Moral Description: Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichotomy in Social Research
Date
2005-05-02
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
eCOMMUNITY: International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction
Abstract
Values in social research are a vexed question. However, they cannot and should not be avoided. This article argues against the familiar fact-value dichotomy and presents a cognitive approach to values based inter alia on the views of the philosophers Julius Kovesi (1967) and Hilary Putnam (1990, 2002) and the economist philosopher Amartya Sen (1982, 1987). The article concludes that rejecting the fact-value dichotomy does not mean that "anything goes." On the contrary, it proposes reuniting facts and values in a common, factually-grounded and rational cognitive enterprise.
Description
Copyright © Masood Zangeneh, Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction
Keywords
Social sciences -- Research -- Moral and ethical aspects
Citation
Doughney, J. (2005). Moral description: Overcoming the fact-value dichotomy in social research. eCOMMUNITY: International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, 2(2), 6-12.