Values, Facts and Methodologies. A Case Study in Philosophy of Economics

Abstract

One question that has long haunted philosophy of science is whether facts and values are so inextricably mixed up in social science that objectivity in any sense robust enough to distinguish its findings from mere opinion becomes unattainable. A not uncommon view nowadays is that such entanglement only shows the untenability of conceptions of objectivity that forbid it and that a new and value-sensitive conception of objectivity needs to be developed. While the discussion in recent years has centred on the issue of how estimations of inductive risk incur judgments of value—and so generalize the issue across all of the sciences—it is worthwhile to remember that in the decades around the previous turn of the century when the social sciences became established as such, it was the more or less direct interference of politics in the process of social scientific fact finding that was the focus of concern and prompted the demand for value-neutrality. This older worry has not, I submit, lost its urgency and it may be salutary to consider whether, especially in sciences issuing in policy advice, value entanglement is inevitable there as well. I will present a case study from what may at first appear most hostile territory, namely one of the most value-laden of all areas in the social sciences, the socialist calculation debate in political economy.