Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

218 W. J. M. Mackenzie
ent chapter and other chapters in the book. This network of reciprocal in-
fluences serves to raise the level of scientific literacy among political scientists,
but it adds to the difficulties of synoptic presentation.
What has been written so far is a drastically abbreviated summary: rather
than end with a summary of a summary I add here notes on three matters of
importance which have not yet been stressed.
I. Decision-making
It has seemed to some of us in recent years that we could make more progress if
we took ‘decision-making’ as the focus of our studies, rather than ‘power’,
‘legitimate authority’ or ‘political system’.
There are various reasons for this:
I. The driving force which brings people to political studies is often that of
curiosity about decisions, allied to a desire to improve the quality of decisions.
How did ‘they’ reach such a foolish or wicked (or far-sighted and altruistic)
decision? What can we ‘learn’, for the improvement of our own future decisions?
2. We meet at the outset one problem of central importance. Does a ‘political’
decision differ significantly from any other sort of decision? If so,
No single answer is satisfactory, but it is helpful if we can ‘map’ the possible
lines of reply.
3. Whatever answer we choose, the word ‘decision’ builds a bridge between
.politics and other social sciences. On the whole, economics talks freely about
decisions’ made by individuals or by lk-ms; sociology is rather reluctant to use
the word. Within psychology, there are perhaps varying attitudes; individual
psychology uses concepts of ‘choice’ and ‘preference’ even in relation to laboratory
animals, whereas social psychology is shy of them. What is to be learnt
from these diversities within the study of man?
4. There is an interesting relationship with the study of law, which is much
too ready to exclude itself from the company of the social sciences. There is in
law a useful distinction between a man’s ‘intention’ (on the one hand) and (on
the other hand) his legally binding decision. As economists have recently become
aware,“ bargaining may be bargaining about procedures : the procedure by
which a binding decision can be taken with legal effect is very important in
shaping the decision process and probably (therefore) in relation to the content
of the decision.
5. It will be obvious that if we seek to say what a human ‘decision’ is (as
distinct from a ‘decision’ by a rat in a maze) we become entangled with philosophical
rather than scientific questions about the nature of man. Can we draw a
clear line to set social science apart from metaphysics and theology? My own
answer would be ‘Yes: provided that we do not attempt to do too much’, and I
think that analogies from the natural sciences (which have been successful
through the cumulative effect of precise and modest inquiries) favour this
view. But, whatever answer one chooses, one is by this approach compelled to
think out problems of postulates and methodology early in the investigation.
6. One seeks, in a scientific sense, to break through these obstacles because
the territory they defend is promising scientifically. If we make ‘the State’