Objectivity and Evidence'

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Objectivity and Evidence.
Is value-free social science possible?
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I. What is value-free social science?

• Background
• I shall presuppose that there are positive facts
  facts that do not imply that something is good or
  bad, better or worse, valuable or not. (Note
  this is controversial.)
• I shall allow that there may or may not be facts
  about values. (Assuming there are such facts is
  one very simple way of securing moral
  objectivity.)

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• Examples of positive facts (candidate facts)
• The force exerted by the magnet is 2 dynes.
• The grass in my garden now is greener than in my
  friends garden in Northern Alberta.
• The charge of an electron is
• The import elasticity of demand for automobiles
  in Britain in 1979 is 1.3. Blaug. P.121.
• Nancy is 55 tall.

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• B. Positive (value-free) social science
• Establishes (true or false) claims reporting
  positive facts.
• Without presupposing the truth of any value
  claims (i.e. objectively). An objective claim
  is a claim about positive facts that is
  established objectively.
• C. Why cant we have value-free social science?
• Central social science claims inevitably fail to
  report positive facts.
• It is hard to eliminate value assumptions from
  social science methods.

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II. Some distinctions

• A. Amartya Sen-
• Accounts, Actions and Values Objectivity of
  Social Science Sen Nobel-prize winning social
  welfare theorist, economist/philosopher famous
  for his work on famine.
• B. Sen distinguishes
• The objectivity of claims
• The goodness of accounts
• The goodness of actions
• Economic claims and judgements about the goodness
  of accounts can be objective. Judgement about the
  goodness of actions are moral judgements.

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• C. Sens example
• BBC Panorama programme on brain death and kidney
  donations, October 1980. The programme cast doubt
  on the certainty of death of allegedly dead
  patients when their kidneys were removed.

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Three questions

• 1) Were the claims true/ well supported?
• 2) Was it a good account of brain death and
  kidney removal?
• 3) Was the action of broadcasting the report
  right?
• Should the BBC have given such an account? is
  a question about action judgement, not about
  account judgement.
• This question requires a moral judgement.
  Neither questions 1) nor 2) do.
• The same applies to choosing selecting
  questions, and picking the ways of
  presentation. (p.107)

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• D. Sen on ACTIONS
• The problem here isnt fearing that scientific
  action might be value-loaded, but fearing that it
  might not. Value-loading here is not so much a
  right as a duty. An action by a person that is
  contrary to his or her values remains pernicious
  in terms of his or her own values, even if it
  happens to be related to science.
• Actions related to science are like all other
  actions, calling for evaluation, assessment, and
  scrutiny.
• See also P. Kitcher on Truth, Democracy,

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III. Is value-free social science possible?

• Why might many central social science claims fail
  to describe positive facts?
• Because-
• the social facts we want to study (e.g. human
  development, unemployment) can in many cases only
  be identified with (or measured by) a set of
  positive facts given a value judgement.

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• Some examples
• The United Nations Human Development Index
  The HDI is an equal weighting of life
  expectancy, literacy, level of education with a
  specific choice of how to measure each of these
  in turn. There is a sense in which a countrys
  having a certain value for the HDI is a positive
  fact. BUT, there is a sense in which it is not.
  Why? The choice of measurement procedure
  reflects a view about what constitutes human
  development. E.g. no indicators of political
  freedom are included (and historically, we know
  this is for political reasons).
• Unemployment
• What lies behind the rules for how to measure it?
  E.g. Are women who look after the family
  unemployed? Maybe maybe not. But not children.
• We have a view about who should be working, e.g.
  single mothers

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• B. Because-
• Models and methods may presuppose/imply value
  assumptions without note.
• Some examples
• In standard search and matching models of
  unemployment individual welfare is measured only
  by income. They do not add in the values of
  self-esteem or social inclusion, which would lead
  to different results.

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• Often we assume that social welfare is some
  aggregation a representative agent. But
  consider in a discussion of employment models,
  A. Atkinson shows that the not uncommon
  efficiency criterion used in those models does
  not allow for distribution values the social
  value of income is indifferent in those models to
  distributional effects. This is clearly opposite
  to the criterion of John Rawls social value has
  to do with improving the position of the least
  well off without harming anyone else. So the
  identification of social welfare with aggregated
  individual welfare presupposes a value
  commitment(and this value commitment is seldom
  noted in macro texts.)

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• C. Solution?
• Use Sens distinction Various measure are
  objective- the methods establishing the values
  they take do not require value judgements. But
  using the measures in particular ways is an
  action and hence subject to moral scrutiny.
  Perhaps even just calling concepts by certain
  names is subject to moral scrutiny.
• Logically if you show something is true of a
  concept defined in a certain way, you mustnt
  illicitly carry the results over to a different
  concept with the same name.

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IV. Detailed Example

• A. A.B. Atkinson-
• The Welfare Basis of Macroeconomics (lecture,
  BAAS, 2000)
• Golden Rule invest till the (steady state)
  rate of return (r) rate of growth (n)
• Policy advice. How established? Via a theoretical
  model.
• The standard models begin with an individual
  welfare function
• ?(1ß)-t U(ct)
• Where ß is discount rate for utility of future
  times and U is utility. (This is a simple version
  of a standardl formula, used by Chicago School
  economists like R. Lucas.)

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• 2. Justification for using a positive ß (by
  Armartya Sen) We may reasonably think the
  existence of future generations is uncertain
  nuclear war for example.
• 3. BUT (points out Atkinson) if you think that it
  is 40 probable we dont survive into the next
  century this gives ß .5 an order of magnitude
  smaller than Lucass (1ß) 1/0. 95.
• 4. Consider other models.
• Overlapping generations (1r) (1n)(1ß)
  Modified Golden Rule

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• 4. Consider other models.
• Overlapping generations (1r) (1n)(1ß)
  Modified Golden Rule
• Our model adds a representative utility for
  each time. A classic utilitarian will be
  concerned with total utility
• ?(1ß)-t(1n)tU(ct). This implies (1r)(1ß).
• Bottom line We can go from rn to rnß to rß
  depending on discounting and how we deal with
  agents.

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• B. Conclucion
• Often told someone else picks the ends. Positive
  social science shows the means to those ends. Our
  example shows how hard this is We pick a general
  end, say, a savings rate that leads to steady
  state equilibrium. We look to the models of
  economics to tell us what rate achieves this end.
  BUT (as we have seen) there are generally a lot
  more value choices to be made in the internal
  structure of the model.
• It is only when ALL these value choices appear
  out front e.g. if you want steady state
  equilibrium where future generations are treated
  differently from current at exactly a discount
  rate ß and where you maximise not total utility
  but the sum of representative utilities, etc.,
  then set r -- that you get value-free accounts
  of the means. And it is not at all clear that can
  be done.

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STUDY QUESTIONS

• Provide an example of a standard social science
  concept that you think is value free and an
  example of one you think is not.
• Provide an example where the use of a concept may
  be open to praise or blame though the concept
  itself is relatively value free.
• Explain and illustrate Sens distinction between
  the objectivity of claims and
• The goodness of accounts
• The goodness of actions