statements about values. Our interests in having the world be one way or another have no bearing on whether our statements about the world are actually true. This is the notion that facts are objective and values are subjective. If science is to be objective, it must then concern itself exclusively with facts.

The practical consequences of this dichotomy become evident in the vacillations between hard-nosed dedication to facts and idealistic commitment to values, fatalistic conceptions of human nature and romantic notions of the pliability of human conduct, dependence on outside expertise in technical matters and anti-intellectualism in moral ones, or steadfast commitment to individual responsibility and active undermining of the structures for its realization. When facts and values are held to different epistemic standards, the moral nature of empirical inquiry goes unexamined, while the material conditions that make values possible remain mysterious. Control over the direction of social policy then becomes a battle between technicians and moralizers, each disregarding the other's one-sided considerations.

The inability to scientifically investigate facts in conjunction with values results in lost opportunities for redirection and progress. We miss a chance to think about whether certain ends warrant the means necessary to obtain them, or how the kinds of persons we are constrain or make possible certain patterns of conduct and how these patterns of conduct influence the kinds of persons we become, or how a lay public can deliberate on matters in which they have little expertise, or how individuality can be achieved through social interaction. A thorough reevaluation of the relationship between facts and values may help reclaim the social sciences as instruments of social progress. This article examines how bringing the social sciences into discussions of values can enhance our ability to understand three key relationships: between means and ends, human nature and conduct, and expert and lay...