Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

12
Social Science As Autonomous
Activity
HENRY S. KARIEL
This essay :If: seeks to delineate an approach to understanding
human society. Those who partake in this approach are persuaded
that, far from trying to construct some specific social order or
learning how to fit men into it, they prefer public policies, which
will provide the conditions for the unimpeded pursuit of happiness.
They duly respect the various opinions and interests of individual
men. Yet their work indicates that more is involved, for it
contains uneasily coexisting elements-an on-duty scientific one
and an off-duty moralistic one. Both elements embody values. To
the extent that these values are in conflict and press on to victory,
both social science and liberal-democratic institutions are threatened,
for they require one another. Survival of neither seems
likely if either an unqualified science or an unqualified moralism
triumphs. If it could be shown that liberal-democratic theory is
unrelated to the work pursued and therefore fails to confine the
scientific quest, while, at the same time, much of social science is
impelled to reach out so as to incorporate liberal-democratic insti-
*While responsibility for the ideas here set forth is fully mine, I have benefited
from discussions with three members of the Society of Fellows, Harvard University:
George Kateb, Peter M. Ray, and Franklin M. Fisher. I am also grateful to the
Western Political Quarterly for permission to draw on my article, liThe New Order
of Mary Parker Follett," published September, 1955.
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