Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

52 Scientism and Values
question. It must be, therefore, what misologists refer to as a "philosophic"
question-by which is meant one that no s,ensible man
would bother his head about.
Still another objectionable symptom appears when we overlook
the difference between science and the studies of man: the latter
become irrelevant to the human situation, since they are taken to
be value-free, pure. As a result .a number of consequences follow.
The distinction made by Aristotle between the theoretical and
the practical sciences is erased, and the studies of man become
irrelevant to the human situation, which presumably they were
initiated to elucidate. When it is acknowledged that they can be
applied in the way that the pure sciences can be applied, a factitious
problem appears, viz., the relation between fact and value,
between the pure science and the valuable ends that they are applied
to secure. The ends are taken to be external to the science
and therefore considered arbitrary and unattainable by rational
suasion.
In moral philosophy and in the philosophy of religion, the consequences
of erasing the distinction between the theoretical and
the practical sciences are even worse. Philosophers of a positivist
and those of a linguistic orientation insist that their task is to
carry on a philosophical analysis and not to "preach" or "moralize."
The latter is considered demeaning, although sometimes the
need for it is verbally conceded. The immediate result of this doctrine
is a kind of institutionalized schizophrenia, according to
which the.philosophic analysis of moral decisions is kept in one
compartment of the mind, hermetically sealed and inviolate, while
the actual life of the philosopher goes its way untouched by what
he knows or professes to know about morality. At a time when we
could use the maximum of intelligence in solving our practical
problems and still not have enough, philosophers take pride in
demonstrating, on the basis of an antiquated psychology and simplistic
dichotomies, that moral conflicts cannot, ultimately, be resolved
rationally. If this were truly the case, one could not adduce
the disadvantages of this view as reasons for not accepting it. But
one would expect that responsible human beings would explore