From: Mark Walker (mark@permanentend.org)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 11:13:00 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hanson" <rhanson@gmu.edu>
> Let me suggest the main problem is that people don't realize that there
really
> are such things as social sciences, which can be just as "scientific" as
other
> "sciences", but are far less deferred to. The public can read that a
> physicist says some weird thing or another and the usual reaction is "how
> fascinating, I didn't know that", even if they have little idea what it
means,
> but if a social scientist says some well established thing that goes
against
> popular wishes, such as that a minimum wage raises unemployment, the
reaction
> will be a quick dismissal. Alas, one of the myths of democracy is that
there
> should be no social experts, so that every thought that occurs to anyone
on
> social issues is as valid as anything any "expert" says. It's just not
so.
>
I'm not sure about this characterization of democracy versus the social
science. I think there are plausible historical studies (e.g., Weber or
Macintyre (most notably in _After Virtue__) that describe the rise of the
social sciences and the social expert. Their narratives describe the rise of
such experts in terms of their ability to tell us the most efficient way to
achieve some social end. The ends themselves are not open to scientific
scrutiny, since ends involve values, and values lack "factual content" they
are grounded merely in the assertion of our wills. They hey day of this
conception was in the earlier part of the twentieth century. I'll grant you
that this conception has come under attack by what--for a lack of a better
term--are certain postmodern conceptions of the social science. One PM claim
is that the idea of social scientists being able to tell us in some purely
scientific way the most efficient means to achieve some value is an
illusion, that the idea of social experts managing the "means" aspect of
social organization is an illusion ( a mask to hide their wills). This view
then might agree with your claim that the social scientist is not to be
listened to when they say something like a minimum wage increases
unemployment. Those that hold that social scientist can only inform us about
means or"facts" might say that perhaps it is true that a minimum wage
increases unemployment but this does not show whether the fact that a
minimum wage increases unemployment is a good or a bad thing. (Perhaps the
view is that some forms of employment are less valuable than unemployment).
This view of social science as a manager of "means" only has also come under
attack from the other more traditional quarter (cf. MacIntyre) which says
that there are social experts but their expertise covers both means and
ends, facts and values. (MacIntyre defends this idea by claiming in part
that all moral theory presupposes some social theory, and all social theory
presupposes some moral view).
Mark
Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214 Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org
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