Science is a word that is commonly used to mean a group of cultural values that govern scientific activities, or some accumulated knowledge that come from the application of scientific methods. Values, on the other hand, are personal preferences or judgments regarding what people consider being either right or wrong or what is liked or disliked. Many scientists have the conceived notion that science deals with facts and not values and that it is objective while values are not. But the sociologists of science have challenged the scientists’ belief in science being value-free hence raising questions regarding science and its methods. Therefore, the widespread misconception that science has no value is misleading.
Values go hand in hand with science in many ways. First and foremost, the epistemic values are the ones that guide scientific research. Secondly, science is always rooted in some culture and values that enter it through individual practitioners. And finally, values manifest themselves from science in the form of a process and product and are redistributed in the society. Therefore, science is full of epistemic values and also incorporates cultural values. This paper will analyze Max Weber and Emile Durkheim and their teachings on the moral value of science including the ways they agree and disagree on the matter.
Max Weber on the Value of Science
According to Max Weber, Science does not decide value issues. Instead, it offers the society clarity of issues (Dillon 145). He founded the notion of “value-free science” despite knowing that it would be impossible to accomplish such a practice because one can not understand the actual moral values through the practice of science. Weber taught that science only provides people with means and not ends making it vulnerable to a conflict of moral values. Besides, he further argued that through science, values cannot, and never will be in a single universal scale but separate different ones. But still, he demonstrated can still be used efficiently to determine values since it offers insight into human actions, the meaning of specific goals, means of achieving them, and the consequences of those goals including their costs.
Max Weber also argued that value free science may be noble, but it is a relatively unattainable goal. He believes that science more often that not, assumes a particular set of values and since values overlap with theory, then proving values may turn out to be an insurmountable task. Many value judgments are often personal ideas that are unproven. Therefore, scientific theories also cannot establish values. But, the scientific theories can be proven, unlike values that one cannot and never will be able to prove (Ghenea 13). Weber believes that trying to separate values from science may turn out to be a difficult task. There are many issues in the society that questions both the values and the science. For instance, the death penalty, abortion, unemployment policy, and pollution are some scientific theories that have questionable values in them. In addition, Weber knew that it is quite impossible to attain a value-free science, but he taught that the men of science need to strive towards achieving it.
Emile Durkheim on the Value of Science
Emile Durkheim found science to be sophisticated hence he recommended its study be done distinctly both psychologically and biologically. He explains scientific facts to be like patterns of behavior that have the ability to be coercive upon people and also finds them to be controlling enough to guide the conducts of individuals in the form of group folkways, norms and mores (Ghenea 13). Durkheim explained that people get used to such guidelines through education and socialization that they become internalized in their consciousness hence the men of science uphold the guides and constraints as their moral obligations.
The human nature has the collective conscience that serves as the moral drive of scientists through the ethical codes, ideologies, values, and ideas. These ethical values, codes, and norms, disciplines an individual and limits them to scientific practices that are morally correct. However, Durkheim argues that the collective conscience that leads to moral restraint is only instilled through social bonds (Ghenea 14). In cases where the bonds are weak, the individual may not fully internalize the society’s moral codes thus engaging in an exploitative scientific practice that only satisfies his desires and at the expense of the community.
According to Durkheim, science should be positive, scientific, and value free since the moral life facts should be treated according to positive sciences. In all his works, he was trying to teach about the science of moral facts since he believed that it is vital not to remove ethics from science but to set up a science of ethics (Meštrović 39). According to him, moral facts are made up of rules that are recognizable by specific distinctive characteristics, and they should be observed and classified to make up a science of ethics. The moral value of science represents the world. Hence, the men of science should ensure their research and scientific practices are rich in values. He believes that they should be objective and impersonal while still considering the moral issues related to the practice. Besides, he finds objectivity to be a moral act since it puts aside the egoistic will of the scientist.
Durkheim not only observes the moral value of science but also tries to classify and describe them in a scientific way. He explains that to start a scientific investigation, and it needs to be on moral grounds with underlying rules that guide ethical behavior. Durkheim believes that the society has different moral doctrines leading to diversity in moral guides and obligations. He argues such diversity makes it hard for scientists to decide on what is right. Besides, the men of science should begin their scientific study by first observing the moral value of the research (Meštrović 38). Therefore, Durkheim posits that science is directly connected to morality and all scientific practices should be recognized by the moral code of the practice of science. For all that, Durkheim posits that science should be value-free of science and morality, value and fact, as well as the subject and object should come together to form the moral value of science.
How They Agree and Disagree on the Value of Science
Max Weber and Emile Durkheim are the most common authors of sociology that are often analyzed today. They were faced with common problems while conducting their works. However, there are various competing and plausible interpretations of how and why they would agree and disagree regarding the moral value of science. Durkheim argues that science and sociology are different in that sociologists deal exclusively with scientific concepts and not things (Ghenea 11).
Weber found the scientific knowledge of culture and society to be from selective views of varied aspects of culture. According to him, the scientific knowledge was generated through the selection, simplification, and over-emphasizing of certain aspects. But according to Durkheim, the nature of things does not determine selectivity, but the investigator's initiative defines it. However, Weber believes that the reduction is not nature made as Durkheim argues. He believes that the actual configurations only interest the scientist because of their cultural significance to him. This belief implies that the scientist is value oriented towards historical situations and events. Weber also finds the “presuppositionless” approach to be practically impossible since the men of science only select interesting and significant aspects of events that are connected to cultural values that help them approach reality (Sica 98).
According to Durkheim, the men of science need to work by reason so that their work could be morally right. He uses the sociological theory of suicide as a guide to scientists to lead to the moral value of science. An individual and society should go hand in hand where a scientist should not conduct egoistic scientific work merely to satisfy himself but should also be for the benefit of the community (Ghenea 12). Weber agrees with Durkheim in that he proposed the five avenues that values join the scientific process. He argues that when conducting research, a scientist should not only consider the interests of their sponsors, but also the paradigm they are researching from, the question they are exploring, its interpretation, and bad science in it. Therefore, Weber, just like Durkheim believes that a scientist should never participate in egoistic scientific research and should instead carry out works that are for the best of the society.
In my opinion, Weber’s approach of creating a moral value scientific research is the best. Unlike Durkheim’s approach of trying to be empirically exhaustive, Weber prefers to bring order by selecting the particular aspects of events that are significant to the society. The chosen events should also be related to cultural values that help the society approach reality. Weber’s approach is best since the scientist needs only to concern himself with significant research that has moral values to the society. However difficult it may be to separate science and values, one needs to try to be neutral when conducting research.
Conclusion
There is a lot to analyze concerning the value of science since many authors have criticized it. But for all that, science expounds on several things such that it makes it makes it easy to handle various issues in the society. However, science works with both facts and values, but the moral value of it makes science more complicated. The moral value of science is somehow inclined more on the intentions of the researcher hence the questionable part of it. Besides, different social groups can have varied noble goals, and the members can pursue a particular goal because it determines the safety of the members but it may not be entirely moral. Therefore, defining morality regarding science is quite a task that should always be present in the life of the man of science.
Works Cited
Dillon, Michele. Introduction To Sociological Theory. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Ghenea, Ştefan Viorel. "On Facts And Values." Scientific Journal Of Humanistic Studies 7.12 (2015): 11-14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
Meštrović, Stjepan Gabriel. Emile Durkheim And The Reformation Of Sociology. Totawa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988. Print.
Sica, Alan. Comparative Methods In The Social Sciences. London: SAGE Publications, 2006. Print.
