Abstract
Qualitative researchers sometimes talk about objectivity in relation to qualitative data sets. In this paper, I defend a reconstructed notion of objective qualitative data sets that may serve as a useful and reachable guiding ideal in qualitative data generation. In the first part of the paper, I develop the ideal. According to it, a qualitative data set is objective to the extent that it, in conjunction with true assumptions, possesses a combination of good-making features (epistemic values, epistemic virtues) in virtue of which the data set is suited to serve as evidence base for a satisfying answer to the research question under study. In the second part of the paper, I examine and reject two possible lines of objection to this ideal: One is that it picks out the wrong good-making features. The other is that the very focus on good-making features is misguided: the objectivity of a qualitative data set should instead be seen as a matter of how it was generated or evaluated.
Highlights
Qualitative researchers sometimes talk about objectivity in relation to qualitative data sets
It is only a small step to continue by maintaining that a qualitative data set is objective to the extent that it realizes a combination of epistemic values, virtues, etc
In light of these considerations, a more elaborate formulation of the ideal of an objective qualitative data set may be set forth: a qualitative data set is objective to the extent that it, in conjunction with true assumptions, has a combination of features including descriptive adequacy, reactivity transparency, deception transparency, relevance, balance, and sufficiency in virtue of which the data set is suited to serve as evidence base for a satisfying answer to the research question under study
Summary
Qualitative researchers sometimes talk about objectivity in relation to qualitative data sets. In order to develop an account of objective qualitative data sets, I draw on the current, very lively, philosophical debate on objectivity. This debate has paid little attention to questions of objectivity pertaining to qualitative research and the social sciences more generally. In view of this situation, my ideal of an objective qualitative data set does not take off from any existing accounts to this effect. My ideal takes over the basic idea informing the notion of objective knowledge claims and develops it into an account of objective qualitative data sets.
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