Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

20 Scientism and Values
standing of the world we live in) and in its practical aspects
(as providing a basis for policy decision)-need not be stressed
again. This legitimate value of science is distorted, however, when
Science-with the capital "S"-is enthroned as an Authority in
whose presence we are expected to genuflect and whose mere
mention in connection with a product or a cause is meant to
persuade us of the latter's excellence. This type of distortion of
the value of science culminates quite logically in the conception
of a "technocracy" as the ideal of societal living.
Scientism-and scientism of a radical and profoundly significant
type-arises with the problem of values in science. As I
have repeatedly stressed in this paper, it is in the nature of
science to be concerned ultimately with the quantitative and
material aspects of reality only. Physics and chemistry legitimately
restrict themselves to this sphere. That there are aspects even of
human society which are amenable to quantitative analysis need
not be denied. Scientism here me.ans that only value-free concepts
are to be employed in the interpretation of the human situation,
and that man himself is to be reduced-via a behavioristic
psychology-to a purely physicochemical complexus of interrelated
processes amenable to a complete explanation in terms of
the value-free concepts and categories of the natural sciences. In
other words, scientism here emerges as a reductionistic naturalism
which denies in principle that there are irreducible values or that
values, if they do exist, have any significance whatever. The picture
of man which here emerges, and which is inherent in the
scientistic boundary transgressions that would extend the valuefree
concepts of the natural sciences to encompass the whole of
knowledge, is frightening indeed in. its distortions of man. But it
becomes even more so if now it is combined-as quite naturally
it is-with the projection. of a technocracy as the ideal of a human
society.
The third type of scientism, arises in connection with the problem
of values, for science-in connection, that is, with the value
framework within which science itself operates. As I pointed out
earlier, this framework involves, on the one hand, that complexus
of values and valuations usually referred to as "standards of re-