Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

62 Scientism and Values
some other kind of determinism could prediction be depended
upon. Having said this much, I shall drop the point, for a full elucidation
of it would plunge us into the difficult problem of freedom,
and from such a plunge we cannot be sure to return.
Another obstacle that prevents us from giving the studies of
man the status of a science"-or perhaps another formulation of the
point just stated-is that some predictions in the field of these
studies can be nullified or realized by the operative force of the
prediction upon the matter which is the subject of study. Thus,
the prediction that the stock market will fall tomorrow could lead
to its fall-if stockholders took the prediction seriously. And the
announcement that a given neighborhood will turn into slums
could lead, if taken seriously by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood,
to just the condition predicted.
Before we drop this subject, it is advisable to make two remarks.
The first is that I am not asserting unqualified freedom, as some
philosophers seem to assert. Such an assertion, were it true, would
make impossible the development of character, the development
of neuroses, and the art of'mental healing, and even human living.
The institutions of society are possible because, within limits, men
can be relied on, and they can be relied on because their behavior
can be conditioned.
The second remark is that the qualification I have just made as
regards freedom may seem unimportant to anthropologists who
study custom-bound societies and who approach their data in an
ahistorical manner. In such societies men do not seem, to be free.
Their values do not seem to change. Predictions about the Aruntas
are possible-if the pictures we have of them are true. But the
number of groups as static as the Aruntas is not great in the world
and is diminishing rapidly; alas, we are running out of primitives,
as we ran out of dodos.
In dynamic societies in which freedom is operative in moral
judgments, prediction is not possible. We can know what men
have done; we cannot always know what they will do. For when
a man asks the question seriously, What ought I to do? to the
extent that the perplexity that gave rise to the question is radical