Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

58 Scientism and Values
as I have noted above, numerous moral philosophers-particularly
the positivists, those known as analytic philosophers, and the soitdistant
"metamoralists"-make the same assertion. I do not deny
that some observers are more objective than others. But the problem
is not as simple as those who allege that values can be observed
objectively seem to think it is.
One fact that complicates the objective observation of values
is that the student has no means of observing values. but that which
is employed by anyone at any time, be he Tom, Dick, or Harry.
When Fortune characterizes Dobu culture, Ruth Bunzel observes
the Zuni, and Margaret Mead the Arapesh, they observe the values
that give these cultures their distinctive qualities in the very way
in which we observe one man's honesty or another's vanity. When
Miss Mead's observations are criticized, as they were by Thurnwald,
because they were hurriedly gathered, she elaborates her
method and takes photographs and thus seeks to show that her
observations are valid. In other words, the anthropologist may employ
highly elaborate methods in order to make sure that he has
interviewed a representative number of members of the community
he studies and that he has not, in haste, attributed to it traits
that are not there. But ultimately the judgment, "The Pueblos are
Apollonian," is grounded on the same procedures of observation
that enable me to say that Jphn is honest and Dick is vain. Photographs,
adequate sampling, statistics, psychographs, personality
tests, and the rest of the apparatus the anthropologist employs to
avoid misreading the value traits he observes seek to validate the
grasping of a value or complex of values. But this must first be
grasped, nor can the observer grasp it in any other way than you
or I grasp it. If another anthropologist had disagreed with Fortune
-as I understand one did-about Dobu, the discussion would
have to be carried on in precisely the same terms we would carry
it on if you were to disagree with me about Tom's honesty. You
would point out certain actions of Tom that you have observed.
These are purely behavioral observations. You might say that he
invariably returns money loaned to him, even when the lender
forgets about the loan, and that you saw him return money to a
cashier who had "shortchanged" herself. And I would have to