Is sociology value free
Value neutrality is a term used by Weber to indicate the necessary objectivity researchers need when investigating problems in the social sciences. Weber also cautioned against the making of value judgements which coincide with the orientation or motives of the researcher. It is important to note that although Weber believed that value neutrality was the aim of research, his view was that no science is fundamentally neutral and its observational language is never independent of the way individuals see phenomena and the questions they ask about them (Morrison 1995 pp.267, 347) It is this link between the researcher's theoretical stand and the methods adopted that raises the question as to whether sociology can be value free. What are the arguments for and against the possibility of value free sociology? Is the answer to be found in the design of research methods? Or is all knowledge a cultural product in that what a society defines as knowledge reflects the values of that society, therefore making value free science the aim but not the achievable goal of sociology? Indeed, is the concept of value free sociology of value itself raising the notion of there being merit in a value plus sociology? This
By a series of questions Gouldner striped away the veneer of value free scientific inquiry and revealed it to be upon shaky ground. As such the whole process can be said to be a value-process from which its products can not be said to be value free (McNeill 1990 p. The debate about value free sociology was far from over. 33) This view is not dissimilar to the belief that newspaper publishers record facts without bias or favour. the more disadvantaged sections (of society), but their interest in these matters was never a disinterested academic one. (1970) The-sociological Imagination, Penguin Harmondsworth. 33) This belief, that the social scientist should search for objective and value free knowledge became enmeshed with the belief that the same social scientist should also be morally indifferent to any use of the knowledge by others. These are value-issues that must be considered and dealt with just as vigorously as the value issues pertaining to the generation of sociological knowledge. My conception stands opposed to social science as a set of bureaucratic techniques which inhibit inquiry by 'methodological' pretensions, which congest such work by obscurantist conceptions.
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