Some Facts About Values

Abstract

Leading articles in both the current issue of APSR (Winter 1969–70) and of PS (Fall 1969) attack an identical quotation from my chapter in “The Public and the Polity” in Contemporary Political Science. In reply to Professor Sheldon Wolin's article in APSR, I wrote a short reply for he clearly misinterpreted the quotation in an otherwise serious article. Professor Surkin's piece, “Sense and Non-sense in Politics” in PS frustrates all my attempts at a short reply, for the issue is not the text of a particular quotation that has become a minor cause célebre, but rather the central thesis of his article that is in error. His is an error that has become sufficiently widely diffused these days that it needs a serious reply.The issue is the role of value judgments in political science. The common error is the assertion that modern political science has been non-normative and value-free, or at least has aimed at being so. The statement is usually made in criticism of so-called behavioral political science and in favor of a supposed post-behavioral revolution, which is alleged to be seeking a new concern for relevance. Professor Surkin's article is a particular variant on that theme. He states that his purpose is to show that a particular social science methodology, namely, “claimed objectivity and value neutrality” leads to a “non-objective role for social science knowledge in the service of the dominant institutions in American society”. Here is an important set of allegations.