The Value of Free Sociology

   “Can Sociology Be Value Free?”

Value neutrality is a term used by Weber to indicate the necessary objectivity researchers need when investigating problems in the social sciences. Weber also cautioned against the making of value judgments which coincide with the orientation or motives of the researcher.

It is important to note that although Weber believed that value-neutrality was the aim of research. his view was that no science is fundamentally’ neutral and its observational language is never independent of the way individuals see phenomena and the questions they ask about them (Morrison 1995 pp.267, 347)

It is this link between the researcher’s theoretical stand and the methods adopted that raises the question as to whether sociology can be value-free. What are the arguments for and against the possibility of value-free sociology? Is the answer to be found in the design of research methods? Or is all knowledge a cultural product in that what a society defines as knowledge reflects the values of that society. therefore making value-free science the aim but not the achievable goal of sociology? Indeed. is the concept of value-free sociology’ of value itself raising the notion of there being merit in a value plus sociology?

This concept of value-free sociology has its roots in the rise of positivism and the scientific method in the mid-nineteenth century. Positivists believed that discovering laws of social development would create a better society. A key figure in the establishing of sociology as a respectable science was Comte (1798-1857). Comte looked at human progress and decided that there are three stages to the evolutionary growth of knowledge. “Each of our leading conceptions, each branch of our knowledge. passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological. or fictitious: the Metaphysical or abstract: and the Scientific or positive.In the final. the positive state the mind.applies itself to the study of their laws – that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance.” (Comte 1830 The Philosophy’ of Sociology’ in Thompson 1995 p. 39-40) Comte argued that the human mind develops through these three distinct phases that were inevitable and. therefore, a fact of historical development.

From the final stage. the positive in which causes are explained by scientific laws, came the movement known as positivist. Positivist came to be associated with progress and social reform. All disciplines had a historical imperative to develop away from the speculative to the positive stage: thus marking their scientific statue. (Morrison 1995 pp.24-25) In two key areas positivist differed from idealism: first it put great emphasis on the reliability of observation as the basis for theory: and secondly emphasis was laid on the search for factual regularities. Comte argued that this ‘would lead to the formation of general laws.

Observation became the central criterion of verification. verification to the formulation of laws. and these laws to the subject of repeated test in order to establish their legitimacy. (Morrison 1995 pp.24-25) Observation requires an observer. And it is here, at the heart of the positivist method. where human observes human. that the issue of value neutrality’ comes to the fore.

The positivist tradition concentrates on producing ‘objective’ data. most often in the form of statistics. This quantitative data is then subjected to analysis and causal correlations are established. An example would be Blauner (Alienation and Freedoms 1964 in McNeill 1990) It was hypothesized that different levels of alienation are causally linked with different types of industrial processes. After operationalising the concept of alienation. its presence was measured in different industrial contexts. The main priority was that there be no suspicion that the collected data had been affected by the researchers’ own values.

It should be possible for other researchers to use the same methods and arrive at similar conclusions. (McNeil1 1990 p.117-8) Developments in positivist in the twentieth century led to the belief that facts could and should be separated from values. The job of the scientist was only to identify scientific laws. (McNeil1 1990 p.129) However. Weber, in his Methodology of The Social Sciences, points out that all knowledge of cultural reality.is always from particular points of view.”

Weber also asserted that there can be no such thing as a.-absolutely ‘objective’ scientific analysis of culture or.of ‘social phenomena’ independent of special and ‘one-sided’ viewpoints according to which.they are selected, analyzed and organized for expository purposes. (Weber 1949 pp.S1.W2) What Weber is saying is that ‘ f act s ‘ cannot speak for themselves. Social facts do not exist in their own right; what count s as a social fact is greatly determined by ” the moral spectacles through which we view the world.” ( Parkin 1986 pp. 30-31) If pure social reality. perceived by emptying the mind of all presupposition. is deemed incredible, how can sociology attain to value neutrality if its methods are biased by the observers own preconception and values?

The balance advocated by Weber proves to be rather limited: Although a teacher could proclaim the results of an investigation that same teacher should refrain from using this as an opportunity to disseminate his own views. Weber was of the opinion that sociologists could ”distinguish between empirical knowledge and value judgments. ” ( Weber in Parkin 1986 pp.33 ) This view is not dissimilar to the belief that newspaper publishers record facts without bias or favor. However, media theorists are quick to point out that what counts as ‘ news ‘ is the end product of a selective social process. Some events are recorded while others are suppressed. Also, the moral language used to write the news contains bias and preconceptions.