Psychology's Facts and Values: A Perennial Entanglement

Abstract

The idea of a logical and metaphysical gap between facts and values is taken for granted in much psychology. Howard Kendler has recently defended the standard view that human values cannot be discovered by psychology. In contrast, various postmodern approaches have sought to attack the fact-value dichotomy with the argument that psychological facts are inevitably morally and politically laden, and therefore relative. In this article, a third line of thought is pursued, significantly inspired by philosopher of science, Hilary Putnam. It is argued that knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values, and that value judgments can be objectively right. In this light, the objectivity of scientific facts is not threatened by their entanglement with values. Psychology's objects can be described accurately only with value concepts, among them “thick ethical concepts.” Different ways in which psychological science presupposes values are outlined. Finally, it is suggested that the distinction between epistemic and moral values is rarely useful in psychology, and should not be thought of as absolute.

Keywords:

• Epistemic Values
• Facts
• Moral Values
• Pragmatism
• Thick Ethical Concepts

Notes

Notes

[1] My argument throughout the paper is inspired by Hilary Putnam's fine book The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy (2002). In that book, Putnam is primarily concerned with the science of economics, and how that science (like any other science) depends on, and must take for granted, the objectivity of value judgments. I recommend Putnam's book to any reader, convinced or unconvinced by this paper.

[2] Furthermore, it is quite easy to come up with counter examples to the thesis taken as a logical point: From ‘he is a sea captain’ we may validly conclude that ‘he ought to do whatever a sea captain ought to do’ (this is A.N. Prior's example, discussed in MacIntyre, 1985, p. 57).

[3] Bronowski once wrote to his friend Popper: “You would not claim that scientists test every falsifiable theory if as many crazy theories crossed your desk as cross mine!” (as cited in Putnam, 2002, p. 142).

[4] It is noteworthy that when the logical positivists discussed value concepts, it was always moral value concepts (Putnam, 2002, p. 19), as if they did not want to investigate the values guiding scientific activity (of which, I think, some are in fact inseparable from moral values).

[5] I thank an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of this obvious example.