Sayer, Richard Andrew (2017) Values within reason. Canadian Review of Sociology, 54 (4). pp. 468-475. ISSN 1755-6171
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Abstract
The paper questions the assumptions that facts and values are always radically different, that objectivity and values do not mix, and that values are subjective and a-rational and should be excluded from social science. It argues (1) that such assumptions are underpinned by unnoticed slippages between different meanings of objectivity and by misunderstandings of the nature of values and normativity; (2) that evaluative judgements—often in the form of “thick ethical concepts” in which description and evaluation are fused—are necessary for objective description in social science; and (3) that framing the values issue in terms of the relations between is and ought misrepresents the place of normativity in social science and in everyday life.