Fact and Value in Planning

Abstract

While generally recognizing that planning is not and cannot be value free, planners have failed to develop acceptable procedures for combining the empirical and normative aspects of their practice. This article critically examines two beliefs which have been thought to separate these kinds of inquiry: (1) an assumed logical distinction between empirically verifiable statements of fact and unverifiable and rationally indefensible expressions of value; and (2) a presumed unbridgeable gap between “factual” descriptions of what is and “value” prescriptions for what ought to be. It then explicates a two-stage process of empirical validation and pragmatic vindication which can be used to deal with both factual and value claims and examines the implications which this procedure has for planning theory and practice.