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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
1 Brecht, Arnold, Political Theory: The Foundations of Twentieth Century Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 117. Author's emphasisCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Michael Polanyi points out, moreover, that the conclusions (in the form of rules of procedure) derived in the methodological argument are inevitably ambiguous. “All formal rules of scientific procedure must prove ambiguous, for they will be interpreted quite differently, according to the particular conceptions about the nature of things by which the scientist is guided. And his chances for reaching true and important conclusions will depend decisively on the correctness and penetration of these conceptions” (Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy [New York: Harper & Row, 1964], 167)Google Scholar.
3 I am not concerned here with nonphilosophic or nonscientific influences, of a psychological variety, which may lead some or many to be receptive to the relativist thesis unwittingly. The seeming congeniality of that thesis, for example, to an easygoing democratic temper which inclines to egalitarianism and permissiveness, is no doubt an important part of the explanation of its recent popularity among those who make no special claims of expertise in dealing with it. I am rather concerned here only with the reasons which apparently support the scientific belief in the relativist thesis, not with causes which are not also reasons. It should be noted that where a reasoned connection between the relativist thesis and democracy has been argued in the recent literature, it has contrarily sought to justify democracy on the basis of the relativist thesis (however self-contradicting) rather than vice versa. See for example, Berelson, Bernard R., “Democratic Theory and Public Opinion,” Public Opinion Quarterly 16 (1952), 313–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Brecht, Political Theory, 125.
5 See, for example, Frankena, William K., “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind 48(1939), 464–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frankena, W. K., “Moral Philosophy at Mid-Century,” Philosophical Review 60 (1951), 44–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Margolis, Joseph, “On Value Theory, By Way of the Commonplace,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17 (1957), 504–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Edel, Abraham, “Social Science and Value: A Study in Interrelations,” in Horowitz, I. L. (ed), The New Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 218–38Google Scholar; Frankena, W. K., “OnSayingthe Ethical Thing,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 39 (1965–1966), 21–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baier, Kurt, “The Concept of Value,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 1 (1967–1968), 1–11Google Scholar; Arnold Berleant, “The Experience and Judgment of Values,” ibid., 24–37.
6 Easton, David, The Political System: An Enquiry into the State of Political Science (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1953), 221Google Scholar.
7 Brecht, Political Theory, chap. X.
8 To say that it is a questionable guide is not to say that it is necessarily a poor guide in all matters at all times. If ordinary men were simply fools they would be unable to live as well as they do. But there are some things which only a very few men and perhaps no men at any given time fully understand and therefore correctly value; and there are of course times when common opinion is wrong about even more simple things. Truth, including true value, cannot be determined simply by common agreement, although such common agreement is itself a weighty piece of evidence which must be taken into account in the search for truth.
It would, however, be naive to expect common opinion to provide a very complete or precise articulation of the most profound matters. As Leo Strauss has pointed out: “[t]he variety of notions of justice could be said to refute the contention that there is natural right, if the existence of natural right required actual consent of all men in regard to the principles of right. But we learn from Socrates, or from Plato, that what is required is not more than potential consent. Plato, as it were, says: “Take any opinion about right, however fantastic or ‘primitive,’ that you please; you can be certain prior to having investigated it that it points beyond itself, that the people who cherish the opinion in question contradict that very opinion somehow and thus are forced to go beyond it in the direction of the one true view of justice, provided that a philosopher arises among them” (Natural Right and History [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953], 125)Google Scholar.
9 E. M. Adams has suggested that an examination of languages reveals testimony of a universal human experience of value as natural when one looks behind the surface differences of interpretation and expression of that experience: “It would seem that whenever language has developed to any considerable extent—and this embraces all natural human languages—it contains ethical components. Our use of ethical language seems to commit us to there being values in the world in a way that is not recognized or shown in our modern scientific linguistic framework” (Ethical Naturalism and the Modern World-View [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960], 35)Google Scholar.
10 See, for example, Kluckhohn, Clyde, “Ethical Relativity: Sic et Non,” The Journal of Philosophy 52 (1955), 663–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacBeath, A., Experiments in Living (London: Macmillan, 1952)Google Scholar; Firth, Raymond, “The Study of Values by Anthropologists” (The Marrett Lecture, 1953), Man 53 (1953), 146–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedrich, Carl J., “Some Thoughts on the Relation of Political Theory to Anthropology,” American Political Science Review 62 (1968), 536–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 See, for example, Maslow, Abraham, Motivation and Personality (2nd ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1970)Google Scholar, especially chaps. 2 and 3; Kohler, Wolfgang, The Place of Value in a World of Facts (New York: Meridian, 1959)Google Scholar; Peters, R. S., The Concept of Motivation (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960)Google Scholar; Taylor, Charles, The Explanation of Behaviour (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)Google Scholar.
12 Etzioni, Amitai, “Basic Needs, Alienation and Inauthenticity,” American Sociological Review 33 (1968), 878CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
13 Jaffa, Harry V., Equality and Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar, 204f. Author's emphasis. It is of course possible to question the implied proposition that anything that promotes human happiness is good—and many have done so. But the point is that such universal human testimony is in itself a massive and impressive piece of evidence on the point. As Charles Taylor has pointed out, no additional initial justification of the proposition is necessary, for “that something conduces to human happiness is already an adequate ground for judging it good—adequate, that is, in the absence of countervailing considerations” (“Neutrality in Political Science,” in Lasslett, and Runciman, [eds.], Philosophy, Politics and Society [Oxford: Blackwell, 1967], 52–55)Google Scholar. That is to say that the burden of proof must be borne by those who would deny the goodness of that which is conducive to human happiness and thereby deny the appropriateness of allowing ourselves to be guided by the natural impulse described by Aristotle. Upon careful consideration any preferred “countervailing considerations” in any particular case may or may not be found to be sufficiently persuasive to warrant the attempt to suppress or circumvent the natural impulse; but it must surely appear unreasonable for anyone to oppose that natural impulse in the absence of any such compelling reasons. Accordingly, the characterization of political behaviour which is consistent with that proposition as in any sense arbitrary or irrational is unjustified in the absence of compelling “countervailing considerations.”
14 Aristotle, Politics, 1252a-1253b.
15 Compare this simplistic line of argument with the rich complexity of the underlying issues as revealed in Joseph Cropsey's brief but eloquent sketch of these contrasting views of nature (“Political Life and a Natural Order,” Journal of Politics 23 [1961], 46–56)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Note that this line of thought refers primarily to an informal, somewhat vaguely perceived general implication of the evolutionary account of human origins, not to the more explicit and systematic attempts of some contemporary social scientists (and biologists) to explore the implications of that account for questions of human value. Among the latter, a small minority of social scientists, some have similarly viewed the evolutionary account as a confirmation of the relativist thesis. (See, for example, Schubert, Glendon, “Biopolitical Behavior: The Nature of the Political Animal,” Polity 6 [1973], 240–75.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar But others have ostensibly found authoritative standards of human choice established somehow by the evolutionary process itself. That is to say that the latter have ostensibly perceived a more or less steady progression as a central feature of human history and pre-history and have sought to explain it by reference to some element in what is usually viewed as an essentially mechanical process of change. (See, for example, Phillips, Claude S. Jr., “The Revival of Cultural Evolution in Social Science Theory,” The Journal of Developing Areas 5 [1971], 337–70)Google Scholar. A full discussion of the many interesting problems raised in and by this literature is not possible here.
17 Nevertheless, unsupported statements like the following are frequently encountered: “In the century since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, scientific evidence drawn from a number of different disciplines has overwhelmingly confirmed the theory of evolution” (Corning, Peter A., “The Biological Bases of Behavior and Some Implications for Political Science,” World Politics 23 [1971], 326)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Such instances of dogmatism or excessive enthusiasm are unfortunately far more frequent than the romantic vision of science admits. Works on the history of scientific theories provide a wealth of examples. A fairly typical example is provided by Floyd W. Matson's account of Lord Kelvin's insistence that “nothing was so certain in physics as the reality of the luminiferous ether,” even after Maxwell had demonstrated the untenable character of that construct (The Broken Image [Garden City: Doubleday, 1966], 118ff)Google Scholar.
18 Michael Polanyi, the distinguished natural scientist and philosopher, states that “Neo-Darwinism is firmly accredited and highly regarded by science, though there is little direct evidence for it, because it beautifully fits into a mechanistic system of the universe and bears on a subject—the origin of man—which is of the utmost intrinsic interest” (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 136). And Teilhard de Chardin also testifies to its special, comprehensive character: “Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more—it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow. This is what evolution is” (cited by Dobzhansky, Theodosius, “Two Contrasting World Views,” in Lewis, John [ed.], Beyond Chance and Necessity [London: Garthstone Press, 1974], 131ff). It is, as Dobzhansky indicates, a comprehensive world-view; and such fundamental perspectives are not simply proven or disproven by modern scienceGoogle Scholar.
19 Dobzhansky, “Two Contrasting World Views,” 139.
20 Himmelfarb, Gertrude, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (London: Chatto and Windus, 1959), 270. Her quotations are from Julian Huxley, Evolution as a Process, 5. Huxley is no doubt the most eminent champion of the evolutionary theory in recent timesGoogle Scholar.
21 See, for a general account of some of these: Himmelfarb, Darwin; Matson, The Broken Image, 20–29; Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955)Google Scholar.
22 See, for example, Herskovits, Melville J., Man and His Works (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1956), chap. 27Google Scholar.
23 As the eminent natural scientist, J. W. N. Sullivan, put it: “It is still possible to hold, of course, that a Mind, a Designer, is controlling the course of evolution, but the means employed seem to be purely mechanical. Inheritable variations occur quite independently of any purpose or striving on the part of the organism. It is in this sense that variations are said to occur ‘at random.’ It may be, nevertheless, that a detailed study of the way variations come about will reveal ‘purpose,’ although this purpose is not expressible in terms of the personal ambitions of the organism” (The Limitations of Science [New York: Mentor Books, 1949], 87ff)Google Scholar.
24 For example, George Gaylord Simpson, presenting the general perspective said to be shared by most evolutionary biologists, notes: “It is also clear that significant increase in average human intelligence stopped long ago—tens of thousands of years, at least—and although not clear it is at least possible that an opposite trend is setting in” (“Naturalistic Ethics and the Social Sciences,” The American Psychologist 21 [1966], 34Google Scholar). That is to say that there is an inverse relationship between the amount and directness of the evidence and the presence of definite evolutionary change. Or, in other words, there is a greater amount of direct evidence of the unchanging nature of man than of his changing nature.
In what has been termed “the new synthesis,” it has been argued by recent and contemporary evolutionists that the course of human history reveals the existence of a pattern of cultural development which must be viewed as an extension of the process of biological evolution on another level. Thus, “cultural evolution” is viewed as the further elaboration of the consequences of biological evolution from the point at which its most recent product (man) develops the capacity to direct his own behaviour. However, this “synthesis” is not without its own difficulties; for what may be claimed for a purely mechanical process (genetic evolution) cannot apply in the same way to machines which possess some autonomy and are therefore not simply machines. And in any case a cultural change is not a change in human nature per se.
25 Strauss, Leo, “An Epilogue,” in Storing, H. J. (ed.), Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), 315. Michael Polanyi explains this necessity as follows: “The logical premises of factuality are not known to us or believed by us before we start establishing facts, but are recognized on the contrary by reflecting on the way we establish facts. Our acceptance of facts which make sense of the clues offered by experience to our eyes and ears must be presupposed first, and the premises underlying this process of making sense must be deduced from this afterwards. Since the process of discovering the logical antecedent from an analysis of its logical derivate cannot fail to introduce a measure of uncertainty, the knowledge of this antecedent will always be less certain than that of its consequent. We do not believe in the existence of facts because of our anterior and securer belief in any explicit logical presuppositions of such a belief; but on the contrary, we believe in certain explicit presuppositions of factuality only because we have discovered that they are implied in our belief in the existence of facts” (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 162; author's emphasis)Google Scholar.
26 Brecht, Political Theory, 124–30. Emphasis added.
27 Ibid., 55.
28 Ibid., 131ff. Author's emphasis.
29 Ibid., 132. Consider the contrasting account given by Sullivan: “Now we may admit that universal agreement may be obtained about such things as the number of objects in a collection or coincidences in space without therefore concluding that science is potentially capable of securing universal assent. For science consists of a great deal more than such elementary judgments. The chief thing about science is its theories, and it is surely obvious that not all men are capable of assenting to its theories.… But even if we abandon the criterion of universal assent, and grant votes only to those capable of forming a judgment, we still do not get unanimity. It is notorious that theories that have been found convincing by some scientific men have been found unconvincing by others.… In view of these facts it is obviously misleading to present science as differing fundamentally from the arts by its ‘impersonal character.’ There is no absolute difference here, but only a difference of degree” (Sullivan, The Limitations of Science, 170ff.).
30 He is justified that is, assuming for the moment that there are or can be propositions simply corresponding to such a clear-cut distinction. The oversimplified character of that distinction has been pointed out with increasing frequency in the last few years. See, for example, Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar, chap. II; Diamond, Martin, “The Dependence of Fact upon ‘Valuersquo;,” Interpretation 2 (1972, 226–35Google Scholar; Northrop, F. S. C., “Cultural Values,” in Kroeber, A. L. (ed.), Anthropology Today (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 668–81Google Scholar; and Taylor, “Neutrality in Political Science,” 25–57.
31 Thus, not only the opinions of those who apparently lack proper scientific training are dismissed as negligible; within the community of those who possess the basic marks of scientific competence, gradations are implicitly recognized and all opinions are not counted as equal. This is of great importance to the extent that scientific theory outruns the accumulated empirical evidence—and in a broad sense this is the rule rather than the exception within every scientific discipline. Therefore, not even modern science, with its heavy emphasis on replication and agreement, can insist upon a complete consensus among the members of the scientific community.
32 Cropsey, Joseph, “Reply to Rothman,” American Political Science Review 56 (1962), 355CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Thomas S. Kuhn has rather persuasively shown that modern science has exhibited from its very beginnings a propensity to prejudge the most abstruse and difficult questions. He concludes: “Effective research scarcely begins before a scientific community thinks it has acquired firm answers to questions like the following: What are the fundamental entities of which the universe is composed? How do these interact with each other and with the senses? What questions may legitimately be asked about such entities and what techniques employed in seeking solutions?” (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962], 4ff.). Since his most impressive and extensive evidence for these conclusions comes from the modern period—that is, with the advent of Bacon, Descartes, et al.—one may reasonably doubt his broader generalizations without denying his account of the frailties of modern science. It is less clearly established that it has always been so and that it must always be soGoogle Scholar.
34 For example, Hans Reichenbach reflects such a view when he says: “The comparison between the old and the new philosophy is a matter for the historian and will be of interest to all those who were brought up on the old philosophy and wish to understand the new one. Those who work in the new philosophy do not look back; their work would not profit from historical considerations” (The Rise of Scientific Philosophy [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964], 325). That is to say that it is unnecessary to give any serious consideration to alternative perspectives, presuppositions, etcGoogle Scholar.
35 Kuhn has given at least a partial explanation of this. He points out that “science students accept theories on the authority of teacher and text, not because of evidence. What alternatives have they, or what competence? The applications given in texts are not there as evidence but because learning them is part of learning the paradigm at the base of current practice. If applications were set forth as evidence, then the very failure of texts to suggest alternative interpretations or to discuss problems for which scientists have failed to produce paradigm solutions would convict their authors of extreme bias. There is not the slightest reason for such an indictment” (Kuhn, Structure, 80ff.). Stated in such absolute terms, Kuhn's criticism appears somewhat exaggerated. There are after all some students who manage to rise above abject conformism to some appreciable degree. But the criticism is surely a generally valid one as applied to the prevailing general theories.
36 Compare, for example, David Easton's original treatment of the problemof a “premature” attempt to develop an “applied science” of politics, in the first edition of The Political System in 1953, with his later treatment of this issue as expressed in his Presidential Address to the American Political Science Association in New York in 1969 and in the “Epilogue” to the second edition of The Political System in 1971.
37 I am indebted to my friend and former colleague, Richard G. Stevens, for pointing out this logical culmination, the signs of which have already begun to appear.
38 Their repute is apparently worse than that of policemen, since not all citizens liken policemen to pigs; and even those who do so obviously take the lowness of the pig for granted. Moreover, I have never heard of anyone attempting to insult a pig by calling it a policeman.
39 Plato, , Meno, The Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1967), 323Google Scholar.