Abstract
What can the social sciences contribute to morality? An answer to that question depends, not surprisingly, on what morality is taken to be. According to the prevailing positivist approach in Anglo-American philosophy,1 morality consists of rules and principles, which, because they are normative, can be articulated and defended only on the basis of rational arguments directed at what ought to be the case. Because the empirical research of social scientists is directed at what is the case, it is irrelevant to establishing the rules and principles constitutive of morality. In positivist morality, therefore, social scientists are consigned to the menial task of discovering facts that can be used in the application of antecedently existing moral standards.
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Hoffmaster, B. (1990). Morality and the Social Sciences. In: Weisz, G. (eds) Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1930-3_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1930-3_13
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